Chili con Poco Carne

     I was surprised to look back at my blog and find that I had already blogged about this particular recipe (specifically, about the vegan version of this recipe).  See http://insearchoftheperfectmacaroniandcheese.blogspot.com/2011/04/vegan-chili.html However, since I had made this recipe out of a library book that I then had to return, I don't have the recipe written down in the blog.  I now own that book (The Food Matters Cookbook by Mark Bittman) and, remembering how much I liked the vegan variation so much, I decided to try to make the original recipe with meat.  And, boy, is it amazing!

Chili con Poco Carne from Mark Bittman's The Food Matters Cookbook

Notes from the author: "A perfect example of how a little bit of meat can go a long way.  For a vegetarian version, just leave out the meat- better yet, try the variation.  Either way, this recipe, which reheats beautifully, makes extra for your fridge or freeze.

Makes: 6-8 servings
Time: About 1 hour with cooked or canned beans

Ingredients:

3 tbsp. olive oil
1 lb. beef chuck, pork shoulder, or lamb shoulder, cut into small cubes
Salt and black pepper
1 large onion, chopped
2 tbsp. minced garlic
1 large or 2 small eggplants, cubed
1 zucchini, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 cup quartered mushrooms or a handful of rinsed dried porcini
1 (or more) fresh or dried hot chile (like jalapeno or Thai), minced
1 tbsp. cumin, or to taste
1 tbsp. chopped fresh oregano, or 1 tsp. dried
2 cups chopped tomatoes (canned are fine; include their juice)
4 cups cooked or canned kidney, pinto, or black beans, drained, liquid reserved
2 cups vegetable stock or water, or more as needed
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro or parsley, for garnish

Procedure:

1) Put the oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat.  A minute later, add the meat, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is well browned all over, about 10 minutes.  remove the meat from the pan and pour off all but 3 tbsp. of the fat.

2) Put the pot over medium heat.  Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring, until just softened, about 3 minutes.  Add the vegetables, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring frequently, until they begin to soften and become fragrant, adjusting the heat so that nothing scorches.  After 10 to 15 minutes, the vegetables should start to brown a bit and dry out.

3) Add the chile, cumin, and oregano and stir.  Add the tomatoes with their juice and enough of the bean-cooking liquid to submerge everything (use some stock or water if you don't have enough) and return the meat to the pan.  Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower the heat so it bubbles steadily.  Cover and cook, stirring occasionally and adding more liquid if necessary, until the meat is fork-tender and the flavors have mellowed, 30 to 40 minutes.  Add the beans and more liquid if necessary, and cook just long enough to heat the beans through, only a couple minutes.  Taste and adjust the seasoning.  Garnish with the cilantro and serve.

Here's the vegan variation, in case you are interested:

Chili non Carne: Omit the meat from Step 1.  At the beginning of Step 2, add 2 chopped red bell peppers and 2 tbsp. tomato paste along with the garlic and onion.  Let the mixture brown a bit, stirring frequently so the tomato paste doesn't burn, and proceed with the recipe.

I made this recipe very slightly different from the way it is written above:
     I used more meat than written, as the pork shoulder came as one tied-together lump of meat.  1.8 lbs instead of 1 lb.  Also, I discovered something about pork shoulder: Pork shoulder is very fatty.  Don't be a lazy doofus like me and think that one should not trim off the fat before one starts to cook it.  Despite what I thought, pork fat does not melt off into the pan.  I thought I could just pour off the fat later once I cooked the pork.  Instead, it stays right on the meat.  This, of course, means that when one adds the meat back in, one has to go through each piece laboriously and trim the fat from the meat with one's fingers.  Because eating big pieces of fat with a little bit of meat attached is just gross!  So trim the fat off ahead of time.
     Being a stew, I knew that the exact proportions of vegetables wasn't really that important.  I used two crookneck squash instead of zucchini as that was what I had in the house.  I also added in some beet greens because I wanted to use them and I figured they'd be good in the chile.  I added in the whole can of chopped tomatoes because I didn't feel like measuring it.  I had some leftover frozen chicken stock, so I used that instead of vegetable stock.  I have no idea how much stock was added in.  Same with the beans.  I happened to have a bunch of leftover cooked black beans.  Just threw them in there.  I think I used four carrots instead of 2, because they were small and I felt like it.  I also used about 6 New Mexico Green Chiles because they are a superior chile.  Highly recommend that addition if you happen to have fresh New Mexico green chiles (or frozen ones, like we do).  They add in so much flavor!  I think the cumin really makes this dish.  At the end, we didn't have cilantro or parsley around, so we didn't do the garnish.  And it was okay!
     Anyways, as you can see, it is a very flexible recipe that really comes out amazingly.  This is definitely something that I would make again!  Plus, you do get a lot of leftovers for the next day!  Mmmmm....

Chili con Poco Carne.  See all the delicious vegetables in there?

Covered with daiya cheese (A type of vegan cheese).  

Banana nut bread

     Don't you love it when you get inspiration from the ingredients you have laying around the house?  Case in point: Two very brown (almost black) bananas that we had lying in our fruit bowl.  Old bananas instantly make me think of banana nut bread, as the very best banana bread is made from very ripe bananas.  As it turns out, the recipe needed three bananas, so I ended up using two very ripe bananas and one regular ripe one, but it all came out wonderfully!

Banana Bread
By Mark Bittman
From the How to Cook Everything^® app

Introduction:

The best banana bread is a balancing act: It requires a fair amount of fat to keep it moist and lighten the crumb; a little whole wheat flour gives it some substance. And in my opinion the result should be sweet, but not overly so. Though coconut is my favorite secret ingredient, feel free to omit it or add more nuts, raisins, or other dried fruit instead if you like. This bread keeps better than most quick breads, though it probably won't be around too long.

Ingredients:

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, softened, plus butter for the pan
• 1½ cups all‐purpose flour
• ½ cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 very ripe bananas, mashed with a fork until smooth
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans
• ½ cup shredded coconut

Procedure:

1. Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9- x 5‐inch loaf pan with butter.
2. Mix together the dry ingredients. With a hand mixer, a whisk, or in the food processor, cream the butter and beat in the eggs and bananas. Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients, just enough to combine (it's okay if there are lumps). Gently stir in the vanilla, nuts, and coconut.
3. Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until nicely browned. A toothpick inserted in the center of the bread will come out fairly clean when done, but because of the bananas this bread will remain moister than most. Do not overcook. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes before removing from the pan.

Courtesy of John Wiley & Sons. Copyright © Double B Publishing Inc. All rights reserved.

Banana nut bread, slightly under-baked

     Notes on this version of the recipe:  The recipe you see above is from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything app for the iPod.  I actually made this recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything book.  My version of the book has a yellow cover and was published in 1998.  His newest version has a red cover and was published ten years later.  Now, I had been quite curious about this version, but didn't want to shell out the money to buy the newest version of a book I already had.  Fortunately, when I bought my iPod, I found there was an app for "How to cook everything."  Curious, I bought it and loved it!  I get to have my go-to cookbook at my fingertips when I travel without having to lug the whole darn thing around with me (the book is quite hefty!).  Plus, I get access to all of the new recipes.  Best of all, it only cost like $10 and you can e-mail the recipes to someone.  This is so much easier than copying the recipe by hand for my blog.

     In the original version of this recipe, his introduction is as follows: "I love banana bread (especially toasted, the next day, with peanut butter), but I have been making them for thirty years and I do think this one is the ultimate- the coconut is what does it, although the butter helps too."  It also specifies to use grated dried unsweetened coconut, which I think is an important specification as I don't think the recipe would quite be as good with the ultra sugary shredded coconut you get in the baking section of grocery stores.  By the way, it really is delicious toasted the next day with peanut butter.  

     

     Notes on an ingredients substitution:  I am trying to go dairy-free for a month to see if dairy affects me adversely at all.  I started on February 7th (and cheated around Valentine's day) and will end on my husband's birthday, March 7th.  So, instead of butter, I used Earth Balance's organic coconut spread.  You could not taste any difference in the final product, but it was definitely a lot more difficult to mix in the batter than butter would have been.

     Notes on how the recipe came out:  Delicious!  Alas, even though I tried the toothpick test (and it came out clean), I under-baked it and so the center top part was more dough than bread.  Too lazy to re-bake it, I just ate it dough and all.  I'd recommend baking it.  Not as delicious to eat banana nut bread dough!  And, to confound the problem, the bottom started burning.  Gotta love ovens...

     I've made this recipe once before and I remember Scott just thinking it was "okay."  He didn't really think the coconut added all that much to the recipe.  However, this time around, he absolutely loved it coconut and all.  I personally think the coconut really does add to the recipe.  I could not stop eating it and neither could Scott.  How quickly it was eaten in our house.  And now I have three bananas in my fruit basket that are turning a lovely shade of brown.  Perhaps some banana nut bread is in my immediate future...

Sticky rice with mangoes (attempt #2)

     Not having been 100% satisfied with my previous attempt to make my favorite of all Thai desserts (see http://insearchoftheperfectmacaroniandcheese.blogspot.com/2012/07/adventures-in-thai-cooking.html), I decided to make it a second time trying a new recipe.  Perhaps my (relatively) new Thai cookbook, Thai Cuisine Beyond Curry by Chef Chai Siriyarn would do the trick.  I got this cookbook from my favorite Thai restaurant in San Francisco, Marnee Thai (http://www.marneethaisf.com/), that my friend Andrew and I discovered on a whim a few years ago.  Amazing food!  Alas, the first time I went to the restaurant I saw they offered a cookbook written by the Head Chef/Founder, but I didn't buy it.  I immediately regretted the fact, but couldn't find the cookbook anywhere.  So, when Scott, Andrew and I went back to the restaurant this summer, I knew that I would have to buy the book.  It is quite a fun book (it even tells you how to make your own curry pastes) and comes autographed by the author.  If you are ever in San Francisco, I definitely recommend going to Marnee Thai.  Buy the cookbook if you are at all interested in Thai cooking.  And prepare to have fun!  Now, onto the recipe:

Sticky rice with mangoes (kao niaw ma muang) from Thai Cuisine Beyond Curry by Cahi Siriyarn of Marnee Thai Restaurant

Ingredients:

2 cups sticky rice, soaked overnight or at least 4-6 hours
1/3 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tbsp. salt
2 pandanus leaves

Coconut Topping:
1 cup coconut milk
1 1/2 tbsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tbsp. rice flour

1 tbsp. mung beans, to serve
2 mangoes, sliced, to serve

Procedure:

1) Drain the soaked rice and place in a steamer lined with cheesecloth.  Steam until grains are soft, about 20-25 minutes (20 minutes if the rice was soaked overnight).

2) While rice is steaming, combine coconut milk, sugar, salt and pandanus leaves in a bowl; mix well.  Microwave for 2 minutes to dissolve salt and sugar; set aside.

3) When sticky rice is done, transfer  from steamer to a bowl.  While rice is still hot, add the coconut milk mixture.  Using a rubber spatula, stir to coat the grains quickly and evenly.  Cover with plastic wrap and set aside for 15 minutes for  rice to absorb the sauce.

4) To make the coconut topping, combine coconut milk, sugar and salt in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat.  In a bowl, blend rice flour with 1 tablespoon of water and mix well to dissolve the rice flour.  While the coconut sauce is simmering, slowly drizzle in the rice flour slurry and stir constantly.  Return to a boil, immediately remove from heat and set aside.

5) Soak mung beans in hot water for 1 hour.  Drain, pat dry and toast in a nonstick saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until they are light brown and crispy.  Set aside.

6) To serve, place a small amount of sticky rice onto a plate with mango slices arranged on the side.  Pour 1-2 tablespoons of the coconut topping over sticky rice and sprinkle with toasted mung beans.

     And how did it come out?  Certainly a lot better than my first recipe.  Unfortunately, the first time I tried it I was still in the throes of a cold and so I couldn't really taste anything.  It tasted like it should be a lot better, but I couldn't really tell with my nose all stuffed up.  Fortunately, I had a lot of leftovers which keep for a surprisingly long time.  Some time later (I forget how long), Scott and I were requested to bring dessert for an Asian-themed dinner over at Lynnelle and Derek's.  So, I made a little more coconut topping, bought some fresh mangoes, and brought it over.  When I tasted it the second time, I could immediately tell that it tasted a lot better than my previous recipe and a lot closer to restaurant quality.  However, I still feel like there is still something missing, like the flavor is not quite as intense as I would like.  It is hard to put my finger on it.  I'll have to order this dessert it from a restaurant and do a mental comparison.  Now, on to the nit-picky details about the recipe itself:

     First of all, I have a little bit of a bone to pick with how this recipe is set up.  It doesn't mention soaking the mung beans until step 5 (almost the last step)!  This means that, if you are like me, and don't read the recipe ahead of time as carefully as you should have, you are stuck with an almost ready to go recipe but no mung beans to put on top!  Frustrating (and a good lesson about reading the complete recipe ahead of time)!  Not only that, but after waiting an hour, I found out that I wasn't the biggest fan of the mung beans on top in the first place.  For starters, the mung beans I had have their skin on so the flavor wasn't quite the same.  I don't feel they add much to the dish at all, although Scott loved having them separately as a snack.  So, when I had to make this dish a second time, I used the toasted coconut topping that from my first sticky rice and mango recipe.  I like it much better as a topping.
     I also didn't find "pandanus" leaves at the Asian market, but I did find "pandang" leaves in the frozen section which I am pretty sure are the same thing.  I think the leaves do add in some flavor, but it is hard to tell.  I once again had the problem of not having the right type of steamer (see my amok recipe), so I used my rice cooker.  Fortunately, it came out just fine. I did like the addition of the rice flour to the coconut topping.  It makes the topping a lot thicker and so the dessert resembles it's restaurant version even more.  Now, if only I could figure out why this isn't 100% like the restaurant version.  It's very frustrating, but still very good!

Sticky rice with mangoes

Potato pancakes

     After making all that sauerkraut, I thought it would only be appropriate to have a German-style meal of Bratwurst sausages (two kinds), sauerkraut and potato pancakes.  So, here you go:

Potato Pancakes, version II (from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything)

Ingredients:

About 2 lbs. baking potatoes, such as Idaho or Russet, peeled
1 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. any oil or butter

Procedure:

1) Grate the potatoes by hand or with the grating disk of a food processor; drain very briefly, pressing lightly.  Mix in salt.
2) Heat the oil or butter over medium heat, preferably in a large, seasoned cast-iron or non-stick skillet.  Drop potatoes in by large spoonfuls, flattening the pancakes with the back of the spoon.  Don't try to turn them until they're brown and crisp on the first side.  Turn and continue cooking until brown and crisp on the second side, about 6 to 8 minutes total.

     And that's it.  Those who have been reading my blog would probably guess that I didn't peel the potatoes.  They'd be right.  And potatoes are super easy to grate in the food processor (have I mentioned how much I love that thing?).  I should mention that Mark Bittman also includes a traditional potato pancake recipe (latke) in his book as well as a variation to this recipe which calls for one big potato pancakes, but I just did the simple one used here.  I had had this recipe in the past and remembered enjoying it.  Alas, for one reason or another (I think my stove just doesn't produce enough BTUs for really hot cooking), it took forever for the pancakes to cook.  And, by the time they were cooked, they were mostly crisp all the way through and not the crispy-on-the-outside but potatoey-on-the-inside that I was looking for.  So, I would make it again, but perhaps not on the stove.  Or perhaps, next time, I'll try the latke variation.  Either way about it, the version I made was too crispy and oily.  Oh well.  The sausage and sauerkraut variation was very good.

One of my better potato pancakes

Sausages and a bit of a burnt potato pancake.  As you can see
from the juices left on the plate, I had already eaten all of my sauerkraut.

     One of the several (!) cookbooks I get is Bon Appetit.  This month's edition had a recipe for a hot porridge that acted kind of like slow cooker oatmeal (i.e., let it sit overnight and it's pretty much ready in the morning).  Since I was subbing for my old job and had to leave early in the morning for a 40 minute commute, I thought it might be fun to have something hot.  Here is the recipe:

Hot Oat & Quinoa Cereal 

If you think quinoa is only good for savory salads and pilafs, you're missing out. Pair it with steel-cut oats to amplify its hearty flavor. A little maple syrup brings out its sweet side.

4 servings

Recipe by Carla Lalli

Photograph by Christina Holmes

February 2013

• Bring 1/2 cup dried fruit (such as goji berries, cranberries, or barberries), 1/2 cup steel-cut oats, 1/2 cup well-rinsed quinoa, 1/4 cup raisins, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoons ground cardamom, and 4 cups water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Cover and let sit off heat overnight. (Alternatively, bring mixture to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until grains are tender, 20-25 minutes.)
• Before serving, reheat cereal in saucepan, covered, over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally and adding water if needed, until warmed through, 5-8 minutes. Serve with milk, maple syrup, toasted shelled pumpkin seeds (pepitas), and toasted walnuts.

Customize it

The ratio of grains to water is the only part that's not ripe for riffs.

• Fruits

  Swap in chopped dried apricots for the dried fruit, or top with grated apple in fall, fresh peaches in summer.

• Grains

  Instead of quinoa, use semi-pearled barley for a chunkier texture.

• Nuts and Seeds

  Crunch is a must. Try sliced almonds or hemp seeds.

Read More http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2013/02/hot-oat-and-quinoa-cereal#ixzz2LVonPe8A

     Alas, the results were far from stellar.  I think part of it is my fault (I was lazy the night before and didn't rinse the quinoa), but the porridge just had a kind of bitter uncooked quinoa kind of taste.  I ate it for a couple of breakfasts in a row and then just threw the whole thing out.  I would definitely try the recipe again (this time with rinsed quinoa), but, so far, I definitely like my slow cooker oatmeal way better.  Now, if only I could find my slow cooker...

Running amok

     A few months ago, Scott and I discovered a restaurant called Jia Tella's in Scotts Valley, CA that serves delicious Cambodian food (check out their website at http://jiatellas.com/).  Never having had Cambodian food before, we weren't quite sure what to expect but were pleasantly surprised with the food.  Cambodian food is kind of like a not so spicy version of Thai food, with unique aspects all its own.  One of Scott's favorite things to order from the restaurant was the Catfish amok.  This is a dish that is a combination of catfish, eggs and curry that is steamed in a giant banana leaf.  Knowing how much he loved it, I decided to try and find a recipe for amok and make it on my own.  
     The result is quite delicious! Scott said that it tasted just like Jia Tella's catfish amok. To my taste buds, my food processor didn't do quite as good a job of mincing everything together, so the result was "chunkier" than I would perhaps like it to be. It still had a great flavor. But it took way way way long than the "30 minute" prep time.  Just skinning and boning the catfish alone took over an hour (this coming from someone who had never skinned a fish before). I think next time I'll just buy skinless white fish meat. 
     The other difficult part came in putting the banana leaf together (not very clear instructions given) and then steaming the whole darn thing.    I kind of just made up how to fold the banana leaves (which, by the way, were huge!). We only have a rice cooker (with no steamer basket), so I did my best to fit these two huge amok things in the pot with a little bit of water on the bottom. It did the trick but it took cooking it twice in a row and emptying the water out of the final result. Still, it was fun and worth it!

Catfish amok (from http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/tv-show-recipes/gordons-great-escape-recipes/amok-cambodian-steamed-fish-curry-recipe)

Note: Takes 30 minutes to prepare, plus 20 minutes steaming time

Ingredients:

For the curry paste (kroeung)

• 3 dried chillies, soaked
• 6 cloves garlic
• 2 shallots or 1 red onion, diced
• 2 inch piece fresh turmeric root or 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 4 sticks of lemongrass, trimmed of woody bits
• 2 inch piece of galangal, peeled
• 2 inch piece of ginger, peeled
• 6 kaffir lime leaves or the zest of a citron fruit (look in Asian shops)
• 1 tbsp shrimp paste

For the curry (amok)

• 400g of meaty fish (with skin if possible) eg hake, pollock, cod
• 400ml coconut milk (a standard can)
• 1 tbsp palm or brown sugar
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 eggs
• 2 large banana leaves, washed (look in Asian or Caribbean shops)

To garnish

• 1 fresh red chilli, seeds removed
• 2 kaffir lime leaves

Procedure:

1. Make the curry paste by blitzing in a blender.
2. Heat 1 tbsp vegetable oil in a saucepan and then add the curry paste and fry till fragrant (about a minute). Then add the coconut milk, sugar and fish sauce and simmer for 5 minutes. Leave to cool.
3. Remove the fish skin, slice it into small strips and keep to one side. Dice the fish into bite sized chunks.
4. Beat the eggs gently into the cooled coconut milk mixture and add the chunks of fish. This is your amok. Set the amok to one side.
5. Take one banana leaf and fold in half so it makes a square. Overlap two corners of the square and secure with a cocktail stick. Overlap the other two corners and do the same. You should get a rough bowl or cup shape with no gaps. Repeat with the other banana leaf to get two bowls.
6. Place the banana leaf bowls in a steamer and divide the amok into them equally. Steam the amok for 20 minutes. It should form a lightly set custard.
7. Meanwhile, dust the fish skin strips with flour, salt and pepper and then fry in a little vegetable oil till crisp. Drain and set to one side.
8. Sliver the fresh red chilli and the kaffir lime leaves for the garnish.
9. When the amok is ready, just before serving, scatter the fried fish skin, slivered chilli and slivered lime leaves on top. Eat with steamed rice.

Amok in its banana leaf wrapping

Peaking inside the wrapping.  In the foreground, you can see
the steam arising from the amok.  In the foreground, you can
see the Thai Iced Tea I also made for this meal.

Here's what the amok looks like sans banana leaf

Adventures in Fermentation

     What with one thing and another, I am once again late on blog posts.  Now, not all of this is my fault.  For example, I started my fermentation projects a little under a month ago, but I had to wait over three weeks to post the results (had to take time to ferment).  I'm not quite sure what sparked my interest again.  Perhaps it was Sandor Ellix Katz coming out with a new book The Art of Fermentation.  Or maybe it was me borrowing said book from the library.  The catalyst was finding a kombucha "mother" at a friend's place (more on that later), but I was thinking about it before then.  Anyways, for whatever reason, I've started fermenting two products: kombucha tea and sauerkraut.

Kombucha tea (from http://www.kombuchakamp.com)

Note: 1 gallon recipe (scale up or down as necessary).  In order to make kombucha, one needs a kombucha mother or SCOBY (short for symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast).  This looks like a white blob that contains the necessary bacteria/yeast to ferment the tea into kombucha.  You can look online for kombucha mother sources.  You can make your kombucha in a glass mason jar or glass beverage dispenser or other containers.  Kombuchakamp.com is a great source for kombucha questions.

Ingredients:

1 cup organic sugar
4-6 bags of tea (either black or green [not decaffeinated])
starter culture (a.k.a. Kombucha mother or SCOBY)
1 cup starter liquid
purified water

Procedure:

1) Boil 4 cups of water in a sauce pan.  Turn off the heat and add the tea bags to the pan.
2) Steep 5-10 minutes and then remove the bags.  Add sugar and stir to dissolve.
3) Fill your brewing vessel 3/4 full with cold water.  Make sure the temperature is below body temperature.
4) Add SCOBY and then the starting liquid.  The starting liquid is either kombucha tea or vinegar.
5) Cover with a cotton cloth secured with a rubber band.  Set in a warm, airy location out of direct sunlight and away from aromatic or greasy food preparation.  Do not disturb for seven days.
6) After seven days, use a straw and taste your kombucha.  Let it brew for a bit longer if it is too sweet.  If it is too acidic, let it brew for a shorter period of time.
7) The next step depends upon what you brewed it in.  If you brewed it in a glass beverage container, you simply siphon off some kombucha into a pitcher and start the process over again.  If you brewed it in mason jars, you have to remove the mother into another jar (with about a cup of the kombucha tea) and add fresh tea/sugar mixture again (like you are starting from the top).
8) Either way about it, you should now have a container with fresh kombucha tea.  You can either drink it as is, or ferment it again with other flavors.  See kombuchakamp.com for ideas.  I like putting a little bit of strawberry and lemon juice.  You let it sit out for 24 hours or so to secondarily ferment and then put it in the fridge.
9) Enjoy!  Kombucha is supposed to be very healthy for you.  Certainly cheaper than buying it from the store!!

A picture of the kombucha "mother" 

My kombucha set up

Secondary fermentation with strawberries

Time capsule of the kombucha mother forming.  Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8.  I let this one brew a bit longer as I was sick/working
and didn't have the energy/time to deal with it

That's it.  Kombucha is pretty easy to make.  So far, I've enjoyed it with the strawberry lemonade secondary ferment.  I'm still working on getting it a little more effervescent, but it at least has a good taste to it.

Sauerkraut (based upon Sandor Ellix Katz's Wild Fermentation).  

Here's Sandor Katz's You Tube video of making sauerkraut:

Ingredients:

1 head of green cabbage, cored and sliced thinly
1 (smaller) head of red cabbage, cored and sliced thinly
1 carrot, shredded
2 apples, cored and sliced thinly
caraway seeds
sea salt

Procedure:

1) Prepare all the vegetables and put them in a bowl.  Sprinkle salt and caraway seeds on the vegetables as you go.
2) Mix vegetables together and squeeze them.  You are trying to break the cell walls of the vegetables so they will release moisture.
3) Pack into a fermenting vessel.  I used a large glass mason jar.  Pound (press down) on the vegetables as you pack them in the jar.  You need the vegetables to be submerged under liquid.
4) Put another (smaller) jar on top filled with a brine mixture.  Put a lid on top.
5) Watch it for the first twenty-four hours, pressing down on the top whenever you think of it.  If the vegetables aren't under liquid after twenty-four hours, add a mixture of 1 tbsp. salt with one cup of water until the veggies are submerged.  I put my jar in another small container, as it was leaking brine.
6) Wait.  Some internet recipes say to wait three days, others three weeks or more.  I waited twenty-five days.

Voila!  Fresh sauerkraut!  Sandor Katz does say in the book Wild Fermentation to check it for mold growing on the top.  If you do see mold, remove the mold (and the moldy bits) but your kraut underneath will be just fine.  I saved a few of the outer leaves from the cabbage and folded them and put them on top of the rest of my kraut.  That way, if it developed mold, only the top leaves would be affected.  Fortunately, everything came out fine.  For some reason, my brine level kept dropping so I kept having to add a little more salty water into it.  I'm not sure if my jar was leaking or what was going on.  That is why I recommend putting another small container underneath it, just in case.
My sauerkraut came out delicious!  I think twenty-five days was a bit too long to my taste, as the sauerkraut is definitely sour!  It is so cool to see the kraut bubbling up in the first few days as the bacteria make CO2.  This came out much much better than my first experiment in sauerkraut where I let it ferment for way too long and it all came out moldy (and made our living room stink on floor level for months).  Don't let it ferment for too long (especially in warm weather!).  Still, as long as the veggies are submerged (thus the jar on top acting like a weight), and you don't wait until months later, you should make delicious homemade sauerkraut!  Eat it raw to get the full health benefits.  We enjoyed ours with some bratwurst and potato pancakes!

The initial ingredients: green cabbage, red cabbage, apples, sea salt
and caraway seeds

The vegetable mixture

Putting it in the jar

Pounding it down.  The liquid comes from the vegetables when you
sprinkle salt on them!

Day 1

Day 2.  Notice the brine is at the top.

Day 4.  The sauerkraut is starting to turn pink.

Day 6

Day 9.  It is starting to look even more fermented

Day 15.  Everything is pink!

The final sauerkraut, day 25

Delicious!