This recipe is an adaptation of my cultured barbecue sauce. As I said in that post, among the first ferments I attempted was barbecue sauce. Since my Hashimoto’s Diagnosis I have been honing what I can and cannot consume… so this barbecue sauce is sans nightshades, soy and refined sugars. The sugars in it are fermented out so the end product still allows me to stay in ketosis. This may not seem important for some but ketones in the body are hugely anti-inflammatory and for me this allows me to continue to function as a human, wife, mother and homemaker. Any time I run into an allergy no matter what my macros are that day I am kicked out of ketosis and in pain. My neck, shoulders and back become so inflamed that sometimes it is difficult to breathe and certainly to move. So there you go. Because of this I avoid allergens at all costs and stay in keto for the better part of the month. I have been experimenting with carb ups weekly and have found it is too much, but monthly my body seems to handle fairly well. I still get to have my sweet potato truffle fries once a month… surrounded by a few days of raspberries without severe consequences. So for today I am posting a gorgeous beetroot based barbecue sauce with truffle salt to initiate the ferment. It is fantastic with those sweet potato truffle fries. 😂

This recipe is still in process, but it is both savory and (keto/paleo) sweet with a subtle umami flavor.

So Happy Labor Day everyone! I hope it is restful, joyful and full of family, spiritual and physical peace.

Give it a go and let me know how you like it!

Ingredients:

• 3-4 beetroot (about 1 Kg)
• 1-2 onions
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 2 apples (I prefer Granny Smith)
• 1 tsp black peppercorns
• ½-1 tsp smoked or green peppercorns (mild) OR Szechwan or Tasmanian peppercorns (spicy)
• 1/8 tsp coriander seed
• ¼ cup raw apple cider vinegar
• ½ cup cultured onion brine
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds or 1/8-1/4 tsp mustard powder
• 1 tsp pink salt or truffle salt
• 1 tsp coconut aminos
• 1/3 cup cacao
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 2-4 Tbsp coconut sugar, date paste (I make my own by blending dates) raw honey or pure maple syrup (most of this will be fermented out as the live cultures will eat up the sugars during reproduction) OR 1 additional green apple roasted
• 5-10 drops stevia or monkfruit
• 7 sage leaves or 1 tsp ground sage
• 3-4 tsp liquid smoke to taste (optional, but I do this if my veggies didn’t blacken to my liking)
• 2 Tbsp Extra virgin olive oil (reserved to seal out bad bacteria)

Method:

Roast beetroot/beets, onions, garlic and apple at 425° for 45 minutes or until blackened. Set aside to cool.

Sanitize your 1 liter or quart jar and lids if using. I place them in the oven at its lowest temperature for a few minutes. 170° Fahrenheit in an American oven. My British ovens were usually 75° Celsius.

Place all ingredients in a food processor, blender or Vitamix. Chop first if you’re using a normal blender and place wet ingredients first and dry next (wet in the bottom, dry on top) but reserve the olive oil. Puree, then transfer to a 1.5 Liter fermenting jar with air lock or a swing/clip top 1.5 Liter Jar.  Leave 2″ of room at the top. Cover the top with extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil and seal.

Leave to ferment for 2-7 days, depending on taste. The longer you leave it the less sugar you will have in the final ferment so taste it as needed but be mindful to use sterile spoons.

Store in swing top or glass bottles. You may have to dilute with a bit of water, apple cider vinegar or onion brine after fermentation. Enjoy on pizza, barbecue or with my personal favorite: sweet potato fries!

I am an unabashed mustard fan. Which is great considering things like ketchup and barbecue sauce are off the Autoimmune Protocol Menu. I often have a jar of cultured mustard in the fridge that I’m working through and one on the counter fermenting. Especially now that my spicy food intake is now limited.

The amazing thing about mustard is that you can somewhat control the heat of the finished product by adjusting the temperature of the liquids used to make it. The colder the liquid, the hotter the finished product. The hotter the liquid, the milder the finished product. The jar above I made with refrigerated fermented onion brine and it was flaming hot, whereas the jar of French style mustard pictured below (yes it is half eaten) was made with a just finished brine that was sitting in 85°F heat so the finished mustard was almost annoyingly mild. But palatable to the family and as turmeric and paprika are now off the table it’s the one I was going for most often. Paprika is a nightshade and nightshades have been triggering horrendous inflammation for me in the last few months. Turmeric is a close relative of ginger and my food allergy panel came back with a level 5 ginger allergy, I have found relief in avoiding it and it’s relatives.

So with all that explanation, I have below a very simple cultured mustard recipe. You may eat it straight away or leave it on the counter for a few more days to culture fully. Who doesn’t love probiotic condiments?!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup mustard powder or mustard seeds
• 1/4 cup ice cold to hot water as desired (if you choose to use hot, add this FIRST then let it cool down before adding culturing brine.)
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar with the mother
• 1/2 cup fermented onion liquid/brine or kimchi liquid from previous ferment
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp pink salt
• 1.5 Tbsp turmeric (optional)
• 1/4 tsp sweet smoked paprika (optional)

Method:

Place all ingredients in a food processor, blender or Vitamix (chop first if you’re using a normal blender) and puree. 

Alternatively if you are using mustard powder you can use an immersion blender or whisk it together vigorously. Transfer to a 1 Pint/500ml fermenting jar with air lock or a swing/clip top jar. Leave for 2-4 days on the counter to ferment. Enjoy!

Okay, before I begin my post I want to give a shout out to my wonderful husband, Steve, who moved to America (He is Australian) and has worked his bum off every way he can to support this post missionary life family. He started his degree when we were pregnant with our oldest and had to put it on hold several times for long periods over the years in order to support us. Yesterday he Graduated with a B.A. in Leadership with Honors from Faith International University. I am so proud of him. University is difficult enough and when you throw a job, a wife and three children into that mix it becomes even more difficult. So Steve, here’s to you! The most amazing man I know and the love of my life, well done.

The last couple years I have been struggling with severe inflammation so have slowly been getting to the bottom of it. Probiotics have helped immensely, namely kefir. I still prepare breads for my my family using einkorn on occasion but I am altogether grain free and sugar free these days and have found that a dairy free keto diet keeps my inflammation under wraps fairly well.

I have taken to soaking and drying nuts, fermenting seeds and generally working on making everything in my pantry a little less inflammatory as I mentioned in my previous post for probiotic granola.

The Nourishing Traditions cookbook suggests fermenting small seeds before eating them rather than soaking and drying or sprouting. Hempseed, Flax and Chia great with this method because they’re too small to soak and dry.

My personal preference for culturing this is coconut kefir but for the hubs I have used ginger beer as well. If I know I will be eating it I keep the sugars to 1-2 Tbsp of pure maple syrup, blackstrap molasses or raw honey for the fermentation process. I do not love things overly sweet and neither does my body so this works for me. You can try any non-salty culturing liquid you like! I have used ginger beer, milk kefir and coconut kefir with varying but equally nice results.) Water kefir, kombucha and whey will work as well but I personally do not use whey or ginger beer any longer because I find them highly inflammatory. Whey because it is naturally inflammatory and ginger because I have recently discovered I am allergic to it!! Sad 😕

Give it a shot and let me know what you think!

Ingredients:

For Pre-Ferment:

• 1 cup hulled hempseeds/hemp hearts
• 1/2 cup golden flax seeds
• 1/4 cup chia seeds
• 1 Tbsp- 1/4 cup maple syrup, blackstrap molasses or raw honey
• 1/2-1 cup culturing liquid
• 2-4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp pink or kosher salt
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds or other nuts (optional, I have a mild allergy to nuts so I don’t add them to mine)
• 1/4 cup dried fruit like unsulphered goji berries, raisins, blueberries or for keto, fresh or dried cranberries
• Diced fruit: apple, pear etc (optional)

For Post Ferment:

• 1/4 cup coconut oil (melted)
• 1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut or coconut chips
• 5-10 drops Stevia or monk fruit drops to taste (optional)

Method:

1. Combine dry ingredients in a medium size bowl
2. Add fermenting liquid, maple syrup or blackstrap, salt and cinnamon or other spices.
3. Stir several times in the first 1-2 hours to keep it from clumping.
4. Leave covered for 12 hours or overnight. If you are using chia seeds you may need to add more fermenting liquid or water.
5. After the ferment is finished, add the coconut oil and any back sweetener you like. I use monk and stevia. Much of the sugars will have been consumed by the culture but it will still be sweet. Raw honey is also a good choice here because of its antifungal properties.
6. Lay out on a large parchment in a perforated baking sheet (you can use a normal baking sheet but it will take mug longer to dry). I use the fryer basket for my Breville Air Oven.
7. If you want it for bars you will need to pre-cut it while it is still soft or it will get too crispy and crumble. A few hours into drying is a key time.
8. Dehydrate at 150° – 160°F for 8-12 hours. If it doesn’t breathe as in a standard baking sheet it can take up to 24 hours and you’ll need to break it up and flip or “toss” it like a salad.

Store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. I like to use a dehydrator to keep the probiotics alive. But if you don’t care about that you can just bake it in the oven at low temperature.