Kvass, Baklava, and Coffee

I may have mentioned before that I have a tendency to some undiagnosed ADHD. That’s why, with a to-do list full of practical, necessary chores, I found myself on a serious rabbit trail this morning,

I opened the cupboard to reach for the coffee, which led me to…

See the apple-scrap vinegar fermenting there, which made me…

Remember another fermentation project I wanted to try, which somehow had me…

Conducting a product photo shoot I’d promised my husband I would do.

That all, logically, led to a cup of coffee, some baklava, and this blog post.

Let’s backtrack to the fermentation, though.

I reached for the jar of apple-scrap vinegar that still sits fermenting in my corner cupboard. (It has a few days to go but is coming along nicely. Thanks for asking.) As I inhaled the tangy, slightly sweet aroma, I thought, This smells good enough to drink. I didn’t drink my half-fermented vinegar, but I did remember a fermented drink that’s been on my bucket list for a while now.

(My son just walked in and asked why the coffee carafe is on top of the fish tank. That’s a whole different discussion.)

Anyway, Kvass is an Eastern European fermented drink traditionally made from bread, or sometimes beets. I was leery of making a drink out of bread, and I didn’t have any beets, but I found a recipe for Orange-Ginger Carrot Kvass from Cultures for Health. I had a couple of oranges, a little ginger root, and some carrots, so I thought, Why not?

I only had a few small, store-bought carrots in my fridge, but my children discovered some carrots that had managed to overwinter in our garden, so I threw those into the mix. My carrots were small, so I used a couple more than the recipe called for. Whey is not one of my pantry staples, so I omitted it and went for the extra salt version. I shook it, covered it with a coffee filter, and stuck it in a cupboard to ferment. (Not the same dark cupboard as the vinegar. I don’t think I need to worry too much about cross-contamination, but I prefer to play it safe.) I’ll check it in a couple of days and report on its progress.

I know I’ve mentioned that I was raised on a farm. Growing up in a rural area with a tight budget, my family was inclined to use up what we had when we could rather than shopping for ingredients. I’ve lost some of that edge, but the tendency still remains. So, once I had my kvass fermenting, my next thought was how to use the few remaining scraps to create something else.

I’d been eyeing a package of steaks in the freezer, and a marinade sounded like a great idea. I chopped up the remaining ginger and some orange peel, then combined them with chopped garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, and blue agave nectar. Now I have dinner marinating in the fridge, and that’s a load off my mind.

I ate the orange. Every other scrap went to the rabbit, the chickens, or the compost bin.

Since I had my camera out already, I decided it was a good day to take food photos with some of my husband's imported Italian ceramics. (If you’re interested, you can buy them here.) In the process, I apparently set the coffee carafe down on the lid of the fish tank. Why? I don’t know, so don't ask. It's back in its proper place now. 

Once I finished with the short photo shoot, it made perfect sense to drink the coffee and eat some baklava. The baklava was absolutely not homemade, by the way, but very tasty.

And that was how I ended up with coffee, baklava, and a blog post at ten on a Friday morning. No chores done—no laundry folded, dishes cleaned, or plants planted. Still, I feel pretty happy with my progress so far.

 Now, on to the garden....