Turning over a new leaf...

Wombok party

This week we got our ferment back on in the kitchen when our bed of buxom womboks came into their own and practically begged to be picked and turned into delicious kimchi! Despite being sheltered by a layer of bird mesh the chooks managed to have a good nibble of the outer edges, so between them and the slugs we had quite a task cleaning up the aforementioned leafy greens. Once we did, though, this is what we did with em:

Freestyle Kimchi

Ingredients:

Wombok cabbage (organic)
Garlic
Ginger
Proper Korean chilli pepper flakes or paprika
Sesame seeds
Other nice accoutrements: grated carrot, sliced spring onion, radish etc.

soakin'

ta-da!

Method:
Soak cleaned wombok leaves in brine overnight. To make up brine use about 1 cup of salt to every 10 cups of water. Drain and rinse leaves and squeeze out the water and place in a large fermenting crock (if you don't have a crock a large glass jar will do). Add ginger, garlic, chilli flakes/paprika to taste and other accoutrements as you feel. Kimchi in Korea is delightfully seasonal, so take liberties and get experimental. Using the end of a rolling pin, pound cabbage and friends into the crock. As you do, water will leach out of the cabbage and start making a brine. Keep pounding for a few more minutes. The brine should now cover the cabbage leaves. If it doesn't, top up with brine premix (as for soaking) until the cabbage is covered. Leave your crock at room temperature for 2 days plus - the longer you leave it, the sourer it will get- then pack into sterilised jars (again ensuring the brine covers your leaves). Fridge it and enjoy!

Rumpty 'Doo' - Stage One

Hooray!

Today N & I decided to put the 'Doo' in Rumpty Doo for real and set off on the task of making our very own composting toilet! After reading an awesome zine entitled 'Composting Toilets & Radical Sustainability'* we have been converted to the cause of turning human waste into useful fertiliser. Granted, it is a subject that some people find icky, but compared to using potable drinking water to flush your crap into the ocean, it seems like no biggie to me. 

Test-run.

Add to that the fact that most fertiliser is pretty low in 'sustainable' credentials, whether it is made from oil or just trucked to you with it, and I'm pretty sure you'll be on the compostin' bandwagon soon!

We managed to source all the parts for our throne from our local junk yard, including an attractive pale pink toilet seat. Today we dug the foundations and got up a stick frame which we're going to clad in classic corrugated iron.
Stay tuned for the next instalment and see what we can do with just a wheelie bin, and some old bits of tin!


*Contact Theo at Doing it Ourselves if you'd like a copy.