Episode 15 - Thanksgiving Ideas & Recipes with Fermentation | The Fermentation Podcast (2024)

It’s time to give thanks and that means Thanksgiving is close! I decided to put together an episode to give you some ideas on how to add fermentation, fermented foods, and fermented drinks into your Thanksgiving dinner.

You might not think it, but Thanksgiving is actually a great time of the year for fermentation to shine! There are so many fresh foods that can be fermented and added to the Thanksgiving table including desserts. Whether it’s cranberries, stuffing, pies, wine, coffee, or chocolate, there’s several areas where fermentation can fit into the Thanksgiving meal.

I hope you enjoy this episode and don’t forget, time is short! Get started right away to get your ferments going for next week!

The other thing I want to stress is that this is a time for thanks, family, friends, and not a day for going out shopping with all the crazies out there at stores that insidiously decide to open their doors on Thanksgiving day. Stores like that shouldn’t be supported.

Anyways, I wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving and don’t get lost too far in your food coma!

Check out Jack Spirko of The Survival Podcast for his Thanksgiving Special Episode2014for a great story on why much of what we learn about Thanksgiving is wrong or inaccurate, how Thanksgiving became a way for our nation to heal and reunite after a terrible civil war, why Thanksgiving has been moved around to different dates, and what feasting actually meant 100 years ago. This is a must listen every Thanksgiving and it’s updated every year.

TOPICS INCLUDED IN TODAY’S FERMENTATION PODCAST:

• You have less than a week to get your fermentations started and finished by Thanksgiving!
• Incorporating fermented foods into your Thanksgiving meal
• Fermented appetizers including pickles, carrots, green beans, onions, hummus, pickled eggs
• Getting flavorful brined black and green olives better than what you’d get in a jar or can
• Roasting garlic heads and mixing them with balsamic vinegar and also using balsamic vinegar for cherry tomatoes
• Thoughts on cheese for Thanksgiving
• Encouraging everyone to make their own butter and sour cream rather than buying it
• Side dishes like fermented cranberries sauce, pumpkin butter, apple sauce, sweet potatoes, and pickle soup
• My great-grandpa’s recipe for making sauteed sweet potatoes slices in a cast-iron skillet
• Other side dishes like roasting roots like potatoes, butternut squash, and cauliflowers
• Making fermented mashed potatoes with dill pickle juice
• Fermenting mushrooms and making a nice homemade gravy using fermented mushrooms and soy sauce
• Sourdough bread, sourdough pie crust, and encouraging you to make homemade whipped cream
• After dinner, what desserts can be like pumpkin pie, chocolate along with drinks like ice wine, ice cider, and coffee
• Alcoholic drinks like wine, mead, beer, and cider
• Non-alcoholic drinks like lacto-fermented sodas, ginger ale, traditional Russian kvass, kombucha, and even pickle shots
• And finally general tips for making your cooking more flavorful with techniques to capture, preserve, and enhance flavor

RECIPES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S SHOW:

Appetizers

• Dill Pickles
  • Homemade Dill Pickle Recipe – The Fermentation Podcast
• Watermelon Rinds
  • Lacto-Fermented Watermelon Rind Pickles – Cultures for Health
  • Fermented Watermelon Rinds – Pickle Me Too
• Fermented Okra
  • Fermented Okra– The Fermentation Podcast
• Fermented Carrot Sticks
  • Dilly Carrots– Oh Lardy
  • Spicy Dilly Carrot Sticks– Pickle Me Too
  • Lacto-Fermented Carrot Sticks – Food Renegade
• Fermented Green Beans
  • Spicy Dilly Beans– Pickle Me Too
  • Hot Beans – Phickle
• Fermented Pearl Onions
  • Pickled Onions – Cultures for Health
  • Lacto-Fermented Pearl Onions – Gratefully Nourished
• Pickled Cauliflower
  • Garlicky Cauliflower – Pickle Me Too
  • Curried Lacto-fermented Cauliflower – Cultures for Health
  • Lacto-Fermented Pickled Vegetables – The Kitchn
  • Indian Spiced Lactofermented Cauliflower – Delicious Obsessions
• Fermented Hummus
  • Preserved Lemon Hummus – Phickle
• Pickled Eggs
  • Technicolor Pickled Eggs –The Fermentista’s Kitchen
• Cheese
  • Cheesemaking Recipes –Cultures for Health
  • Basic Vegan Fermented Cashew Cheese – The Fermentation Podcast

Side Dishes

• Fermented Cranberry Sauce
  • Cran-Apple Relish– Cultures for Health
  • Fermented Apple Cranberry Chutney– Cultures for Health
  • Fermented Cranberry Sauce– Oh Lardy
  • Spicy Fermented Cranberry Orange Relish – Homemade Mommy
  • 6 Stunning and Nourishing Cranberry Sauces – GNOWFGLINS
• Fermented Pumpkin Butter
  • Fermented Pumpkin Butter – Oh Lardy
• Fermented Apple Sauce
  • Fermented Applesauce – Pickle Me Too
• Fermented Sweet Potatoes
  • Fermenting Sweet Potatoes– The Fermentista’s Kitchen
• Roasted Roots & Veggies
  • Roasted Potatoes, Carrots, Parsnips and Brussels Sprouts – Food Network
  • Caramelized Butternut Squash – Food Network
  • Roasted Cauliflower With Dates and Pine Nuts – Food Network
• Soup
  • Pickle Soup– The Fermentista’s Kitchen
• Fermented Mushrooms
  • Fermented Mushrooms– Oh Lardy

Breads & Grains

• Sourdough Bread
  • Artisan Multigrain No-Knead Bread Recipe – The Fermentation Podcast

Desserts

• Pie
  • Pumpkin Pie (gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free) – GNOWFGLINS

Drinks

• Cider
  • How to Make Hard Cider From Whole Apples, Without a Press – And Here We Are
• Fermented Sodas
  • How to Make Fermented Blackberry Soda – And Here We Are
  • How to Make Rhubarb & Honey Soda (With Lacto-Fermentation!) – And Here We Are
  • Episode 4 – How to Make Ginger Beer, Ginger Ale, and Lacto-Fermented Soda – The Fermentation Podcast
• Kombucha
  • Spicy Pineapple Cranberry Kombucha – Pickle Me Too

Fermented Thanksgiving Recipes In General

• Have a Healthier, Cultured Thanksgiving – Cultures for Health

Savory Brown Mushroom Gravy Recipe

Ingredient List 1:

1 1/2 cups veggie broth or water

1 onion, finely chopped

1 16oz container cremini button mushrooms or baby portobellos, finely diced and sliced

1 tsp dried thyme

Ingredient List 2:

1 1/2 cups cashew milk (or other nondairy milk)

4 T soy sauce or tamari (or 3/4 tsp salt)

black pepper

1/2 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Bring ingredient list 1 to boil in a pot, then simmer until fully cooked.
2. Add ingredient list 2 and stir.
3. Spoon out a bowl full of chunks and set aside.
4. Pour remaining into a blender and blend until smooth or insert an immersion blender into pot to blend until smooth
5. Pour chunks back into the gravy

Crock Pot Stuffing Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups chopped onions

1 1/2 cups thinly sliced celery

1 cup diced tart apple, peeled and cored

1/4 cup butter

1 tablespoon ground sage

1 teaspoon ground marjoram

3 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon savory (or sage)

1/2 teaspoon thyme

12 cups lightly toasted bread, cubes

1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped

1 1/2 cups vegetable stock

Directions:

1. In a large fry pan sautee onions, celery and apple in butter until onion is just translucent.
2. Stir in sage, marjoram, salt, pepper, savory and thyme.
3. Combine vegetable mixture with the bread cubes and parsley.
4. Toss well.
5. Pour stock over mixture, tossing well.
6. Spoon into your crock-pot.
7. Cover and cook on high for one hour.
8. Reduce to low and continue cooking for 1-2 hours, stirring every hour.

LINKS FOR TODAY’S SHOW:

• Subscribe to Email (to get updates on blogs & new shows)
• Subscribe on iTunes
• Subscribe on Stitcher Radio (Android, iPhone, etc.)
• Like us on Facebook
• Follow us on Twitter
• Follow our boards on Pinterest
• The Survival Podcast – Thanksgiving Special 2013

I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s show so be sure to comment below or if you have an idea for the show, email me at paul at fermentationpodcast.com or just click on the Contact button on top of this page and fill out the form. I look forward to hearing from you!