Sauerkraut- The homemade kind

Have you ever had home made sauerkraut? Not the store bought stuff that is just cabbage soaked in vinegar. The real stuff. The good stuff.

 Here in Alabama (and many other climates) cabbage grows fantastically in the winter! And if you do not want to grow it from seeds, around September you can buy the baby plants half price in local stores.

I recently made some home made sauerkraut for the first time. I was really surprised how different better it is! It is naturally fermented in about 2 weeks time. It takes almost no time to prepare, then you can almost forget about it until time to eat!!! All you need is some cabbage, preferably from the garden, salt and a stoneware crock! Or food grade plastic jug will do too.

Take your cabbage....

Did you know that if you cut off the first head of cabbage,
 but leave the root,
 it will grow several smaller cabbages?
That is where these came from. Yum... I love plants that are hard to kill :)

Rinse it well, then slice it into thin shreds.
Take those shreds and put a thin layer into your clean crock. Sprinkle salt liberally over the shreds, and press it down ( I use a potato masher, but a clean fist or a fork or spoon will work too)  .
Repeat with another layer of cabbage and salt until you have used up all your cabbage.
Then you will want to fill a gallon sized zip top bag with water. Put that one into another, just in case the first one opens up. Use this bag to secure the cabbage in the crock. The salt draws the water out of the cabbage which produces its own brine. You will want the cabbage to stay fully submerged in this brine.

Now stick it somewhere out of the way! Check on it every couple of days . You will probably notice something that looks a bit like scum or mold growing in there. Just wipe it off with a clean paper or cloth towel. It is called the "bloom" and is perfectly natural. When you pull the bag out, wipe off any bloom on the bag before putting it back in. You can rinse the bag under running water, but be sure to get all the water off before putting it back in. The chlorine in the water can kill the healthy bacteria that we want in the sauerkraut.

I put mine in  a jar and stuck it in the fridge. However if you have a cool root cellar you can store it there for up to a couple of months!

In about 2 weeks you can enjoy a healthy treat ( low cal too) !!! Its great on hot dogs  (or in my case veggie dogs), or I like to scoop it out like dip with a corn chip.

 The sauerkraut has naturally occurring active cultures in it similar to yogurt. It is great for digestion. You can preserve it by canning if you want, but it will keep in the fridge for quite a while. Canning it will kill the healthy live cultures, however.

Try mixing red cabbage and green cabbage to make pink sauerkraut!

By the way, sorry for the terrible picture quality! I will get a better camera one of these days :)

If you are interested in learning more about naturally fermenting things, you should check out Sandor Ellix Katz's book Wild Fermentation. Here is a link to the site. Its worth checking out!!