Recipe: Pickled Celeriac

Ever since I first had celery root pickles at the restaurant Taberna de Haro, celeriac has become my new favorite pickle! I have made many batches of pickled celeriac since, as a cook at Taberna de Haro last year and at home.

-Pickled celery root and beets-

Pickling celeriac with beets gives it a nice purple color

Here I want to share with you my recipe to make celeriac refrigerator pickles, which was published in my town newspaper, the Lexington Minuteman, for the Lexington Farmers' Market. Celery root is in season right now, so it is the perfect time to make these pickles. There are a few more weeks left for the Lexington Farmers' Market for this season, or find celery root at another local farmers market near you.

Celery root

Celeriac to appear at the market

By Annabelle Ho

Published Thursday, September 12, 2013

Celeriac, also known as celery root, was one of my favorite vegetables to weed at the farm last summer, no joke. Celery root contains plenty of fiber, as well as vitamin B6, vitamin K, potassium, phosphorous, and more. Although celeriac may be unfamiliar, there are many ways to cook this versatile vegetable.  The leaves and stems of celeriac can be used just like celery.  Celeriac can be eaten raw and grated into salads, or fermented.  Celery root can also be cooked, such as in soup or roasted with other root vegetables. A celeriac puree is a great alternative to mashed potatoes. However, one of my favorite ways to prepare celeriac is to make celery root pickles. Celeriac is delicious pickled, although this pickling recipe can be used with other vegetables as well. Look for celeriac at the Lexington Farmers' Market to arrive fresh from the farms in a week or so. 

Celeriac Refrigerator Pickles

Ingredients:

1 medium celeriac (about 1 ¼ pounds)

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup sugar

1 cup distilled white vinegar

1 cup water

1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds

½ teaspoon whole allspice berries

2 bay leaves

2 whole cloves

Directions:

1. Cut off the bottom and top of the celeriac. Peel the celery root and cut into thick matchsticks.
2. Add all of the ingredients except for the celeriac in a pot. Bring the pickling brine to a boil.
3. Add the celeriac and simmer it briefly for about 1 minute, according to taste. Do not simmer the celery root for too long, as it should still have some crunch.
4. Take the pot off the heat and let cool to room temperature.
5. Pour the vegetables and brine into glass jars. Cover the jars and refrigerate them.
6. After 24 hours, eat and enjoy! The pickles can last for up to a few months in the fridge. 

Variations:

• Pickle celeriac with purple beets to give it a purple color.
• Use this pickling brine recipe with other vegetables, such as carrots, radishes, or turnips. Depending on which vegetables you use, how thin the vegetables are cut, and how crunchy you like your pickles, step 3 may be optional, and the raw vegetables can be added to the brine without being simmered.
• Switch up the spices in the mix. For example, dill, cinnamon, and star anise are all good candidates.

Annabelle Ho is a Lexington resident with a Bachelor of Science in nutritional science from Boston University. She maintains a blog at herbalmedicinebox.com, and is a work share volunteer at Waltham Fields Community Farm. Annabelle writes for the Lexington Farmers' Market, and has been a volunteer at the market for several years. The Lexington Farmers' Market is located at the corners of Massachusetts Avenue and Fletcher in the center of Lexington, and is open rain or shine every Tuesday through October.

Natural Body Care Demo

It's been a whirlwind of demonstrations lately! Two weeks ago I had a Kombucha Demo with The Urban Homesteaders' League, this past Sunday I did a Food Preservation and Fermentation workshop at Bountiful Brookline's annual Spring into Gardening event, and this coming Monday I will be teaching Natural Body Care demo with The Urban Homesteaders' League. All of this before an exciting two weeks doing Ann Wigmore's Living Foods Lifestyle Certificate Program in Puerto Rico: a comprehensive two weeks of learning about raw, living, and vegan foods! I am very much looking forward to beginning this program April 10, and I hope to write about some of my experiences here. But in the meantime, I am looking forward to my Natural Body Care demo this upcoming Monday as well, so here is the information about the demo below if you are interested in attending:

Natural Body Care

Date: Monday, April 4, 2011

Time: 6:30 - 8 pm

Location: Brookline, MA. Close to the Harvard Ave. stop on the B (green) MBTA line, or the Coolidge Corner stop on the C (green) line. Please RSVP to receive the address. RSVP details below.

Cost: Sliding Scale, $15-$30

Details:

Ever wanted to learn how to make your own body care products? Many commercial body care products may contain ingredients or chemicals linked to toxicities. Your skin is your body's largest organ. If you can't eat it, why put it on your skin?

Annabelle will demonstrate how to make homemade moisturizer creams, shampoos, lip balms, and more, all made with natural ingredients. She will discuss the ingredients used for these products, and how the recipes can be customized to suit individuals' needs.

RSVP: on the Urban Homeasteaders' League or by e-mailing me at info[at]herbalmedicinebox.com.

Hope to see you there!

Love Me Some No-Knead Bread

I love homemade bread, and I love making it. Ever since Slow Food BU did a Sourdough and No-Knead Bread Workshop with the Urban Homesteaders' League, I've been all about no-knead bread!

At the bread workshop, Lisa Gross of the Urban Homesteaders' League demonstrated her no-knead bread recipe.

The finished loaf

However, at home, I first tried Jim Lahey's no-knead bread introduced by Mark Bittman in the New York Times article The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work. This dough is so sticky and hard to handle, that it's basically impossible to knead. Making the bread simply requires mixing the ingredients (flour, yeast, salt, and water), letting the dough sit for 12-18 hours, shaping the dough and letting it rise for another 2 hours, and then popping the dough in the oven.


As if this method couldn't get any easier, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois later developed another no-knead bread method, Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. This recipe requires more yeast than the other method, resulting in a faster rising time. The ingredients (flour, yeast, salt, and water) are mixed to form a dough, let to sit for 2-5 hours, refrigerated at this point for storage or shaped and let to rise for another 40 minutes, and then put into the oven. One great thing about this bread is that the dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks, and every day, the flavor of the bread develops as more fermentation occurs. Whenever you want freshly baked bread, you can take a portion of the dough out of the refrigerator, shape it and let it rise for 90 minutes (instead of the 40 minutes required for room temperature dough), and then put it into the oven. Read this article for a recipe and more information on this no-knead bread method, read the New York Times Article Soon the Bread Will Be Making Itself, or check out the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.


These no-knead bread recipes don't require kneading because of the wetness of the dough- the high moisture content allows the gluten molecules to align faster and more easily than in drier bread doughs.

Making no-knead bread is extremely easy and results in delicious bread with great visual appeal, good structure, and a crunchy crust; and the variations and possibilities are endless!

I really enjoy making (and eating) homemade bread. Although I also enjoy kneading bread (or perhaps I enjoy this step because who knows if I'm doing it correctly), when I find myself very busy, the no-knead method is a happy medium. I also love what Satish Kumar said at last year's Future of Food Conference at BU: "If you don't have time to bake bread, you don't have time to live." (Read Satish Kumar's posts Reconnect with Tradition: Baking Bread as a Spiritual Act and Real Bread). So what are you waiting for? Go bake some bread!

Worm Update!

Welcome to my Worm Update, a follow-up to Vermicomposting, Part I!

Unfortunately, despite my best efforts to take care of my new little friends, they kept on trying to escape.


For days, I tried adjusting numerous factors including:

• The amount of food
• The amount of bedding
• The humidity
  

I even made an emergency run one night to get more newspaper to add to my bedding.

But no matter what I did, my adjustments somehow did not click, and my worms were everywhere.

Sadly, I wasn't able to figure out what I was doing wrong; and eventually, many of my worms reached the end of their days on my floor, while the remaining worms in the worm bin dried up from dehydration because I had decreased the moisture too much. (As I mentioned in my vermicomposting post, the bedding needs to start off moist because worms breathe through their skin).

At the time, I was really upset about my failed attempt at vermicomposting, especially because of my past gardening and farming experiences, and I have done outdoor composting in the past without a problem!

But I have accepted the fact that vermicomposting is not for me, at least for the time being. I would love to have a second try at vermicomposting. But, I have also come to the realization that, at the moment, my small apartment does not have the capacity to keep such a large vermicomposting bin.

So, I have donated my worm bin to the greenhouse of BU's wonderful Organic Gardening Collective (O.G.C.).


Luckily, Lisa Gross from The Urban Homesteaders' League also gave me some extra worms, and I was happy to drop them off at the greenhouse as well.

What a serious looking composter.

Although I am a bit disappointed to not vermicompost myself, I know that I can always vermicompost at the O.G.C., compost at my friends' outdoor composting bins, and compost at the Whole Foods on Prospect St. in Cambridge. In addition, next year I will be living in a house, and we plan to have an outdoor composting bin there. For those of you who have a backyard, outdoor composting bins are subsidized by many towns, such as in Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline!

Even though I will no longer be vermicomposting in my apartment, vermicomposting may still be for you! Often you can remedy the second time around what you did wrong the first time. And the third time is always a charm! Tip: the holes that you drill in your worm bin should be smaller than your worms so that they can't escape. (This should have been the case for me, but clearly something went wrong).

Ask Ryan, who taught The Urban Homesteaders' League's workshop on Vermicomposting, your indoor composting questions at compostboy[at]yahoo.com. Or if you purchase the book Worms Eat My Garbage, 100+ pages of vermicomposting knowledge will be yours.

More reasons to vermicompost - did you know that:
In 2008, Americans generated 250 million tons of trash. (source: EPA's 2008 MSW Facts and Figures). Of this,

• ~12.7 % is made of food scraps
• 800 thousands of tons of food scraps were recovered (or composted) in municipal solid waste
  
• 30,990 thousands of tons of food scraps were discarded in the municipal waste stream, and this number has been on the rise since 1960. (Source: EPA's MSW Data Tables 2008).
• Aka, ~97.5% of disposed food waste was sent to landfills in 2008

So if you haven't started yet, let's reduce our waste and compost!

Vermicomposting, Part I

A few weeks ago I had the chance to attend the Urban Homesteaders' League's Vermicomposting Extravaganza workshop with Ryan Gray. And last Saturday, I finally received my worms! Before the workshop I didn't realize how easy and simple vermicomposting actually is, and I am very excited to start!

Vermicomposting is a method using earthworms to turn food/organic waste into nutrient-rich compost. Vermicompost contains worm castings, bedding materials, and organic wastes at various stages of decomposition, and contains worms at various stages of development and other microorganisms associated with the composting process (2). Worm castings, or worm poop, is the end product formed after the earthworms break down organic materials. Worm castings contains many beneficial microbes and nutrients and is a very nutrient-rich plant fertilizer (2).
Vermicomposting is perfect for those living in urban areas. And if you are composting correctly, the compost bin shouldn't even smell at all!

What do you need to begin vermicomposting?

• A container with a lid
• Bedding material, such as shredded newspaper. Ink should be soy-based!
• Moisture (ex. water in a spray bottle)
• Redworms aka red wigglers or Eisenia fetida (Get them from a friend, or order them online, such as from WormWoman).

Shredding the newspaper

Photo courtesy of Lisa Gross

Directions

• Drill ventilation holes around the top sides of the bin and on the lid. (The worms need oxygen to breathe. And drill small holes so your worms don't escape!)

Drilling the ventilation holes
Photo courtesy of Lisa Gross

It's all about teamwork
Photo courtesy of Lisa Gross

• Completely FILL your bin with bedding, such as shredded newspaper. Ryan recommends to shred the newspaper thin, around ¼ to ½ inch thick.
• Worms breathe through their skin, so the bedding needs to be moist. Spray the newspaper so that it's "fluffy and damp," but not soaking. You don't want your worms to drown!

• Add the redworms and some food scraps to the bottom of your bin and let them get to work!
• Be careful about OVERFEEDING your worms. You want to avoid the odors of rotting food, and you want to give the worms enough room to move around as they get adjusted in their new home!
• Once your worms begin reproducing and become assimilated to their environment, you can begin feeding them more. Have excess food scraps? Refrigerate or freeze them for later!
• You can add more bedding if it gets low, and be cautious that the bin doesn't become too moist.
• Every few months, harvest your fertilizer! One easy way to do this is to put food scraps on one side of your bin to attract the majority of your worms (or you can also do this on the ground on top of some spread out newspaper/plastic). Once you've gathered /separated your compost and picked out any extra worms hiding inside, add some new bedding to your bin and you can begin the process all over again!

Sources: Ryan, myself, here, and here

A Word About Temperature:

• Redworms are happiest at ~60-75 degrees F, but they can survive at temperatures of 50-80 degrees F.

DO compost

• Raw vegetable products
• PLAIN, cooked vegetable products (no oil added, etc.)
• Eggshells (it's recommend to rinse them first)
• Cereals and oatmeal
• Coffee grounds
• Tea bags
• Beans
• Newspaper (with soy-based ink!)

DON'T compost

• Meat, chicken, dairy, or fish products
• Oily/greasy foods

BE CAUTIOUS with:

• Non-citrus fruits (they are completely compostable, but they may smell more and attract more flies)
• Citrus fruits- at a minimum, or just avoid them!
• Bread- at a minimum

Tip

• The smaller the food scraps/the larger the surface area of your food, the easier it will be for the worms to break it down! They "lick" rather than chew.

Some of Ryan's Recommended Sources:

• An indispensable book: Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof
• Worms as Recyclers
• Wormpoop.com
• Brochure: Here's the Dirt: Worm Composting
• Once you've got your bin going, join your fellow vermicomposters here!

-Fun fact: Worms eat over half their body weight in organic matter a day.

What to do with your food scraps that aren't good for your redworms, or what to do if you aren't up for vermicomposting just yet?

• Whole Foods on Prospect St. in Cambridge accepts compost in their public recycling center at the back of their parking lot!

Vermicomposting is a wonderful way to recycle your food and to create some very healthy and nutrient-rich soil!

Have questions for Ryan about vermicomposting? Contact him at compostboy[at]yahoo.com.

Thanks to Ryan for a great workshop, great information, and for breaking down vermicomposting into a simple and easy process. Thanks to Erik Zornik as well, who also provided some great tips. And of course, thanks to the Urban Homesteaders' League for hosting this workshop. Look forward to an upcoming blog post on Worm Updates in the next few weeks!