Tasty Bytes... not just another low carb alternative

Change is a slow process…Due to a food sensitivity to the milk protein casein I’ve been wanting to eliminate dairy from my diet for at least a year. I have been successful in spurts only…can’t shake that darn cheese…

Besides the cheese, one hurdle has been to find a suitable substitute for the milk/cream that I like to put in my chai and coffee. Forget all the packaged milk substitutes out there…soy is no good as I am sensitive to that too. The rest? Almond and Rice ‘milks’ are not ‘creamy’ enough and taste horrible. Plus I don’t like the fact that all of these ‘milks’ are fortified with vitamin D2 aka ergocalciferol. D2 is the synthetic version of vitamin D and has been implicated in calcification of soft tissues - like the lining of your arteries ( Buist RA. Vitamin Toxicities, Side Effects and Contraindications. International Clinical Nutrition Review 4(4), 159-171, 1984.) I much prefer the natural version - D3 (cholecalciferol.)

My high powered K-Tec blender to the rescue

I’ve read recipes for DIY nut milks and they always seems like so much work…soaking, blanching, blending, straining…ugh who has time for all that! So I streamlined the process and have a jar of nut milk in a matter of minutes.

First I soften the nuts. Put a mix of about 1/2 a cup of mostly organic unroasted blanched cashews, a few organic raw natural almonds and a few brazil nuts in 3/4 cup of filtered water in a 3 cup jar. Put this in the refrigerator overnight. The next day I drain and rinse off the nuts and pour into my K-Tec blender with 3/4 cup of filtered water. Then blend on the highest setting for 30 seconds. I add another  1 1/2 to 2 cups of water and blend on high for another 30 seconds. Pour back into the jar and back in the refrigerator. Shake well before using. I use this neutrally flavored creamy concoction as a sub in any recipe calling for milk or cream.

Bonus…this nut milk is chock full of needed minerals like magnesium, zinc, selenium, manganese, calcium and phosphorous. And antioxidants like vitamin E along with good fats like oleic acid (same as found in olive oil) to promote good heart health.

Drink Up!

Oh, yes I am still enamored with Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread. I’m on loaf number 6! Lucky for me I have friends and neighbors who love bread too – otherwise I would be out shopping for new clothes rather than writing this post.

I do love bread but am not so crazy about eating so much refined wheat flour plus grains can be hard to digest and in fact be anti-nutritive. The recipe I have been using so far is 1/3 whole grain – I do plan to try and up this to 50/50 on the next batch. If one examines native cultures – nearly all soaked or fermented grains before eating. Why would the native peoples go to all the trouble? If I asked my mother or grandmother why we soaked our rice before cooking it they would just smack the back of my head and say “Because that’s what you do, why are you asking so many questions?!”

We now understand that soaking and fermenting grains makes the grains more easy to digest and the nutrients more bioavailable. Further, grains have a compound called phytic acid, which bind to minerals while in our gut that are essential to our health – like calcium, magnesium, zinc, iron and copper. The long 18 hour fermentation of the no-knead dough certainly breaks down much of the starch (that’s what yeast like to grow on) along with some of the difficult to digest gluten. In addition, the fermentation process may deactivate the phytic acid but I wasn’t sure fermenting with a commercial baker’s yeast was enough to do the job.

How can we convert our crusty loaf, a refined carb, into a sour dough complex carb? By using an old fashion wild sour dough starter like our ancestors did. Wild starters like these not only have yeast but enzymes and lactic acid bacteria so you get a more complete fermentation. Besides, this was an excuse to revive some critters that have been lost on my desk in suspended animation for a better part of a year. Months and months ago, I sent away for a bit of Carl Griffith’s 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter. It came in a little sandwich bag and looked like some dried dough scraped up from the back of a covered wagon. No actually it looked quite benign. Sunday morning, I looked up the instructions to turn the old dust into a live sourdough starter by mixing it with flour and water. I was a little worried it wouldn’t be viable any longer as I had the starter for months sandwiched between piles on my desk – it was a miracle I even found it to begin with! Well to make a long story short – those tenacious little buggers sprang to life. On Monday I took a sniff and the cup of ‘sour dough batter’ smelled like a floury yogurt. Eureka! The Oregon Trail lives on in Oakland California! Yee Haw!

Today’s loaf came out tasting like a mighty fine sour dough – not quite like my favorite from Bay Breads but in the same ball park. Closer than I have ever gotten trying to make my own starter or even from starters I had used from some restaurants I had worked.

Here’s the recipe:
Mix together in a 3-4 quart bowl:

2 c King Arthur bread flour
1 ½ c Guisto’s medium whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons Redmond sea salt

Add:

1 c Carl Griffith’s 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter
1 c + a tablespoon or so of water – enough to make a sticky dough

Follow the rest of the instructions from this post “The Staff of Life”

Loaf number seven will come out of the oven tomorrow in time for the Thanksgiving table…and maybe for some turkey panini on Friday!

Next I will try upping the percentage of whole grain and work with spelt flour which tends to be an easier gluten grain to digest.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The cold and rain brings back childhood memories of waking up to steaming bowls of rice congee for breakfast. Garnished with whisper thin slivers of ginger to keep the warmth burning inside, congee was the perfect way to start a cold damp day. Congee is also a great food to have when you are feeling under the weather as it is easy to digest after it’s long cook time.

Here is a recipe where I updated it to use brown rice and lentils to add extra fiber and protein.

The toppings listed are just suggestions. Don’t use all of them - just pick a few favorites or use what is on hand.

Whole Grain & Lentil Congee (aka Jook)

Amount Measure Ingredient — Preparation Method
——– ———— ——————————–
3/4 cup brown and wild rice
1/4 cup lentils
8 cups vegetable broth — or chicken stock
1 teaspoon sea salt
***Toppings (optional)***
2 each scallion — sliced
1 tablespoon peanuts — chopped
4 large eggs, hard-boiled — sliced in wedges
2 teaspoons flax seed
2 teaspoons ginger — finely julienned
cilantro — roughly chopped
ginko nuts, sesame oil, white pepper

Soak rice and lentils overnight with 1T of fresh lemon juice. Drain and rinse.

Put first 4 ingredients in a stock pot and simmer covered for about 3 hours. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking

To serve, ladle in bowl and add desired toppings.

For Crock Pot - put hot stock in crock pot with rice, lentils and sea salt. Cook on high for at least 8 hours. Stir every few hours to prevent the bottom from sticking.

Toppings may be prepared the day before.

Add 5 g protein per serving by adding 1 oz of cooked shredded chicken breast to each serving.

Variations: Mix various grains along with the rices - suggested: millet, barley, quinoa. Just keep the total to 3/4 of a cup and the majority of the mix should be rice.

Enjoy!

Life has been busy but slowing down…just in time for the holiday season! We are moved in and nearly settled, the outside of the house is freshly painted and we are planting new trees – a blood orange, 2 tangerines and a fuyu persimmon. I’m still trying to figure out if we can fit an olive and avocado into the landscape…

Now I can get back to my routine of cooking and spreading the word on nutrition – eating for health.

While I have finished my Nutrition Consultant certification program I continue to go to seminars to keep up to date on the latest. I just went to a seminar on Cardiovascular Health – it was amazing and informative. From what I learned at school and at this seminar, the ‘traditional’ heart healthy diet prescribed by the western medical establishment actually leads to heart disease! Wow, I thought we were beating heart disease but the truth is – while lowering cholesterol will lessen your chance of heart attacks that is not the end of the story. It is true the stats for death by heart attack has decreased, BUT the numbers of folks dying from congestive heart failure has gone up. One of the best selling drug classes today…statins does seem to reduce the risk of heart attack. However, one side effect is muscle weakness…last I heard the heart was a muscle. Hmmm.

So far we are not related to food but I am getting there…one interesting thing Dr. Lang covered was the heart energy. When we identify ourselves we usually point to our heart. Did you know it has been documented that heart transplant patients take on some of the personality traits of the person who donated their heart? Wow! And, there are actual measurements of electromagnetic waves emanating from the heart 6 to 8 feet away.

So when food is made for us from the heart – there really is something to it. As in “Like Water for Chocolate” it is not implausible for the energy of the cook to infuse the dish said cook is preparing. No wonder that chicken soup Mom make for us when we were sick is so healing.

Sometimes we just want a little home cooking – comfort served up warm and satisfying - well, really heartwarming and soul satisfying. We’re lucky in the Bay Area to have numerous ‘mom and pop’ eateries where the food is made from the heart. So lucky are we, that we can even find these at the weekly Farmer’s Markets. At my neighborhood market in Temescal/Rockridge, there are numerous stands – Crepes from Brittany, Thai steamed snapper from Andy and Cindy and Masala Dosa from Shyamala among others. Sometimes it’s hard to choose but I’ve been on a dosa jag. One crispy rice and lentil pancake filled with potato curry served with the requisite coconut chutney and seasonal gingery fruit chutney for brunch will keep me going until late in the afternoon. That’s the power of home cooking from the heart.

I’ve been making dosa at home for breakfast a few mornings a week. I follow Indira’s method though use equal parts brown rice to dal and make one rather unconventional (as far as I know) addition. Mostly from lack to time to make coconut chutney - I decided to throw a handful of fine grated dried coconut into the batter. I quite like it so that’s my main batter these days. I even add the coconut to my idli batter. And rather than using the flat griddle Indira uses (which is no doubt much easier) I just use my trusty cast iron skillet with a bit of coconut oil or ghee. For breakfast, I keep it simple by just making the pancake and filling with a potato based curry. Of course the batter and curry are made in a big batch ahead of time to last a few days. This way I have a relatively quick and nourishing (a nice balance of protein, complex carb and fat) breakfast to start my day out right.

Well, it’s nice to be back posting again. Next up will be a recipe for noodles I made for the food blogger’s picnic.

socca…socca…socca! No, I not watching the World Cup games though I did enjoy a game or two of soccer back in the good old days when I actually had lungs. But I digress…

socca, socca, socca…That’s what the socca vendors in Nice, Provence would call out when wheeling their carts about selling their wares. And that’s what I’ve been yelling about the house these days…P thinks I have finally lost my marbles

Thanks to a good friend, N, I had my first taste of Socca -alas, not in Nice- but in Berkeley at Socca Oven located in the new Epicurious Garden on Shattuck Avenue. Socca’s are pancakes made of chickpea (aka garbanzo bean or gram) flour, water and extra virgin olive oil. At SO they finish the soccas in an open flame clay oven with various toppings - sort of like pizza but not. N & I had tapenade and salt cod - a bit salty but I am a salt fiend. P had the zucchini and loved it. I was hooked and am now a socca addict - we’ve had them for dinner twice now.

In my research I found that these are traditionally made in copper tins - large ones, from 50-70 cm in diameter. Since my oven wasn’t that big, I opted for my 10 inch cast iron fry pan. At SO they were made a little less than a 1/4 inch thick but the thickness varies from that to as thin as a crepe. Seems that in France these are eaten plain with a glass of wine rather than topped as made at Socca Oven. I’m thinking these would be a nice appetizer in either case.

We liked ours thick but maybe slightly thinner than we had at SO. I’ve varied the toppings depending on what we had on hand. We had plenty of greens in the garden so one night we had sauteed kale and the other swiss chard. One version had roasted onions and garlic with goat cheese and anchovies. A veggie version had home grown baby zucchini.

I bet an Indian spiced version would be fun. In fact, in the western part of India there is a savory steamed chickpea ‘cake’ called Dhokla. One day I will have to try my hand at making some dhoklas.

Soccas are a great food - a nice gluten free alternative to the wheat flour crusted pizzas. And you’ve got fiber - the soluble type which is good for lowering cholesterol; protein which we all need for building bone, muscle and cartilage; folate which is good for the heart; magnesium which is needed to help relax your muscles; and many trace minerals. One trace mineral it is especially high in is molybdenum which interestingly enough helps the body detoxify sulfites which is found in some wines. Those French know how to eat and drink!

Here’s the recipe I used for the Socca pancakes.

Socca

Amount Measure Ingredient — Preparation Method
——– ———— ——————————–
2 cups chickpea flour
2 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 3/4 teaspoons sea salt
extra virgin olive oil for cooking the pancake

Toppings of your choice - some ideas: caramelized onions, roasted garlic, sauteed greens (kale, chard, spinach), olive tapenade, sundried tomatoes, any herb pesto, any roasted veggie, smoked salmon, salt cod, anchovies, any cheese, etc…

Whisk together all ingredients so there are no lumps. You can strain through a sieve or china cap if desired. Let sit for 10-15 minutes.

Preheat broiler to high or oven to 500F. Heat a 10 inch cast iron pan over medium heat until hot. Add about a tablespoon of olive oil. Pour about 3/4 cup of batter into pan. Cook until bottom is turning brown - this should take at least 3-4 minutes so turn up or down the heat as needed. Flip and cook until cooked through and brown. Transfer to baking sheet. Cook remaining pancakes - you should have enough batter for four.

Arrange your toppings on to the pancakes. Put under the broiler or in hot oven for a few minutes or until the toppings are heated through. Serve hot with a nice green salad.

Check out what other bloggers have created at:

Mahanandi’s Indian Dosa

In Praise of Sardines

The Scent of Green Bananas

The Travelers Lunchbox

And check out the Italian version here:

Beyond Salmon

Epicurious.com

ENJOY!

What are some other foods that are calcium rich?

almonds, asparagus, burdock root, brewer’s yeast, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, collards, dandeloin greens, dulse, figs, filberts (aka hazelnuts), green leafy vegetables, kale!, kelp, mustard greens, oats, parsley, peppermint, prunes, sesame seeds, turnip greens, watercress

…and while we’re at it you’ll also need…

magnesium…almonds, apples, avocados, bananas, blackstrap molasses, brewer’s yeast, brown rice, canteloupe, cod, dulse, figs, flounder, garlic, grapefruit, green leafy vegetables, kelp, lemons, lima beans, halibut, millet, nuts, peaches, black-eyed peas, salmon, sesame seeds, shrimp, watercress, whole grains

and phosphorus…asparagus, brewer’s yeast, burdock root, corn, dried fruits, fish, garlic, beans, nuts, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, meats, whole grains

and vanadium…dill, fish, green beans, olives, meats, radishes, whole grains

and vitamin D…dandeloin greens, sweet potatoes, egg yolks from chickens raised in the sunshine, fish, cod liver oil (yummy), pasture raised animals and sunshine

and vitamin K…asparagus, blackstrap molasses, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, green leafy veggies!, liver, oatmeal, oats, rye, wheat

SHORT LIST - eat lots of veggies - especially the green leafy variety, colorful fruits, some nuts and seeds, vary the proteins from land and sea - spice things up with some herbs and get out into the sunshine!

sea…where else?

I recently discovered that I am allergic to milk - more specifically, the milk protein called casein. The reaction from most people is “How will you get your calcium?”

I have to chuckle because contrary to what the Milk Council of America has pounded into people’s heads…milk is not necessarily the best and certainly not the only source of calcium. Don’t get me started on how the milk today is far from the healthy beverage folks drank before factory farming - that’s another post.

So what do folks across the globe, who don’t eat dairy products, do to keep from looking like Gumby. Green leafy vegetables come to mind as does my fav - bok choy and broccoli. Nettles - lots around these days are full of calcium. And what about broths made from chicken or beef or other animal bones - long simmered with some acid like wine and the resultant liquid is a pure nutritional gold mine…or shall I say calcium mine

Hey, and canned salmon and sardines. The canning process makes the bones very soft so you can eat them.

In fact, the calcium in all these sources are better absorbed by our bodies than the calcium in milk.

So here is my little fish recipe - one of my sources of calcium. My SIL’s mother made a big batch for little S as she has taked to eating this Korean anchovy condiment. I’m not sure what it’s called but I love them too. I searched around for a recipe and after a little experimenting and making the house smell a bit fishy (sorry P!) here it is…

* Exported from MasterCook *

Anchovy Condiment - Korean Style

Amount Measure Ingredient — Preparation Method
——– ———— ——————————–
1 tablespoon oil — grape seed or rice bran
1 clove garlic — minced
1/2 teaspoon ginger — minced
2 tablespoons maple syrup — or agave syrup
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 cup dried anchovy — Korean style, smallest are best
1/4 teaspoon chili flakes — Korean w/o seeds; more or less to taste
1 tablespoon sesame seeds — toasted

Heat wok over medium heat. Add oil and heat. Add garlic and ginger. Stir and fry until golden. Add maple syrup and sesame oil. Stir and let sizzle for 15 seconds. Add anchovies and stir, coating the anchovies with the sauce. Continue stirring over medium heat until anchovies are translucent and just beginning to color. Stir in the chili flakes and sesame seeds. Mix well. Remove from heat and cool.

Serve as a condiment with rice - wrap with a piece of nori seaweed and you are in mineral rich heaven!

Refrigerate in an air tight container. Will keep for 2-3 weeks

Also nice in fried rice or as a side with congee.

Enjoy!

Life races by yet there doesn’t seem enough hours to the day…no wait a second - I sometimes barely have enough energy to get through the day so scratch that. My better half always says, “you just have to prioritize.”

Easier said than done! or is it?

The past two weeks since my last posts have been jam packed…(truth be told when you see a flurry of posts it means I am procrastinating…I’ve got two papers due - one on allergies & immune and another on cancer, then my final project on Type II diabetes. All this by the end of June!). Another by-product of the big P - The garden is looking better than ever - tomatoes, squash, peppers, pole beans, chard and kale are all in. The baby bok choy is starting to sprout their third leaves. The keffir lime tree got a nice hair cut and shampoo (to try and rid it of weird looking bugs that took up residence). Next up as I recover from being sliced up from weeding the patch of lemon grass, is transplanting of the garlic chives, planting the basil and readying a bed for beets, carrots and sugar snap peas.

Any way let me procrastinate some more as I’ve been bursting with thoughts and things I’ve been wanting to tap out on blog.

First, I had a chance to have a lovely lunch last Friday with Eggbeater at Cafe Gratitude. You can read EB’s review at Bay Area Bites. Food and company were great. I’ve even been making my own rendition of their “I am Giving” salad at home…I call my version “I am a Copycat”. I encourage you to read Eggbeater’s review and comments - lots of food for thought.

Made me think about food as medicine. As Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, said, “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food” Wow, modern medicine must have veered off that road like some pharma drug crazed addict on a bad trip! But that’s another rant.

It’s very well accepted these days (so says Dr. Mehmet Oz who co-wrote You: the Owner’s Manual) that while genetics plays a part in whether we are stricken by illness - we - yes, you - can control at least 80% (some scientists say 95% but let’s be conservative here) of your health outcome. How you ask? Well, those genes may exist within us ready to throw us a curve ball but they don’t have to express - that is become diabetes or cancer or lupus or…

Your actions - whether you smoke, drink, live in a smoggy city, decide to sand that lead paint off that old dresser, exercise enough or too much, get enough sleep and a hundred other things all contribute to whether those errant genes become alive…. But let’s not forget one major contributor to your health - what you eat!

This from Deepak Chopra’s book Quantum Healing,
98% of the atoms in your body were not there a year ago
In 3 months your entire skeleton is replaced - unless you are on fos@max(my comment)
6 weeks your liver
1 month your skin
4 days your stomach lining

So what does that tell you-
Everything you put in your body is processed – it’s used as building blocks or passed

What would you want your building blocks to be…

nutrient deficient mass produced “food” that contains enough preservatives to stay ‘fresh’ for years…

Or wholesome foods, vital and alive with nutrients that your body can use to keep you healthy

One of the comments raised from Eggbeater’s review of Cafe Gratitude was that the prices at the cafe were criminally high. EB’s reply touch on many points - one was that food should cost more that it does. Big Food with the help of govenment subsidies has so cheapen what is packaged as food we might as well be eating packing peanuts. Yes, I agree we need to pay the true costs and get food that nourishes us and supports life! And I don’t think it is a mere coincidence that many of the illnesses that ail modern society today came about as our food supply became cheapened.

I am so grateful to have grown up learning that there is a connection with food and our bodies - that food is medicine. I’ll never forget when my brother broke his leg and mom made pot after pot of frog’s leg baked rice. Or fearing that we weren’t doing as well in school as we should, we’d sit down to steaming bowls of calves brain soup - this on more than one occasion. I still can’t figure out that stretch of periwinkles though…

Which brings me to what I fear will express…what lurks in that genetic soup I have swirling around inside…

Type II Diabetes is on both sides of my family - uncles and aunts, a grandmother died after suffering many complications including a stroke and amputation of a leg, a parent was recently diagnosed and a sibling who is prediabetic…On top of that Asians are 1 1/2 to 2 times more likely to develop type II diabetes that Caucasians. There are estimates that 3 in 5 or up to 1 in 2 Asian children today will develop type II diabetes in their lifetime.

I recently purchased a blood glucose meter for a family member and while testing it on myself, I’ve discovered numerous morning fasting blood glucose levels to be a tad high…yikes! I will be at the doc’s come Monday morning!

Well, there is lots to be done and according to Dr. Anne Peters, a well respected expert on diabetes, the condition can be reversed or very well managed through diet and exercise.

So as I delve deeper into this subject for my final project, I will share what I learn. Separating the foods that are medicine and those that are not. From my experience change is not an easy thing, habits become so ingrained, and the foods -we love- that we may have to give up for some have so much memory and history attached that they will be difficult to let go. For now I must end my procrastination and get back to the books.

Mochi the dog is the poster dog for celebrating Variety in the diet. Don’t get me wrong, she can be discriminating…she won’t eat just anything - it at least has to be animate. I say animate rather than ‘considered food’ because she did at some point in her puppyhood enjoy dirt clods and what dog doesn’t like to nibble on some grass every now and then. Plus if she were allowed to label her world - the kitty’s litterbox would have “Snack Jar” written on it.

No, no…this post isn’t about that! Sorry I was just rambling about variety and…well, anyway back on track…Mochi loves vegetables of all sorts. Raw no less. Carrots, broccoli, the cores from cabbage & lettuce, apples (peeled without cores please), cauliflower, asparagus, kale stems…and one big surprise - sheets of nori! It’s a hoot to watch her eat the sheet, ripping off pieces as she stands on a corner.

Now, I’ve always had a fondness for salty crispy snacks - my biggest vice was potato chips, oh and kettle corn which is more the salty sweet krispy thing but anyway. A number of holistic practitioners out there (Bernard Jensen, Colleen Huber among many others) link food cravings to specific nutritional deficiences. So crispy/salty/oily = minerals. Rather than taking Mochi’s lead with the dirt clods I thought mineral rich seaweed might be the ticket. My SIL’s mother came to visit and gave us some packs of Korean seaweed sheets - fried and salted! Yum! These were great but I was drinking gallons of water with all the salt. I figured I could make my own less salty less oily version.

Here’s what I did to make a quick healthy crispy snack…

Take 1 piece of nori and dribble 1/8-1/4 teaspoon sesame oil on it. Spread the sesame oil with your hand to cover the whole sheet. Sprinkle a pinch of good quality fine sea salt on the nori. Now put in a toaster oven for 30 seconds to a minute to crisp it up. You can cut up or tear the sheet into bite size pieces. With this, the coolest toaster oven on earth, I found 1 minute on 250 was perfect.

The last two weeks we’ve gotten a head of cabbage in our CSA box. I’ve been wanting to make sauerkraut for awhile but after two rather odiferous attempts I was wary. I’d been making kim chee with much success but the Euro version was not working for me.

First I tried Sally Fallon’s trick of putting a few tablespoons of yogurt whey in with the cabbage. Made sense in that sauerkraut is made from a lactic acid fermentation of cabbage as with milk to yogurt. Result…uh, not very appetizing…the sauerkraut was sour but the cabbage turned to mush. The lactic acid needed for yogurt must not be the same as that for sauerkraut. I tried again with just salt but it stank up the house and got moldy…tossed it.

Last week the CSA came with a beautiful head of Savoy cabbage - this is a yellowish/green cabbage with crinkled leaves, a sweeter variety than the typical smooth leaf cabbage. I decided to ‘kraut’ this head on Saturday. But before I tackled the cabbage I ventured out to the Berkeley Farmer’s Market to pick up a case of Bariani olive oil. While I was there, I decided to purchase a jar of sauerkraut from Cultured. Why? I figured I could use some of the brine from this ‘live’ sauerkraut as a starter for mine.

I now was very confident this attempt at sauerkraut would finally be successful. First I sliced up the cabbage very thinly with my Japanese mandolin, the Benriner. Next I tossed the cabbage with sea salt, a splash of the Cultured sauerkraut brine and just for kicks I added a teaspoon and a half of grated ginger. I then used a big wooden spoon to pack the cabbage into the removable ceramic crock of my 4 quart crock pot. This part was fun - you just smash the cabbage until it releases it’s juice. Once the cabbage was densely packed I weighed down the cabbage so it was totally submerged in the resultant brine with a stack of 6 plates. I covered the crock loosely with some plastic wrap to keep out the bad bugs and put on the glass lid. Now I had to wait.

Sidebar: Hardcore fermenters out there would use the Harsch fermentation crock - the Mercedes Benz of pickling crocks. If you don’t have a Harsch or a crock, a large jar will work too.

Everyday I took a sniff. After a few days I could see bubbles forming on the surface and smell the telltale signs of fermentation. Yesterday (after 7 days), I finally got my first taste. Success! Nicely sour but not overly so, a hint of sweetness (those Terra Firma farmers sure know how to grow a sweet head of cabbage), not as salty as Cultured’s (which I found to be alittle too salty for my tastes) and very crispy ! The ginger (which was really P’s idea ) added a nice kick. We’ll be enjoying a bite of this kraut with each meal.

Sauerkraut is a very healthy food after all. Full of vitamin C it helped prevent scurvy way back in the seafaring days. Not only that, but sauerkraut is a great source of vitamin K - important for blood clotting, bone formation and repair. Wow, and it’s also chockful of beneficial bacteria that your intestines would love to have move in. Especially if you’ve recently had to undergo a round of antibiotic therapy. After the Korean study suggesting that Kim Chee, sauerkraut’s cousin from the far east, prevented bird flu, a recent report by ABC news headlined “Is Sauerkraut the Next Chicken Soup?” I don’t know for sure but to get the full health benefits make sure what you are eating is unpasteurized and contains live cultures.

Here’s the recipe I used:

* Exported from MasterCook *

Sauerkraut

Amount Measure Ingredient — Preparation Method
——– ———— ——————————–
2 1/2 pounds cabbage
1 ounce sea salt

Make sure everything is clean. Remove all rings from fingers and wash hands well.

Shred the cabbage using a mandolin or thinly slice with a knife into a large bowl. Toss the cabbage with the sea salt and mix well. Using a wooden spoon or potato masher, pack the cabbage into a crock or large jar. Don’t be shy - put some elbow into it so the cabbage starts to let out it’s juices - you know back in the day when folks would put up 1000+ pounds of sauerkraut at a time they would just jump into the barrel with feet bare and stomp away - not just good for grapes, eh? Just so you know, none of my piggly wigglies took part in this recipe.

Ok, back to the recipe…Weigh down the cabbage with a number of plates or follow instructions if using the Harsch fermenting crock. Make sure there is enough brine to cover the cabbage. If you need more brine you can dissolve 1 T of sea salt with 2 cups of water. Cover with a lid (a plate works) or loosely with plastic and set in a cool dark place to ferment. If the weather is cool (65-68F), the sauerkraut should be ready in 5 to 7 days. Fermentation will be quicker if it is warmer. You can taste beginning after a few days and refrigerate as soon as the sauerkraut is as sour as you like.

Notes: 1 ounce of sea salt = approx. 1 1/2 Tablespoons. For different size batches multiply the number of pounds of cabbage by 0.4 oz or 0.6 Tablespoons to determine how much salt to add.

Variations: add a teaspoon or two of grated ginger or juniper berries or caraway seeds or cloves of garlic or chile flakes or dill… Use red cabbage or a mix of red and green. Replace some of cabbage by weight with a few grated beets or fennel bulb.

Yield:
“1 1/2 quarts”

I’m on a roll…made another batch today with half and half red and green cabbage along with some grated ginger.

Give it a try and make your tummy happy