My favorite way to preserve berries is to use a tweaked lacto-fermented preserves recipe in Nourishing Traditions. Using lacto-fermentation increases vitamins, enzymes and probiotics, making these preserves even better than the berries alone. What conventional jam can boast that? I will demonstrate these preserves as well as a few variations in the fermenting class.

I recently tweaked my mom’s famous cranberry-orange-apple relish recipe to add a fermentation stage. Natural fermentation adds probiotic benefits and beneficial acids for the gut, as well as increases the vitamins and enzymes. As if that weren’t enough, this relish (like many other lacto-fermented foods) is incredibly yummy. If you start a batch early this week, it will be ready for Christmas dinner.

Lots of people have emailed me over the years for a homemade ketchup recipe, and I’ve emailed back a basic, loose recipe that gets us by. But now I’m pleased to share Erin’s recipe! It offers more flavor and is lacto-fermented for greater nutrition and a longer shelf life. Enjoy!

Today is the Lacto-Fermentation Blog Carnival hosted by Annette @ Sustainable Eats. In 2010, she’s changing her preservation strategy from primarily canning to lacto-fermentation. Her family will be eating even more seasonally, and putting up foods using traditional lacto-fermentation methods that increase nutrition. For the blog carnival, I’m sharing the lacto-fermented mayonnaise I made last week. I combined two recipes to create a mayo that worked with what I already had in my pantry.