i love fermented foods!!

i have taken a long break from them because after eating sauerkraut/pickles/umeboshi/kim chi/pickled garlic or some other fermented foods almost daily my doctor said the high concentration of salt was dehydrating me & may have contributed to my chronic migraines (which are mostly menstrual, but i certainly don’t want to tempt the fates by not taking proper care of myself no matter what time of the month it is). i haven’t had kim chi since then, & that’s probably the saddest thing (a bagel with a little earth balance spread & kim chi is the most delicious thing in the world, fyi).

tonight, though, i had this extra beet sitting around & i just could not think of what to do with it. i’ve already made frozen beet cubes for smoothies (1-2 beets in the blender with a ton of water, frozen in ice cube trays & saved long-term in a freezer bag along with my kale cubes — this is my favorite way to sneak veggies into my smoothies! carrot cubes next probably). i’ve already used them in lots of different recipes in cooking. i have yet to bake with them. i have yet to make borscht this winter, i’m really overdue…but i only had one beet left!

so i took one of my old empty jam jars, i peeled & grated my raw beet. i used the smallest, finest option on my grater because i decided to make a savory, fermented spread for sandwiches. once i had it all grated up i put it into the jar & added all the fixin’s. i eyeballed it & did a lot of taste testing, but i will give you approximate measurements:

1-2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

2 tbsp salt

1-2 pinches of crushed red pepper

1 tbsp finely chopped garlic

1 tsp black pepper

then i filled the remainder of the jar with water, put the cap on & found a nice place out of direct light to let it ferment in. someday i will have a cupboard in my house just for fermenting foods, but right now it’s just sitting next to my mugs & tea. it tastes pretty good already — we’ll see how it tastes in a week or two :p