Home made Kimchee - fermentation fascintion

I have been fermenting foods for healthy eating for most of the year.  Summer time I make sour pickles to go with my many summer bbq's.  Winter time I eat a lot of soups and asian style often, amking dashi's with kombu and bonito flakes and adding egg and shrimp or clams, wakame and clear bean thread noodles.  garnished with kimchee, or a spicyKorean style octopus stir fry over rice with kimchee garnish.  you get the idea.
Kimchee is very simple.  and the ratio I find to be perfect is this
2lbs of napa cabbage cut into quarters length wise and  then cut the quarters into thirds
soak in salted water completely submerged (1/2 cup of kosher salt) for two hours up to 24 hours.
then rinse and completely dry.
mix with 1 medium daikon radish cut into match sticks
1/3 cup of corse ground Korean chili powder
1/4 cup of preserved shrimp (or fish sauce)  I prefer the shrimp.  not as salty and a mellower nicer flavor profile in the end
a half a dozen chinese scallion (regular scallions will do in a pinch)  I very much prefer the chinese ones
2 inch pice of ginger and a small head of garlic minced fine
1tsp sugar or honey or agave.  your choice of sweetener

mix all of the ingredients and put in a large Ball Jar with a sealed top and set out on the counter in a cool place.  for the next two days crack the lid and let the gas out.  then let it sit for a total of six or seven days.  at this point the kimchee has settled by about a third of the way down and I transfer the Kimchi two two medium Ball jars and seal them up and into the fridge.  they will last well into a month.  they rarely last that long in my fridge because I eat it!

these measurements are guides and the result is a beautiful spicy pungent kimchi.

dont get hung up on exact measurements...  your kimchee will be fine.  and you can adjust if it is too salty gingery or garlicky for your tastes from there.

eat like poor people - comfort food - congee

I was first introduced to congee when I lived in lower Manhattan, pretty much Chinatown.  It was full of Chinese immigrants cooking authentic chinese food.  And aside from 5 for dollar dumplings, congee was the cheapest comfort food you could buy.  It seemed simple enough, a porridge made of rice, garnished with white pepper, hot oil, chili paste, soy, red vinegar, peanuts...   and you can add anything to this porridge to flavor it...  there was close to 2 or  3 dozen choices at congee village maybe 100...  from shrimp to preserved fish to lobster, chicken, frog legs, duck hearts, duck blood, pig intestine,  abalone, snail, liver what ever you pleasure in any combination.  One of my favorites was dry scallop and these little white nuts.  It came to the table steaming and bubbling in ceramic bowl that must have been heated in 500+ degree oven and stayed warm until consumed...  always too hot to eat at the table.
a Congee was available at every corner in chinatown just about so I never attempted making it until I moved back to Texas....  no congee in Texas that I know of.
Most recipe's I saw just called for water and sushi rice or jasmine rice or a combination...  Either will do what ever you have or try the difference and whatever your pleasure I used sushi rice.  Brown rice would work and be very healthy too.
I started by making a stock from about 2 lbs of organic chicken necks $1.96 and added a few marrow bones I had laying around + celery stalk, carrot, 1/4 onion, a few garlic cloves and some chinese ginger root.  I cooked that for a couple of hours and let cool.  strain and refrigerate.
The next morning I soaked a cup of sushi rice.  and changed the water three times in an hour.  last time I used a hand blender to chop up the rice into finer grains.  strained and added to the stock which I was reheating after skimming the fat.  I add a little more ginger root here.  and on a med low heat stirring frequent to occasionally to make sure the rice does not stick to the bottom.  recipe's call for 8 to one stock.  I go 10 to 1 and  might even add two more cups of water and let it go longer than the required hour and a half.  I like mine extra creamy with small grains still intact.  for this I broke out the hand blender and creamed the congee quickly and pulsing (after removing the ginger).  I place the ginger back after this...  all this does is speed things up a bit.  your congee will cream if you stir and let if go long enough....  no hand blender?  you can crush the rice with mortar and pestle in the first step...  for the little salt content I add 1 TBS of fish sauce.

now I have congee for the next few days in my fridge and I add few shrimp to that  right before serving
cooked in the congee.  I garnish with chinese scallion, white pepper, and home made Kimchi.  One of the classic additions to classic congee is preserved salted cabbage...  I always have kimchi on had so I add that...  and I am back in the comfort of the L.E.S. and the whole meal costs me about 3 or four bucks  that will last me several days.  I can add chicken or just plain congee with kimchee... or mix it up with what ever I have in the fridge.  This is such a health way to start the day or end the day on a cold winter night... or anytime really.  I pour myself some hot tea.  and feel blessed.