Kombucha is pretty expensive to buy and yet it is so delicious, healthy, and great as an alternative for those of us who are tempted by soda that it becomes an easily justified expense. Well until you realize just how easy it is to make yourself that is. We have now established a pretty efficient brewing method in our home and we have gone from spending $4-5 dollars per bottle at the store to home brewed Kombucha for about .17 cents a bottle. Plus we are reusing all the Kombucha bottles we bought. So yummy, so good for you, and now…so cheap.

For those that don’t know, Kombucha is fermented tea made with tea, sugar, and a SCOBY or Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast. It is full of probiotics and other healthy amino acids, has been consumed for thousands of years, and has been used medicinally in many countries and cultures. The image below is a SCOBY…the grayish, whiteish blob that goes in the tea and causes the fermentation process.

Not real attractive I admit,  but the finished product tastes divine and I don’t even like tea. I cannot stand iced tea (I call it dirt water) and most hot teas don’t tempt me much either. So imagine my surprise when my husband got me to take a sip of his Kombucha and I discovered that I loved it. It was fizzy, sweet, and very much like a soda pop with just a hint of a tea taste. The flavors were abundant and some were even swimming with yummy chia seeds. I was hooked and if you buy it in stores then you know well why one would want to brew it at home…it’s expensive!! I quickly decided that if I wanted to keep myself stocked with Kombucha I had to make it myself and lucky for us it is actually very, very easy.

The process did not start out smooth though. The first two batches ended up going down the drain because mold formed. The first batch we had out on our kitchen counter, next to the stove and the second batch we put in a cupboard that was drafty and dusty. Both times I think that foreign particles got inside the jar and caused the mold. For our third and subsequent batches we put our ferment jars in our upstairs linen closet where there is no dust or dirt floating around, the temperature is warm and stable, and they don’t get disturbed. We also switched jars from a huge one that had a spout to a smaller one that did not. We have had no problems since.

We currently use re-purposed gallon size pickle jars to brew our Kombucha. We bought them from Wal-Mart, threw out the pickles (because we only eat Bubbies brand), and that is what we now use, along with cheese cloth on top of each jar, secured with rubber bands. There are Kombucha Home Brew Kits available but we wanted a super cheap set up so we went with repurposed when we could and we bought our SCOBY on eBay.

We have been using an ice tea blend for the tea because that is what we had on hand for the tea drinkers in the home. Every Thursday we harvest and bottle two gallons of Kombucha and start two more brewing. We use a funnel to pour them into the bottles we have left over from commercial Kombucha and we also have several Bormioli Rocco Giara Bottles in various colors that we use. It is important to us to have bottles that seal so that the tea stays fizzy.

Some we drink as is and others we flavor with juice (cherry) and we add chia seeds to the majority of them. We all love the texture and it is added nutrition. Not a whole lot of work but the rewards are great. Once you have the jars, bottles, and a SCOBY you only need to buy tea, sugar, and anything optional that you add to the finished product like chia seeds and juice. You may also need to buy water unless you have a really good filter for your tap as chemicals and other common water contaminants can kill your Kombucha and SCOBY. You can harvest new SCOBYs for other batches from your original one. Pretty soon you will be giving them away and composting them as you get a new one with each batch. You will also grow to love the process…

Stuff You Need:

A one gallon glass jar
Glass bottles to pour the finished Kombuchas into
A scoby
Tea (organic black tea or a blend of black and green)
Sugar – Regular granulated sugar, no natural sweeteners (they won’t work)
A cloth cover (I use a flour sack dishtowel)
Rubber bands to seal it closed and keep bugs from getting inside

The Process:

Brew about 8 bags of tea with 3½ quarts of purified water. Add one cup of regular white sugar and allow to cool. Don’t worry about using white sugar either. It is not for you it is for the scoby to feed on and the sugar content at the end will be very low. Pour into your brewing jar, leaving room at the top for your scoby and for 1-2 cups of Kombucha leftover from a previous batch. If this is your very first time making it then use whatever liquid came with the scoby you purchased.

Cover the jar, secure it, and put it aside in a warm place (70-75 degrees) where it will not be disturbed for 7-20 days. Taste test after 7 days and see how you like it. If it is still really sweet and not very bubbly then let it go longer. Our sweet spot is about 14 days. Pour into small bottles rather than large ones or pitchers, this will cause your brew to lose its fizziness faster. Enjoy!

Have you tried to brew Kombucha at home yet???

Recommended: True Brews: How to Craft Fermented Cider, Beer, Wine, Sake, Soda, Mead, Kefir, and Kombucha at Home

This yummy juice recipe can be found in The Juicing Bible.  Insanely delicious! Even the kids, two of whom don’t like bell peppers, liked it. Just juice 1 carrot, 2 celery stalks, 1 apple, 1/2 of a cucumber, 1/2 of a zucchini and 1/2 of a red bell pepper. Refreshing and ever so slightly sweet.

And the pulp was so pretty… enjoy!

Related: NutriPro Cold Press Juicer Review

I created this recipe shortly before I started the Whole30, which I did all last month. Blogging about delicious grain free bread that I cannot have on the program (due to the coconut sugar) was not on the menu so alas I bring it to you now. The Whole30 was a huge success by the way and I find that staying strict paleo has gotten much easier and after the 30 days I decided I didn’t need dairy anymore so I am now dairy free (except for ghee) and truly paleo, not just primal. I am also feeling awesome and ready to have some of this delicious bread!

The whole family, kids included, LOVE the taste and it has lots of healthy stuff in it. Back in November I would often make a loaf in the early afternoon so that it would be cooling by the time the kids got home. It makes a perfect after school snack or le goûter. Delish!

Paleo Banana Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups almond flour or almond meal
4 pastured eggs
1/4 cup coconut oil (melted)
3/4 cup coconut sugar
2 ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 cup shredded zucchini
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (mini preferred)
1/2 cup walnuts (optional)

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix all wet ingredients together first and then add in the dry ingredients, mixing well. Pour into a loaf pan greased well with coconut oil and cook for 75 minutes or until a toothpick or fork comes out clean (aside from melty chocolate ). Let cool before slicing and serving but it tastes best when still slightly warm. Enjoy!!

See also: Pumpkin Soufflé and Sweet Potato Soufflé

We have been baking up a storm in this house.

My urge to heat up the oven and make a Pumpkin Soufflé started when I came across this recipe on Balanced Bites. It’s a super easy Soufflé recipe that we all loved. After that initial foray we modified it a bit, adding more maple syrup and even adding a maple flavored cream cheese. Delish!

We used our own homemade pumpkin puree too.

It can’t get any easier than this recipe, that is for sure, but the it didn’t feel or look like a Soufflé technically…which requires dividing your egg whites and whipping them. Our Pumpkin Soufflé didn’t get very high and airy and they deflated pretty fast. I still plan to make them often though because they are so super easy and fast. Plus they taste wonderful. I did want to try to make a more conventional Soufflé  though.

Our next baking adventure was a…  

Sweet Potato Soufflé

We started by cooking up some sweet potatoes and mashing them with butter and maple syrup. This was breakfast actually and we had enough leftover for a lunchtime Soufflé. And excellent way to get rid of leftovers if you ask me!

Ingredients: (makes 3)

1 cup mashed sweet potato
4 eggs (yolks and whites divided)
1/4 c grass fed butter
2 T almond butter
4 T maple syrup (1 tablespoon reserved for egg whites)
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 T coconut flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1 t pumpkin pie spice

Mix wet ingredients together (minus the egg whites). Combine the dry ingredients and sift them together well. Add to the wet ingredients and mix.

In a separate bowl whip the egg whites with an electric mixer until they form a soft peak. Add the reserved 1 tablespoon of maple syrup to the egg whites and continue to beat them until they form a stiff peak (this takes some time). Fold the egg white mixture into the base. Pour into individual size ramekins and cook at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Eat while warm and enjoy!

A few days ago I got a hankering for pumpkin soufflé. I haven’t had a soufflé in years and even then it was a savory mushroom soufflé, not a dessert. Yet for some reason I just had to make one.

The recipe called for canned pumpkin puree of course but I try to limit what we eat out of a can (BPA yo!) and would’ve had to make a special trip to the store. The store where I can buy organic pumpkin puree is even farther. So I decided to make my own puree using two pie pumpkins that had been sitting on my kitchen table for awhile. But how to make the puree?? Well, I am not for making things hard so I decided that I could delay my soufflé craving until the next day and simply slow cook the pumkpkins for the easiest homemade pumpkin puree evah. It was so crazy easy to do that buying canned pumpkin puree is just the height of silliness, at least when pumpkins are in season!

I made about 5-6 cups of puree with two regular size pie pumpkins. I just cut the tops off each one and put them in the slow cooker, with the tops loosely replaced, and cooked for 8 hours on low.

After cooking I scooped out the seeds and set them aside for roasting. Then I scooped out the pumpkin “meat” and stuck it in a my Vita-Mix. I mixed it up until it resembled creamy baby food.

At this point it is all done and ready for storage in the fridge. We made pumpkin soufflé in individual ramekins (I love these Rachael Ray Stoneware Ramekins) two nights in a row. Tonight I am making a Harvest Chicken Soup with pumpkin puree.

Easy peasy. Enjoy!

Added to Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways