Fermented Fingers: The Ultimate Addition to Your Witch's Pantry
Posted on Thursday, October 08, 2015 | By Alycia Lang |
For adults, Halloween is often a time of last-minute costumes and attempts to battle sugar-overload. While we know enough to accept that we may never win the fight over Halloween treats (with children or ourselves), what we can do is reinforce all the good bacteria that lets us get away with occasionally sugary indulgences by making delicious fermented foods.
After all, if you can't eat sour "ogre fingers" suspended in cloudy liquid on Halloween, when can you?
Complete your witch's cabinet with these ghoulishly delicious fermented ogre (ahem…carrot) fingers made right in the FARMcurious Fermenting Set!
Wash, but don't peel your carrots. This is a great opportunity to use those ugly carrots you have sitting in the fridge. The uglier the carrot looks, the more realistic the ogre finger.
Carefully outline a half-moon area with a small knife where the edges of the fingernail will be. Be sure to move slowly when cutting (nobody wants a real severed finger to get in there).
Create a deeper horizontal cut where the base of the nail will be.
Carefully peel away a very thin top layer of the carrot skin where the nail bed would be to create a convincing nail texture.
Add knuckle notches in your carrot.
Trim the other end of the carrot so that it fits lengthwise into whatever size Mason jar you'll be fermenting in. Repeat the process until your jar is tightly packed with ogre fingers. We were careful to orient the fingernail portion outward so it would be visible from the outside.
Place the carrots in the FARMcurious Fermenting Set (or other airlock fermenting set), positioning them so the "fingernails" face outward. Cover the carrots in a brine solution of 1 tbsp salt to 1 cup water salt water solution until the water is about 1 inch from the very top rim of the jar.
Secure the FARMcurious fermenting lid, fill the airlock halfway with water and let your “fingers” ferment for 3-6 weeks.
For a truly ghoulish witch's pantry, try creating "fingers" from all types of produce and line them all up together for your big Halloween Bash.
Read more about lacto fermentation and get more recipes on our fermenting support page.