Pickled Cucumbers

Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients:
5 small cucumbers
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2 teaspoons mustard seeds
1 tablespoon dill
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup room-temperature water
ACTIONS:
1. Place whole cucumbers and then remainder of the
ingredients in a quart-sized jar. The water should cover the
cucumbers and the top of liquid should be at least ½ an
inch below top of jar, as the water will rise during the
fermentation process. You may need more than 1 cup of
water, depending on the size of the cucumbers.
2. Cover tightly and store at room temp for 3–5 days before
keeping in refrigerator indefinitely.
3. Serve with salads, meat meals, or mix into stir-fries!
Fermenting Vegetables
This is a food preserving technique that has been used for
hundreds of years, and also comes with many health benefits.
It is also a great way to maintain the Earth Diet if you live a
busy lifestyle, or have many mouths to feed and want to have
food on standby. One of the most famous fermented
vegetables is known as sauerkraut, which is fermented
cabbage. Fermented vegetables are a powerful natural
probiotic that helps with digestion and absorption of nutrients.
They can also boost immunity and aid weight loss. It is also a
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great way to make food using fresh ingredients in the
summer, and then store it to eat during the winter.
You can make all types of blends using ingredients like:
cabbage, beet, cauliflower, cucumbers, carrots, peppers, and
onions.
THE PROCESS:
1. Chop vegetables into tiny pieces; this allows their liquids
to release faster.
2. Mix vegetables with salt and herbs like thyme and
oregano.
3. Add water and then place the vegetables into a jar. The
water should cover the vegetables by at least half an inch.
4. Keep at room temperature for 3–5 days, and then in the
refrigerator indefinitely. This is surprising, but it does
truly last for years.
And now that you’ve begun thinking about where your meals
come from and some different ways to use produce, let’s
move on and talk more about preparations.
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CHAPTER 4
Preparations
“All things are ready, if our mind be so.”
—William Shakespeare, Henry V
W
e’re almost ready to get into the recipe portion of the
book. Before we get cooking, however, I’d like to offer you a
few words of advice on preparing and modifying the recipes
for your personal lifestyle.
As you know, you should choose fresh, organic produce for
your meals whenever possible. Organic fruits, nuts, roots,
vegetables, herbs, and spices, which by definition are grown
chemical free, provide us with the best nutrition. When I refer
to “clean foods” or “clean eating,” these are the types of foods
I am referring to. You should be able to find all these clean
ingredients in a local or organic supermarket, a farmers’
market, or even online. As you learned in the last chapter, try
to grow as much of your own food as possible.
Use the recipes provided in this book as a base for your own
cooking, and feel free to modify them to suit your own taste.
Make them work for you. The Earth Diet recipes should be
considered improvisational. Add more or less of any given