I gotta say, it is pretty darn wonderful to be married to a man who is such a good cook and a fermenter-extraordinaire! I really admire Jeff’s courageous and adventurous spirit in the kitchen (and in all things actually.) I like to be “wild” in the kitchen and experiment with new recipes I find that seem really outrageous, but Jeff creates his own recipes entirely, purely inspired in the moment, which amazes me. He’s always coming up with the craziest combinations, which sometimes makes me feel a little leery, but once I taste them I’m hooked.(this is not one of those creations, but took a lot of creativity nonetheless.)

Jeff lived in Japan when he was a boy and has a love and appreciation for Japanese culture. He’s introduced me to a lot of Japanese foods over the years. Awhile ago, he read about a fermented food called natto, that is made with soybeans. Normally, we don’t eat soy in our house because it doesn’t agree with us very well. But we love it if it’s fermented. We enjoy miso and the occasional tempeh. 

Very curious about natto, Jeff picked some up from the Asian grocery store. It was an incredibly good deal (and organic!) The taste was a little strange at first, but the more we ate it, the more we wanted it! It made us both feel so energized and I swear baby kicked even more than usual after I ate it (makes strong babies!) 🙂

So Jeff, being the adventurer that he is, decided to make some natto himself. (The plus sides being that it would be even less expensive, we wouldn’t be buying it in icky styrofoam containers, and we wouldn’t contribute to shipping food across the world… we could just make it in our own kitchen instead!) I love fermenting foods, but this one sounded a little complicated to me. Nonetheless, I had faith in his natto making.

And I am happy to say, that his very first batch was a complete success! We’ve been enjoying an abundance of natto ever since. 

Jeff wrote a blog post about it here: 

(where he included directions and information about some of the reasons why it’s so incredibly good for you.)

I also came across a blog post recently with a video about eating natto for breakfast. 

You can see it here:

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What are some of your favorite fermented foods to make or new foods you’ve tried lately that you love?