SOMETHING NEW

When I had the flu in December the Dr. prescribed Amoxicillin for what he thought was sinusitis.  I took it for 10 days, and it didn't make any difference to what I was suffering.  That convinced me it was a virus not a bacterium that made me ill.  But if you've been on antibiotics you need to repair your intestinal floral, so I did some research on how to go about that.  One highly recommended fix was to eat and drink fermented foods and drinks.  Oh, they didn't mention wine.  Too bad!

I bought some sauerkraut, but when I got it home I saw that it was labeled "pasteurized" and thought, Well, that's not going to do any good!  I consulted Marcy who knows a lot about what to eat and she recommended a sauerkraut sold by Trader Joe's, a house brand.  I bought a bottle and thought it was good, even though I'm not a fan of sauerkraut.

There are no Trader Joe's around here, but I have a new cookbook which has a recipe for home made sauerkraut.

The recipe calls for about 2 lbs. of cabbage, so I went to the grocery store to buy some.  Their cabbages were enormous!  I bought the smallest.  It was 5 and 3/4 lbs.  So we've had lots of cabbage lately.  I made a big pot of minestrone soup and loaded it with cabbage.  We had Ichiban Salad.  Today we had boiled cabbage combined with brown Basmati rice and mild Salsa, with just a wee bit of Sweet Italian sausage.  It was very good!  And then I cut up about 2 lbs (I was guessing) of cabbage

added the salt and caraway seeds, 

and let it stand for a while.  Then I massaged it until it wilted--those were the directions!

I know that cabbage is traditionally made in a crock.  I don't have a crock but I have a crock pot and thought that would do.

The next directions said to put it in an airtight container and cover it with some of the reserved outer leaves.  I did that.

Next step: cover it with a towel and secure that with a rubber band.  O.K.

And finally, place it out of direct sunlight and keep it at room temperature for 24 hours, occasionally pressing it down with the back of a spoon.  I put it in the downstairs bathroom, which has no window and is usually one of the warmest places in the house when the furnace runs--which has been most of the time lately.

After that I just need to let it ferment for 3 to 10 days and then store in the fridge.  Well, let's see what happens!  I'm a great fan of making food from scratch.  We like to have a summer garden for fresh produce and preserving.  As I said in the post about making our own pizza: that way we know we have REAL FOOD!