Lazy Homemade Fermented Beverages: Ginger Ale, Tea, and Hybiscus . . .

After trying and wildly modifying a terrible recipe for ginger ale that was a ton of work and, randomly, salty (my kids wouldn't drink the first batch), I hit upon a super easy and delicious recipe. Based on my experience with kefir, which grows on the counter while I do nothing but add milk, I thought I could probably do something similar with a ginger ale recipe.

So I added one lime and about a half cup of sugar and some cut up ginger to the jar and filled it with water along with a teaspoon of whey (which I have on hand, the clear part of the kefir that separates from the curds when making kefir). And I knew from experience that the slightly milky coating on the bottom of the jar was full of yeast and bacteria. And so after I finished drinking my first batch of ginger ale, instead of throwing everything out and starting again as I the recipe I looked at suggested, I left the last half inch of liquid on the bottom and kept the same ginger pieces in the jar. Then I added sugar, lemon, and water and left it on the counter overnight. It worked! A little fizzy, sweet, slightly tart, and refreshing!

I passed on my idea with a little whey to a friend at work, and she started making it and drinking it every day. She wanted to know why I haven't tried any variations yet. I was surprised at that, because why would you vary perfect? But that got me thinking and today I started two new batches. One is dried hibiscus leaves with honey and a teaspoon of whey. The other is green tea bags with honey and whey (this one already smells amazing). The key for my method is to leave something in the jar at the end. So I'll leave the hibiscus in the bottom. And I'll probably end up rinsing the tea bags off really well back into the jar before I replace them, maybe every second or third time I make it?

The beauty of this kind of lazy fermenting is that you get the health benefits of the healthy yeasts and bacteria, a drink that is honestly much better-tasting than soda, and the work of only filling a bottle with water and adding some water (and sometimes lemon) and sugar (or honey). Love it!!

I thought I'd pass it on in case anyone wanted to try it!

True confession: I measure nothing, so all above measurements are guesses.

A Letter To The Third Culture Kids...

What Goes Past My House

A man selling avocados ("Aaaaaaguacateeee!!")

A man selling long brushes for cleaning the ceiling

A pack of horses

A man selling eggs

Motorcycles

A man collecting plastic bottles to recycle

Jehovah's witnesses (every Saturday)

Rushing water after a rain storm

The fresh produce truck with loudspeakers

Boys on bikes

Dogs

Roosters and chickens

Trash truck (on a random schedule)

Cars with loud speakers

People begging

The men collecting money for security

A man trying to sell his watermelon

Church folks collecting birthdates and info for the local catholic church

The pack of loud-talking early morning walkers

A pair of armed security guards on a moto

Florida Christmas

 Thanks to the generosity of some stellar grandparents, the Davis family spent Christmas in Orlando.

We saw Kennedy Space Center.

Golfed. 

Magic Kingdomed.

 Met Jack Sparrow. 

 Hugged a princess.

Pretended to see Europe.

Pretended to see Morocco.

 Brexited.

Overposed.

Posed some more.

 Read with Meme.

Got attacked by Storm Troopers.

Posed again, then found a Starbucks and ate our carrots.

 Then we were Jedis . . .

It was a great trip, and I'm only a month and a half late in the telling.  But you know, better late than never, right?

Passionfruit

Thanks to a good friend, I have a chinola (aka passionfruit) growing out back.  We developed a complex collection system with a container, a string, a stick, and three people.  They are great for juice or to eat cut in half with a spoon and drizzled with honey.

Pumpkin Time!

I was impressed.  I actually found this pumpkin for $10, which I'm guessing is just what it would have cost in the states.  I'm also very proud of how much of the insides we were able to scrape out to use for making pie or cobbler (which is why it's kind of see-through).  Each kid designed a zone of the face: Micah eyes, Abigail nose, and Jesse mouth.

Tooth Out!

Abigail lost her first tooth!  It wasn't exactly a "natural" occurance--more like one knock too many to the same front tooth, this time from wrestling her brother--but anyway, it is lost!  And a dollar is earned!

Family Walk

A great family walk, mildly affected by a temporary downpour.

Kids perching up on our gate like always

And then I was 40 . . .

Hermit Crab Owners

When Abigail picked up a bug at the beach and petted it for two hours, I finally felt sufficient guilt to explore some sort of pet for her.  Since anything that poops or has hair is out (because we don't want to deal with them and because we leave for five weeks at a time in summer), and fish are very difficult to pet, and snakes are just not overly appealing, and turtles carry salmonella . . . there wasn't a lot to go on.  But I finally hit on the idea of hermit crabs.  And we are all in.  

We meant to pick up three on the beach but couldn't stop ourselves, so we have five.

We tried the wire cage but had multiple escapes and a few got stuck, so we're using an aquarium.

I wasn't sure if Abigail would be brave enough to hold them, but she carries them all over the house a lot of the day.  She was shocked at the actual work of cleaning water bowls and changing food and whatnot (I spent a whopping six to eight hours getting everything set up in the last few days and making water drinkable and buying special salt and getting a lid made to fit the cage and cleaning and prepping TWO cages--this is a time-consuming pet so far).  But it makes no noise and doesn't shed and doesn't go outside to use the bathroom, so we're doing pretty well all things considered.  Her brothers like them, too.

She named them Buttercup, Johnny, Mountain-Climber, Big Guy, and Hermie.  Interestingly, they've almost all changed their shells already--one did twice the first day.  It makes it hard to tell them apart.  Because the shells change daily for some!

I must say, in defense of the hermit crab as a pet, that they eat whatever we eat (specifically what we-my-healthy-food-family eat--the web page I saw said they eat like your mom and doctor would want you to eat); they can be held as much as you want; they are very portable (I can move their whole house and temporarily put them in a tupperware if I need to); they are free (if you live near tropical beaches); they are low maintenance (as long as you live in hot, humid climates) unless they are molting (when I think they could possibly attack each other? more on that later); and they are not big poopers.  Maybe not so cute and cuddly as some pets, but we are very satisfied customers!

Hummingbird Nest

Hummingbird nest in front of our porch.  We'll see if anything comes of it--the opening is actually underneath, so I can't imagine how it would hold eggs.  Maybe a wind storm tipped it over?  It was built while we were gone.

Summer Pictures

I thought I'd put some summer photos of the kids on my blog (a few of my readers let me know it has been too long)!  Here are just a few of the highlights from our trip to the U.S.

Abigail's Birthday:

Hiking Trip:

Polo game:

 NYC Trip

Right before our fountain shot, which Owen says is the fountain from "Elf" (favorite Christmas movie), we had to wait in a big crowd while they filmed a fake shooting.  It was a little bizarre, especially explaining what was going on to Abigail.  "Well, they're making a grown-up movie and someone's going to get shot in the movie and the police are going to come, but it's all pretend, they're not really shooting anyone. . . No, there's no bullets.  Yeah, not a movie we'd let you see, don't know which one.  Those people are acting, they're not scared, they're all pretending."

The Lion King:

Look!  The Davis family with Simba!!

Some of these pictures aren't so good; we had a cheap pre-pay phone for while we were there that didn't take the best pictures.

Hope your summer is going well!  We had fun and we're happy to be back home!