Mixed in with walks and outdoor exploring has been time spent setting up our kitchen and figuring out what of our usual favourites we can make with local ingredients. We gave almost all of our kitchen items away before moving, brining a coupe of good knives, a wok, and pickle lids.
We tried to culture our own kombucha from a bottle labeled ‘raw, probiotic’. Nothing happened after several weeks, so I turned to blocket, Sweden’s online market place and spent a Sunday morning training out to a suburb to get a SCOBY and a jar of kombucha to get it started. Mission accomplished!
Small and fragrant Japanese quince 
cored and jamming up 
improvised food mill 
‘pureed’ quince paste 
Contained in what passes for a canning jar in Sweden. Seriously, the lack of mason jars is a real bummer.
I discovered some quince plants on campus. They are much smaller than I have seen before and SO frangrant. We decided to make some jam, which is really nice with cheese. We’ve also made some kombucha with raw quince slices.
I got a used bullet blender for about $15 and toaster for $5, but otherwise haven’t really gotten any appliances. It has been different not to be bamixing and instant pot-ing everything, but good to have a try at simplifying our routine and decide what we REALLY need.
