Good for you, mama_goose! Your gut will be so happy with you making kefir lemonade and cheese. :-) (Sounds yummy. I need to try using the kefir grains I ordered.) Your pantry overflow sounds heavenly. We have lots of extra beef in the freezer, too,but I still manage to go the store at least once a week. I like the canning jar "bonnet" idea, LOL. : )

I rebooted a bunch of stuff this weekend: Restarted some sourdough after a 4 year hiatus, checked on my Kombucha, and fed it some fresh tea. My, that SCOBY was a busy little fellow while being neglected for a few months! Anybody need a SCOBY? We have babies. : ) I also made sauerkraut, and found space for that in the pantry. I mixed in some carrots, onions, and garlic this time. Can't wait to try it.

I haven't started fermenting vegetables yet, but I remember my grandmother's descriptions of making pickles (corn and beans, in addition to cukes) and kraut in crocks, with a clean stone or brick on the lid, to keep the veg submerged in the brine. My grandfather loved eggs pickled in the left-over pickled beet juice.

My dough starters are in the fridge, and haven't been activated for a while. I used the Amish friendship starter for pancakes, when my kids were small, but I rarely make pancakes these days. I need to make a batch of those and some corncakes.

Years ago, on my first round of Kombucha fermenting, I composted the
extra scoby cultures, when I couldn't give them away. I tried using the
tea in homemade soap once, but it seized and curdled the fats, so I
never tried it again.

I don't care for the kefir cheese, but I felt very wasteful not using it in anything but baked goods, which destroys the probiotics. I made a kefir cheese ball, with onion flakes, garlic, and red pepper flakes, when my son was home last week-end. He loved it, and took the remainder when he left, so I'll save the cheese for him. I keep hoping that by drinking the lemonade, I'll develop a taste for the first ferment, but it hasn't happened yet. :[

It won't work in many spaces, but to balance a pretty and messy working area, I split them up. I turned my panty into a back kitchen and then the front part is what I see from the living room. With clever storage ideas, I'm sure you'll be able to accomplish it all in the same space too (perhaps a section where you have a counter with uppers, you could turn into full height storage and have anything you need back there with pocketing doors.. shelves of scoby, even!) I will be making cat food in the back.. still just buying kombucha!

When I am making wine, the large 5 gallon containers can take up a lot of space, so I have them hidden away on pantry shelves. I use my pantry daily, so it is easy to keep track of them. Currently I have carboy lifters to help me move them to kitchen when I need to bottle them, but I will now be using a rolling cart to store/house/move them in the future!

My lake kitchen will have a 5" counter overhang on the right hand side so I can clamp my grinders, strainers, and mills to it and work them with my right arm. My last kitchen had no place to clamp anything down!

Since I use a ton of spices, I keep them in 1 cup canning jars with plastic lids. They are stacked in the open on backsplash area shelves. No need to put in a fancy backsplash -- the colorful mix of labeled spices in matching jars and oil in Rachel ray dispensers lets everyone know this is a working kitchen!

This is my 3rd attempt at sauerkraut. First time was too scary, and I abandoned it. Second time around, I was more adventurous, and scraped the "spooge" off the edges and then tasted the 'kraut. It was SOUR, since I'd let it ferment for a long time (6 weeks or so), but good. Other people's sauerkraut tasted bland in comparison. I'm going to check this new batch at 5 days, and keep checking it every little bit after that til I find "just right".

I know it takes me a while to get used to new favors, so hopefully the more you drink your lemonade, sample the cheese, etc., the more you'll like it. Have you tried store bought Kombucha? I'd love to get that kind of flavor and fizziness in our home brew.

That's great you have space for a back pantry kitchen, Building for the CATS. I think this is an ideal setup, really. AK Tillery's kitchen comes to mind. Our pantry is only about 4x4ish, and has no room for a back counter. I'm thankful for what it holds, but its use is somewhat limited.

The Amish around here often have a second kitchen in the basement. This is their canning area, and is nice for when they host large groups for church and fellowship. One friend used her second kitchen for juicing as part of Gerson therapy for her husband's Lyme disease (He's doing GREAT!) She was really thankful that all that prep and cleanup could happen separate from her everyday kitchen.

Your rolling carts and extended counter sound super helpful, loonlakelaborcamp. I hear you on nowhere to clamp things down, we had issues with that in our old house when we'd go to use the squeezo or the apple peeler.

I love the idea of the canning jars at the backsplash. I think Mamagoose has this too, right? I have my spices under my cooktop, which is pretty handy too. I just need to break down and order storage tins to contain them more neatly. It's a mess under there right now.

I don't think I mind the "working kitchen look" so much as I mind

A.The lack of counter space.

B.When there is clutter on the counters, the kids don't clean up as well (and neither does mom, frankly ; )) It's like the stuff all blends together, and it gets more full and disorganized by the minute, like Scoby's left too long in their dark swampy tea. : )