Museum of Life and Science

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Making Kimchi

A friend on mine that runs a farm up in Virginia called me this morning to ask me if I wanted some Bok Choy, as she was over run with it from her garden. I said, “Sure, bring me five heads of it! I’ll think of something to do with it.”

Here are the five beautiful heads of Bok Choy she brought me. Bok Choy is a Chinese vegetable that is classified as a cabbage, looks more like celery and contains leaves resembling lettuce.

I opted to dehydrate two of the heads for making soup later on. I wanted to keep one for a fresh stir-fry meal in the next couple of days. That left me with two Bok Choy heads left. But what should I do with them?

I discovered that Korean Kimchi is typically made with Napa Cabbage but can be made with Bok Choy as well. What is Kimchi? Kimchi is a traditional Korean fermented spicy dish most commonly made with napa cabbage and other vegetables such as radish, green onion, chive, carrots and cucumber. Kimchi is the most common side dish in Korean cuisine. Kimchi is also a main ingredient for other common Korean dishes such as Kimchi stew. I have never made Kimchi before but there is a first time for everything.

After a bit of chopping, measuring and mixing this is what my Kimchi looks like…

It is not done yet as it still needs to ferment for 2-3 days to get that sour tang you find in dill pickles and sauerkraut. Then I will put it in the fridge where it will be good for 2-4 months.

Horse 4-H Meeting

We belong to a horse centered 4-H club called the Southern Ring Rockers. Tonight was our monthly meeting. Baxter came along with us to see what we do there. The monthly meetings are mostly business events where we talk about what the club has done and make plans for future events as well. 

The battery died on my camera so I didn't get to take photos of Baxter at the table sitting with McKayla but he was there!

Farmer's Market

The Farmer's Market in our small town officially opened for the season today.

After a few quiet days at home Baxter was ready to hit the town so he opted to come along with McKayla, Taylor and I to the market.

Our Farmer's Market is pretty small compared to some but it is early in the season and not all of the vendors have started coming yet.  Also, next month they are planning to build a permanent structure to house the Farmer's Market in as well. I am looking forward to that!

We purchased some fresh baked items to snack on... a rhubarb tart for me, oatmeal raisin cookies for McKayla and Baxter chose chocolate chip cookies... Yummy!

I picked up a few plant starts for the garden... a purple tomato, thyme, dill and oregano.  Then Baxter spotted these huge fresh picked strawberries!  It didn't take much convincing for me to buy 4 quarts of them.  We ate a few right in the parking lot, the rest I hid away until we got home so we could make strawberry jam with them.

We made Freezer Jam today because it is fast and easy as it doesn't require any cooking.  First I cleaned and sliced the strawberries up to equal 8 cups tightly packed berries.

Then we added in a package of Freezer Jam Fruit Pectin (this is different then the pectin for cooked jam).  Pectin is what makes your jam (with fruit chunks) or jelly (pureed smooth) get thick and spreadable.  It is naturally in many fruits but adding additional pectin helps achieve a thicker result.

The strawberries and pectin are mixed together really well to a consistency that you like.  At this point Baxter wanted to go swimming in the mixture it smelled so good!

Finally, after letting it set for about 30 minutes we spooned the jam into freezer containers (our batch made 11 half pint jars) and store in the freezer up to a year.  Not only is this great jam for sandwiches it is also great over ice cream and makes a wonderful stir-in for plain yogurt too!