Recipe from Ferment Your Vegetables Nominated for a 2016 EDDY Award

Amanda Feifer's "Bull's Eye Beet Kvass" recipe from her book, Ferment Your Vegetables, has been nominated for a 2016 EDDY Award. Award winners will be announced June 15.

The EDDYs celebrates editorial excellence among nearly 90 publishers of Edible Communities covering the local food landscape across the U.S. and Canada. A panel of 50+ esteemed judges selected the finalists, visitors to EdibleFeast.com vote for Readers’ Choice winners from among their nominees.

Feifer writes about food fermentation of all kinds on her blog, Phickle.com. When she's not concocting crazy vats of bubbly things in the kitchen or ranting against the use of anti-bacterial soaps, she's doing what she loves most: teaching people to make their own fermented foods, from kimchi and kefir to kombucha and koji. In addition to being nominated, she was selected to be a judge for the 2016 Edible Communities EDDY Awards.

Here's the nominated recipe.

BULL’S-EYE BEET KVASSYield: 9 cups

Ingredients
4 large Chioggia beets (4 pounds)
2 organic, preferably unwaxed, lemons, quartered
8 inches ginger, unpeeled, chopped
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
4 bay leaves
2 allspice berries
4 juniper berries
Up to 1½ tablespoons kosher salt, to taste (optional)
9 cups filtered water

Instructions

• Remove the crown and greens from the beets and reserve for another use. Trim any unattractive bits of root and any soft spots, but leave beets otherwise unpeeled.
• Cut each beet into quarters or eighths, but make sure the pieces are at least 1 inch thick. Scrub and quarter the lemons. Place the ginger, coriander, bay leaves, allspice berries, juniper berries, and salt (if using) into a 1-gallon jar, add the beets and unsqueezed lemon wedges, and pour in the filtered water to fill to 2 inches below the rim. Place the lid on your jar but don’t fully tighten it so that carbon dioxide (a natural product of the fermentation process) can escape.
• Leave it to ferment at room temperature for 7 to 10 days. Give the jar a little swirl every day to prevent surface yeasts from forming. Once you’re happy with the acidity and flavor, strain the liquid into a clean jar, cover and chill before drinking.

You can see more information about Feifer and the award at EdibleFeast.com.