Ready to get started?
Let’s say you win the Kitchen Culturing Package in the Epic Giveaway. Well — that means you just won a cultured butter kit, a hard cheesemaking kit (including press), and a fermenting kit from our good friend Jerri at Homesteader Supply.
First of all, these are awesome tools. So, yay, you!
Second of all, these tools get really good and regular use in our kitchen. They’re absolutely fabulous quality and they just work.
So when you get yours… 🙂 Here are recipes and techniques to get you started.
Cultured Butter
To this day, I still save up my soured cream (which can also be cultured specifically using the culture in the cultured butter kit) to make big batches of cultured butter (or single batches of cultured butter). If I’m pressed for time, I simply fashion logs like in the picture above. But if I’m in a kitchen groove and want to mold the butter, I use a mold. Here’s my video on how to use a butter mold (a different mold than from Homesteader Supply, as I didn’t have one back then).
Oh, and by the way, here’s the easiest sour cream ever…
Cheesemaking
We make cheese every other week or so, from milk that we didn’t quite get to drinking from our herd share. Here are our favorite recipes.
Cheddar cheese — here’s the recipe, and they’re great as fresh curds, too! (Usually I get out my Ultimate Cheese Press and press away into a beautiful wheel.)
Cultured and Flavored Cream Cheese. You make cream cheese from soured cream that’s dripped through cheesecloth — or use yogurt cheese, kefir cheese, or other soft cheese. In any case, at this post, you’ll get 2 recipes for doctoring it up (cinnamon-walnut and onion-chive) plus a free video.
More? Try this raw cottage cheese, or here’s my Easy Raw Chevre — another favorite in our house! We spread it on sourdough toast or sourdough english muffins, and I even use it as the base for cream cheese frosting (so good). And these kefir/cheese balls (with video) are so delish!
Ferments
Ah…. One of my favorite aspects of kitchen culturing. Everything above is considered fermented, of course, but let’s talk about fruit and vegetable ferments (plus condiments and beverages). The fermenting kit from Homesteader Supply helps you get started with all of this. It includes my book plus Pickle Pro fermenting lids, a veggie culture starter (no need to use whey), and a pounder. Just add wide-mouth mason jars!
We’ve got a lot of fermented recipes here at Traditional Cooking School. Right here on the blog, and of course extensively covered in our online class.
Though it’s going to be tough to narrow it down, I’m going to share some favorites.
Lacto-Fermented Red Pepper Hummus (or this simple hummus)
Lacto-Fermented Cranberry Sauce
Or, beverages: Fermented Coconut Water, Kombucha, Water Kefir, Ginger-Grapefuit Kombucha, Water Kefir Tea
Even condiments: Guacamole (with video), Ketchup, Mustard, 3 More Mustards, and Mayonnaise.
And I never even got to sourdough — which is a whole ‘nother world of culturing! Here are our sourdough archives (extensive).
How Often Do You Eat Cultured Foods?
All of these recipes and more go through the rotation at our house. We try to have fermented foods at least once per day, if not with each meal — to support gut health and a healthy digestive system. We definitely feel the benefits. How about you? What are your goals with cultured foods? Do you wish you ate more of them? Do you get enough?
More?
Remember if you need help with any of this — that’s why I’m here. Check out our online Traditional Cooking School or our eBooks.
What are your favorite cultured food recipes? How often do you eat cultured foods? What do they do for you?
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I would love to add an Excalibur dehydrator to my real food kitchen.
I love this website! Thank you – so glad I found you.
Would LOVE the Blendtec to make my daily green smoothies! 🙂
I’m very interested in traditionally cultured/fermented foods! I a new mama, and am currently off dairy, caffeine, and acids (citrus/tomatoes) as it causes gas and reflux in my 4 month old daughter, but I have been wondering if they would bother her less or perhaps not at all if those things were properly cultured/fermented (not the caffeine of course). Many of these traditional methods sound difficult, but that’s because we didn’t grow up with them. Thank you for making the methods so approachable, and for the links to high quality resources, it’s greatly appreciated!
I truly want to add more cultured foods to my diet. I eat them when I can, but making them is a skill I plan to learn before I cross the continent and move to another country (Canada) for graduate school. If I can learn to can things, surely I can learn to make more cultured foods! Top of my list is fermented veggies and salsa.
Amazing!
I’ve just started getting into cultured foods, I tried Kombucha and water Kefir and love those. I really want to try Sauerkraut and a few of the other fermented veggies, thank you for making it look doable, pictures help so much.
Thank you for doing this great giveaway. What a fantastic line-up of very useful products!
I already ferment lots of things but I want to add cheese making to my repertoire. The prizes are all great and I love them.
Would love either the dehydrator or the blender! They would make a great addition to my meager kitchen supplies.
Thank you so much for doing this giveaway! I hope to win the fermentation kit!
Would Love to win at least one of these great giveaways!
Definitely bookmarking this site, I can’t wait to try some of the culturing recipes!! I would love to win the culturing kit and try my hand at making butter and cheese!
I try to feed my family some type of fermented food every day. Yogurt, water kefir, and fermented vegetables are my go to ferments.
Thanks for the recipes! I am excited to try them.
l would prefer The Kitchen Culturing Package! I make butter and have many times wished for a mold, I have tried to make homemade vinegar, and now I am getting discouraged with my cheese-making abilities. This Giveaway is exciting!…
What an interesting post! I would love to make my own butter and just may …you make it seem easy. What a fantastic prize in the giveaway!
So excited to get started. I love the sounds of fermented foods!
i would love to win the culturing pack
Thanks for the giveaway! If I had to choose a product I’d pick the Blendtec. But, everything on this page looked great, so I’ll have to look into those culturing kits too.
I made cheese once and loved it. Would love to do more with that but I need to make some kind of aging cave. I’ve also done sauerkraut.
As someone who has been ill for years with Lyme disease and now candida, I have dabbled with the idea of making my own cultured foods to try and get my gut back to health. I certainly will be picking your site apart in my quest to learn about culturing my own foods. Thanks for sharing.
Good grief. It is hard to choose. I thought I wasn’t as interested in the Cultural Package as the SousVide, Excalibur, Blendtek and that gorgeous cutting board. And then I read this post. Now I want all of them! But I do think the Blendtek will get a daily workout in my kitchen!
Thank you all very much for this fantastic giveaway!
i would love to win this culturing package, I have made this cheddar cheese and the cheese press would be great to have!
I’m 100% sold on the culturing kit. I’ve been wanting to try culturing for a while now, but haven’t been able to make the plunge, partly due to investment cost of equipment, and partly due to ignorance of where to begin. I’d love to win!
Visiting from Common Sense Homesteading to comment. This set is what I would most like to win. I must try making sauerkraut again.
I would absolutely love this culturing package, but all the appliances sound wonderful and would be a vast improvement to my kitchen! Thanks for sponsoring the giveaway!
want to comment on all the products but this kit has. so many functions on the dairy .. side. and . also good for u.. and as looks wont be able to afford such a kit but ; if had kit use it everyday and no one could deserve this more..
I’d love the dehydrator. Or the blendtec. Or the culturing kit. Or… I’d be excited to win any one of them, truthfully.
Well, as of right now, I’ve got kombucha, water kefir, milk kefir and saurkraut. I killed off my sourdough started when we moved this summer, but I’d like to start one up again. For a while, I was maintaining my cultures, but doing nothing with the product, so I’m getting back into consuming them in various ways daily again. I do love yogurt; that’s one I’d like to try making myself, especially given how much of it my husband and I go through. Also, I’ve noticed that my allergies don’t seem to flare up as much when I keep myself to either gluten-free or sourdough breads. Here is hoping for that culturing kit!
I just started raising dairy goats and would love to win the Kitchen Culturing Pacakage! Thanks so much for sharing this and for providing excellent information.
I am hoping I win the culturing kit!!
The culturing kit would be amazing! I like to make simple cheese, and it would help!
I’m excited to learn more! Thank you for sponsoring this!
I started fermenting/ culturing about a year ago, and love it! I can’t wait to try some of these recipes, thanks!
I am loving your website! It is very helpful and informative. I have just started culturing/fermenting our foods for our health. It seems overwhelming at times, but we are enjoying the results. Thank you for teaching us through your website.
I remember making fresh butter from the cream at the top of the milk when I was a little kid. That was so yummy.
some of my favorite things!! thanks for sponsoring 🙂
Thanks for being a contributor to this awesome giveaway. I’ve been reading about everything cultured. The cultured prize pack will give someone the opportunity to put knowledge into action.
Ah.. I’d love the dehydrator and the fermenting kits! Amazing!
I would like to win the Blendtec! Thanks!
Great give a way! I would love to win the culturing package!
This was eye-opening. I never would have thought to ferment most of the foods you did. I now have new things to try. Thank you.
I love making my own cheeses… this would be a great help!
I can’t wait to start trying to make my own cheese!
You have so much great info on your site!
I swear I would put homemade kimchi on everything if I could. every. thing.
I would love to do this. I’d especially like to make Kombucha; so far I have only made yogurt.