{"id":15696,"date":"2016-08-03T05:00:55","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=15696"},"modified":"2016-08-03T07:01:52","modified_gmt":"2016-08-03T14:01:52","slug":"health-food-experiments-spiralizer-and-kombucha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=15696","title":{"rendered":"Health Food Experiments: Kombucha and Spiralizer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"kombucha-spiralizer3\"<\/p>\n

Yesterday, K and I had an epic playdate with some friends (gotta keep the kiddos entertained), and I was introduced to homemade kombucha<\/a>. Have you ever had kombucha? The fermented tea can be easily made at home if you have a starter SCOBY, which is an acronym for\u00a0“symbiotic ‘colony’ of bacteria and yeast”. My friend has been brewing up a batch regularly and kindly sent me home with my own jug to ferment. I had a sampling to taste, and it has the tang of apple cider vinegar with more sweetness. I really liked it and am curious to see if it’ll help with gut health. It\u00a0seems to be the big new thing with the microbiome rage\u00a0that’s going on. The SCOBY (shown below) I received isn’t the prettiest thing, but my friend assured me that in a couple of weeks, this black tea concoction will transform into kombucha.<\/p>\n

\"kombucha-spiralizer7\"<\/p>\n

In the spirit of healthy food experimentation, I also remembered that I purchased a spiralizer recently. It had been sitting in the box all but forgotten, but I gave it a test run after we got home from the playdate.<\/p>\n

\"kombucha-spiralizer1\"<\/p>\n

So pretty! The spiralizer<\/a> is a small one\u00a0but it comes with three blades, and is very easy to operate and clean. Though I’d seen similar contraptions online, I’d been mystified by how they actually work — now I know that it’s actually a lot of fun! I happened to come upon this model at my local store, but this one<\/a> looks even easier to clean.<\/p>\n

\"kombucha-spiralizer2\"<\/p>\n

Basically, you stick a vegetable cut to about 2″ in height on the “post” which looks like the end of a small metal pipe sticking up, and a pronged surface holds the veggie in place while you crank the handle for slicing. What you see above is the ribbon blade in action. This is what the noodle looks like (you can also see how the cucumber “core” remains — it’s mimicking the apple coring concept):<\/p>\n

\"kombucha-spiralizer6\"<\/p>\n

The third option, “coily cut”, is slightly thicker than the noodle and would be great for curly fries. Alas, my coily cut cucumber\u00a0didn’t turn out so\u00a0photogenic\u00a0so I don’t have a visual to share. Here’s another shot of the ribbon cucumber though — I just love the way it looks. \u00a0I’m going to be making a lot of ribbon cucumber salad, I can already tell.<\/p>\n

\"kombucha-spiralizer4\" \"kombucha-spiralizer5\"<\/p>\n

I bought a bunch of zucchini and plan on making zucchini “pasta” tomorrow and will be utilizing that left blade up there. I’m so excited! And I am so<\/em> going to make sweet potato curly fries. Yum.<\/p>\n

\"kombucha-spiralizer8\"<\/p>\n

As for the black tea kombucha, I’ll have to wait until August 16th to see if it fermented properly. Since my friend did all the prep work, I don’t know exactly how to make it (yet), but if I can manage to keep the SCOBY alive, a green tea kombucha would be lovely for the next round.<\/p>\n

Have any of you tried kombucha-making or spiralizing? You know that I’m always looking for recipe recommendations. Which reminds me, thank you for all the light and summer-y recipe tips\u00a0here<\/a>!<\/p>\n

P.S. Furoku members, #17 is headed your way in a couple of days!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, K and I had an epic playdate with some friends (gotta keep the kiddos entertained), and I was introduced to homemade kombucha. Have you ever had kombucha? The fermented tea can be easily made at home if you have a starter SCOBY, which is an acronym for\u00a0“symbiotic ‘colony’ of bacteria and yeast”. My friend has been brewing up a batch regularly and kindly sent me home with my own jug to ferment. I had a sampling to taste, and it has the tang of apple cider vinegar with more sweetness. I really liked it and am curious to see if it’ll help with gut health. It\u00a0seems to be the big new thing with the microbiome rage\u00a0that’s going on. The SCOBY (shown below) I received isn’t the prettiest thing, but my friend assured me that in a couple of weeks, this black tea concoction will transform into kombucha. In the spirit of healthy food experimentation, I also remembered that I purchased a spiralizer recently. It had been sitting in the box all but forgotten, but I gave it a test run after we got home from the playdate. So pretty! The spiralizer is a small one\u00a0but it comes with three blades, and is very easy to operate and clean. Though I’d seen similar contraptions online, I’d been mystified by how they actually work — now I know that it’s actually a lot of fun! I happened to come upon this model at my local store, but this one looks even easier to clean. Basically, you stick a vegetable cut to about 2″ in height on the “post” which looks like the end of a small metal pipe sticking up, and a pronged surface holds the veggie in place while you crank the handle for slicing. What you see above is the ribbon blade in action. This is what the noodle looks like (you can also see how the cucumber “core” remains — it’s mimicking the apple coring concept): The third option, “coily cut”, is slightly thicker than the noodle and would be great for curly fries. Alas, my coily cut cucumber\u00a0didn’t turn out so\u00a0photogenic\u00a0so I don’t have a visual to share. Here’s another shot of the ribbon cucumber though — I just love the way it looks. \u00a0I’m going to be making a lot of ribbon cucumber salad, I can already tell. I bought a bunch of zucchini and plan on making zucchini “pasta” tomorrow and will be utilizing that left blade up there. I’m so excited! And I am so going to make sweet potato curly fries. Yum. As for the black tea kombucha, I’ll have to wait until August 16th to see if it fermented properly. Since my friend did all the prep work, I don’t know exactly how to make it (yet), but if I can manage to keep the SCOBY alive, a green tea kombucha would be lovely for the next round. Have any of you tried kombucha-making or spiralizing? You know that I’m always looking for recipe recommendations. Which reminds me, thank you for all the light and summer-y recipe tips\u00a0here! P.S. Furoku members, #17 is headed your way in a couple of days!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-cooking","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15696"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15715,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15696\/revisions\/15715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}