Hey everyone! Hope your holidays were awesome! Santa got me what I wanted so I'm pleased haha! Though it was hectic this christmas, 12 of us all staying in my tiny house and 2 young kids. Wow. Anyway, my Mum does pickles every year for gifts, lime pickle, picalilli, beetroot etc. This year I got a couple of jars!! Both quite large, one is pickled garlic (I use garlic a lot in cooking so very useful!) and some pickled ginger slices. Now these babies are HOT, helped clear my sinuses of my cold xD But sooooo very tasty!

So, it looks like spring is finally here for real, and I am thankful as I was starting to get fed up with winter vegetables :P I've been experimenting with making tsukemono, and I'd like to try making misozuke, however the info and direction I have found online are contrasting, especially about the pickling time, from overnight (for example here http://www.openkitchen.net/cook/carrot/carrot-e.html ) to two weeks, up to three months (like here http://www.theblackmoon.com/Jfood/ftsuke.html#miso) °_°

hi everybody, my mom bought a jar of pickled vegetables (in oil) that is somewhat spicy, and in japanese, it's labeled "cloud bamboo." what kind of vegetable is this? is it a bamboo or something else? thank you.

I need to know how to start cooking from absolute scratch because the area I'm moving to is a very remote area of Montana and you can't just go to the market and get things for dinner. The nearest food store is an hour away in good weather. I went to school for Horticulture and passed with honors, so growing the food is no problem. I have a supplier of Japanese garden seed and another for things like nori and rice, but I need to know how to make my own fermented, pickled, dried, and canned produce.

[I know I haven't been posting a lot of recipes lately...travelling around so much does that to you. So here's a great recipe for vegetarian/vegan kimchi from the forums, by Stephanie.! - maki]

I recently started making my own kimchi, because I was having trouble finding one that was fish free and without a ton of additives. It is super easy and easily customizable. I really like having something a little crunchy, spicy, and salty to go along with my lunch.

Recipe:

Hey there, I have a surplus of Korean Takuan-type pickles (I bought a big pack of beautiful sun-like slices) and was wondering how long one should keep them in the fridge? They're in a tupperware type thingy, but as there was no date on the packaging, I keep getting the fear - I have a bit of an obsession with use-by-dates, which my other half finds very odd. As they are preserved, I figured they could live in there for a while, but as I say...I got the fear now, and so keep using them in EVERY meal in my haste to get through 'em!