Friday, May 20, 2011

Rejuvenating Water Kefir (Tibi)

There must have been something in the air or water a few weeks ago because both my friend's and my tibi grains turned to applesauce. I brought some of my teensy ones out to her since she had tossed hers. I also brought coconut milk to help feed them. They seem to like the trace minerals in coconut milk, and the sugars. I recommended she use molasses and not agave because of the mineral needs of tibi. It's okay. My grains replenished splendidly! I've got plenty for her and her chickens again! They are even growing in the baggie I have them in in the fridge!

How did I accomplish this? At home I mixed half coconut milk and half filtered water, 1/3rd cup molasses and straining every 24 hours to try to get the grains plump again. They fed really well on that combo! I cut back on the coconut milk each time I strained the tibi. Coconut water came from Amazon last week so I have used half that and half filtered water with a third cup of the newly arrived coconut palm sugar and they are Dancing again!

I am bringing a bag of the palm sugar and some grains to Kathy tomorrow. While there I am going to pick up some more of her Italian Blend. That is some superb stuff!

Right now I have a quart of milk kefir separating on the shelf. I plan on getting some good cheesecloth and driving a hook into the cupboard to hang the cheese from while straining the whey. The kefir cheese or lebneh was a real hit when I mixed in chives and garlic with a little salt and pepper when my son Logan and his girlfriend Sarah were here.

I ordered a pound of broccoli sprouting seeds from sprout people.org today. For the sake of simplicity, I am sticking with just one kind of sprout and broccoli is the chosen one. It was pricey at nearly $40, but good quality is a must. I noticed a lot fewer unsprouted seeds in the Mumm's brassicca blend than in the ones I got with the kit from Burpee. I belong to the sproutpeople group and have picked up great hints in the realm of sprouting.

I need to concentrate on my garden, so am cutting back to just growing tibi grains for Kathy, her family and her chickens, keeping the milk kefir going, and just broccoli sprouts. The sprout seeds are big enough not to run out of the tray and are easy to chase down when dehulling the sprouts. All time saving and all so good for things! The chickens will have probiotic eggs, which I get from Kath, my family continues to enjoy sprouts with salads and sandwiches and I get to have the milk kefir. I truly do believe it is a miracle food in many ways. I need to get better at making lotion with it and coconut oil though! That is quite a mess in that cottage cheese container in the kitchen! Just this moment it came to me to blend the oil and kefir in that container inside a bowl of warm water. Baby Mads has some kind of rash on her back and sides, so I tried to make a mixture to soothe and relieve the itch. I don't know if it helped, but I will try with it blended better!

Off I go, to play with the lives growing in my kitchen!

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