Crazy Sauerkraut Lady

(Recipe included at the bottom of the post.)

I’ve come a long way since my first foray into making raw sauerkraut at home. I started out with a great deal of trepidation, reluctance, and even a bit of nose-wrinkled condescension towards the lowly cabbage. Yes, I was making kraut, but it wasn’t because I enjoyed eating it or felt that I benefited from consuming it. Nope. I was just making it because Kimberly (nutritionist and overall goddess) said I should, and I am nothing if not obedient.

Well, dear readers, have I ever turned a page in that book! I now enjoy boatloads of raw kraut– every day!– and I even have a hard time jarring enough of it at home to keep up with my frenetic, kraut-consuming pace. Our cupboards and fridge are filled with jars of kraut, and I even bring smaller jars of it with me in my purse if I know that we will be eating out or visiting with friends. (Yes, you heard me correctly. I am your Nerdy Friend who will show up at your door with a small Mason jar of sauerkraut. To make matters worse, I rarely bring enough to share! I’ll just cover the bases for Marty and I and leave you– my host– scratching your head and wondering when the heck I became so possessive of my cabbage. <– To explain my sauerkraut stinginess: Experience has shown me that most people– shockingly– aren’t all that enthusiastic to partake in a raw sauerkraut munch-down, and there’s no way I’m wasting my homemade kraut on anybody who is less than on-their-knees grateful for it. So I generally only bring enough for Marty and I. Just so you know.)

1.5 *gallons* of kraut at the ready… but sorry, there’s not enough to share!

Anyway.

It nearly killed me to start this epic road trip of ours, because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to take a crate of raw sauerkraut with me across the border. You’re (usually) allowed to bring (certain) food items across “for personal consumption”, but I was pretty sure that a border guard wouldn’t greet gallons of sauerkraut jars with kindness or understanding. ‘What’s that glass clinking sound coming from the back of your van? Are you a bootlegger? Wait a second– what on earth is that smell?? Smells like… rotten cabbage!’ Awkward…

I pictured myself hollering “ALL THIS SAUERKRAUT IS FOR ME, OFFICER, I SWEAR IT!! THERE’S NO WAY I WOULD TRY TO SELL IT!” as I was being dragged off to Border Violations Prison, and then I had the horrific vision of being forced to throw away all of my raw sauerkraut in front of a guard’s watchful eyes before being permitted to dock in Port Angeles, WA. What a waste of good bacteria! It was too much to bear. Yes, I am a Crazy Sauerkraut Lady, but I’m not an International, Border-Regulations-Flouting Crazy Sauerkraut Lady. Hence, I packed a solitary, small-ish jar of kraut in our cooler and braced myself for around 2 weeks without the good stuff.

Almost all of our lunches and dinners now are topped with a generous portion of kraut. This wasn’t the case AT ALL on our road trip.

After painstakingly rationing out that one jar of kraut and making it last as looooong as possible, we were faced with the great, kraut-less unknown. I’m not going to lie: both Marty and I suffered without regular doses of raw kraut en route to Arizona. Our bodies had become accustomed to healthy portions of probiotics on a daily basis, and the combination of being on the road + camping + eating for convenience (oh, hello gluten!) + sauerkraut withdrawal proved to be pretty deadly. Let’s just say that I nearly wept at the altar of Whole Foods when we finally rolled into Tucson and purchased several “transition” jars of raw kraut to tie us over until I could make our own again.

I am now in the process of buying canning jars so that I can whip us up an apocalyptic amount of raw sauerkraut for our two month visit. Yes. I’m buying jars. That I will eventually leave in Tucson when we head back up to Canada. I am nuts for kraut! (And for some strange reason, every grocery store in Canada seems to sell canning jars and supplies, but none of the grocery stores in Tucson do. I had to google search “canning jars + Tucson” to discover that jars are mainly sold in hardware stores here. Insane? Yes! Now I just need to find me a hardware store. I already bought six organic cabbages at Whole Foods. They are waiting for the jars.)

And finally– the recipe part! I am no longer making kraut the way it is specified in Kimberly Snyder’s Beauty Detox Solution book. That recipe calls for miso paste and ginger, neither of which I am using anymore. Instead, I’m keeping it simple and kicking it old school. Read on if you’d like to try making what I call “Royal Kraut”… which is basically purple and red kraut instead of the usual green version. 🙂

Royal Kraut (Vegan, Gluten Free, Soy Free)

You Will Need

Sterilized mason jars with tight-fitting lids

Wooden spoon

Food preparation gloves (highly recommended)

Large purple cabbage

2-3 red beets

1-2 tsp high-quality sea salt or celtic salt

1 tsp caraway seeds (or to taste)

½ cup filtered water

Heh. Even though this receipe is for red cabbage/beet kraut, most of the photos in this post will be of green cabbage. Just use your imagination and pretend that everything is a healthy shade of purple.

How To Make It

1. Remove outside leaves of the cabbage (approx. 5-6 leaves) and set aside for later.
2. Chop rest of cabbage into thin ribbons and place into large mixing bowl.
3. Shred beets using the grating blade on a food processor (easiest) or using a cheese grater (good luck!). Add to cabbage in large mixing bowl.
4. Add sea salt and caraway seeds to mixing bowl, and use your (gloved) hands to coat kraut well. Dr. Obvious Warns: Beets will stain your hands, countertops, and anything else if given the chance. Use caution and try not to touch with your bare hands! (Also: do not wear a white shirt while making this recipe!)
5. Once kraut mixture has been well coated with salt and caraway, use your gloved hands to stuff it, bit by bit, into your mason jars. Add a small layer of kraut and then use the handle of the wooden spoon to pound the air out of the layer before adding more cabbage to the jar. You want to make the mixture as anaerobic (air-free) as possible to avoid mould and to allow the friendly bacteria to flourish.
6. Continue adding kraut mixture to the jar, layer by layer, pounding out excess air throughout, until there is between 1 and 2 inches of free space left near the mouth of your jar.
7. Roll outside leaves of the cabbage into tight, burrito-style rolls and stuff on top of the shredded kraut mixture. The aim is to pack the jar as tightly as possible, right up to the top with the rolled outer leaves.
8. Slowly add filtered water to the jar, until it levels with the shredded kraut mixture (not all the way up to the top of the jar). Unless your jar is very large (or you didn’t pack enough air out of the mixture), you will need very little water in your jar. A half a cup is a generous amount– I usually use more like 1/4 cup water or less.
9. Slide the lid onto your mason jar and close it to make an airtight seal.
10. Label your jar with the date, and leave it in a dark cupboard to ferment for between 4 days (warmer climates) and 4 weeks (cooler climates). Kraut does best in a room temperature environment, and cooler locales will take longer to ferment.
11. When kraut is ready to consume, break airtight seal on jar, discard outer cabbage leaves, and fork as much cabbage onto your plate as you desire. (I eat between ½ cup and 1 cup of kraut every single day, with any type of meal—except breakfast.)
12. Store opened jars of kraut in the fridge and consume within 2 months.

Chopping. Some like it thin, some like it coarse.

Kraut layer, pre-pounding.

Packed-in shredded cabbage leaves, waiting for burrito-style outer leaves to finish off the jar.

Special Notes:

If your kraut develops a black mould or film on the top of the jar while it is fermenting, believe it or not, the rest of the jar should be okay to eat. (The mould will develop where there are still air bubbles.) Simply pick off the mouldy bits and chow down on the kraut further down the jar… using your common sense, of course.

Kraut can sit in a cupboard fermenting for longer than 4 weeks, too. Longer sitting periods make for a tangier kraut in the end. Do not fear the healthy bacteria!

Fermented kraut will taste zesty, a bit salty, and almost like a pickle (i.e. vinegar-y). It is an acquired taste (at least it was for me), but once you get familiar with it, you may find yourself shoveling it back with no restraint whatsoever (at least I did/still do).

Use organic ingredients, the highest quality of sea salt you can afford (not iodized or table salt), and filtered/distilled water (not tap water). Table salt and/or tap water can disrupt the naturally occurring enzymes and living cultures inside the cabbage, making your kraut-making adventures a waste of time, ingredients, energy, and money.

Everything is ready to go!

Variations on the theme:

Make kraut with red or green cabbage (or both)

Use caraway seeds or not. Try adding dill, fennel seeds, dried sea weeds, shredded ginger root, etc. Make the kraut yours!

Sub shredded carrots or golden beets for the red beets, or just go with a simple cabbage mixture.

Some people use special sauerkraut crocks, but all you really need is a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid.

Questions? Holler at me! I’m determined to convert the whole of North America to raw kraut eating, so if anything needs to be clarified or elaborated upon, just let me know. Otherwise, enjoy your Royal Kraut! It’s so good… and good for you. xo

A Berry Oat Cake for the Birthday Girl

It’s my birthday today! To celebrate the magic of the big 3-1, allow me to share a recipe for a sort-of-healthy birthday cake. Full disclaimer: I doubt I will actually bake this cake for my birthday today. I’ll probably be lazy (AGAIN) and let somebody else do the work, if I have cake at all. Chocolate could very well be involved in lieu of cake. My kitchen love affair gets a little cramped in the summer months. 🙂

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I’ve already established how much I enjoy working in the kitchen on this here blog, yes? (I know for a fact I’ve already confirmed what a nut I am when it comes to cooking for road trips, and I’m pretty sure I’ve also demonstrated the peculiar/OCD issues I have with using other people’s kitchen utensils before, so if you’re not convinced of my love for cooking just yet, let’s just pretend that being a compulsive, nutty, non-borrower of other people’s crock pots equals Big Time Kitchen Love.)

I love making things from scratch whenever I can, and I’m also somebody who strives to waste as little as possible, food or otherwise. I’ve been making our own almond milk for over a year now and, after documenting a few initial mishaps (which of course were Freshly Pressed– WordPress loves celebrating failure!), I’ve become a well-oiled machine with the process: Soak almonds. Add water. Blend. Strain. Blend again with vanilla and dates. See? Simple!

The only thing I didn’t enjoy about making almond milk from scratch was having the almond grits left over. What to do with a bunch of soggy almond bits, save for tossing them in the compost bin? I tried making chocolate truffles with them before, but the results were mushy and gross, to put it politely. (I have a serious chocolate addiction and even I didn’t want to eat these truffles, if that says anything.) Anyway. I wanted to do something with the leftover almond curds, but unless I wanted to excel at food failure, it seemed that the compost heap was the only viable option.

Almond grits in all their glory

Enter the Berry Oat Cake.

The recipe for this cake (which is more like a mild afternoon loaf than it is like a hyperactive kid’s birthday cake) secretly came from a “diet” book (sssh!), but given the amount of times I’ve eaten a quarter-plus of a pan in one sitting, I can safely say that I’m not losing any weight from it. 😉 What I like about this recipe– aside from its addictive, not-too-sweet quality– is that I can easily and deliciously incorporate my almond grits into it. So what if I make this cake exactly as frequently as I make almond milk, i.e. weekly? At least I’m not wasting any food by doing it! “Eat up, honey bunches”, I tell my husband when yet another Berry Oat Cake emerges from the oven: “We’re recycling!”

The edible version of “waste not, want not”

(Marty is an eco-warrior, too. He does his bit for the environment by dutifully eating his share of the berry oat cake each week.)

It goes without saying that this cake can be made without soggy almond grits, too. You don’t even have to make it weekly like we do– I’ll just keep my snide judgments about your commitment to recycling/future generations/God’s Green Earth to myself.

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Berry Oat Cake

(revised from the O2 Diet book recipe by Keri Glassman)

You Will Need:

– 1/2 cup finely ground almond meal (or soggy almond grits!)

– 1/2 cup turbinado sugar (looks big and crunchy compared to regular white sugar)

– 1 1/2 cups oat flour, plus 1 Tbsp oat flour (I’ve made this before with spelt flour and it was fine. You could probably even use regular flour if it pleased you.)

– 2 1/2 tsp baking powder

– 1/2 tsp sea salt

– 1 egg (or vegan egg replacement equivalent)

– 1/4 cup high quality cooking oil (canola, etc.)

– 1/2 cup almond milk (or milk of your preference)

– 1 tsp vanilla (I use my homemade extract, obviously)

– 2 cups mixed frozen berries (blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries– all of these will work in any combination)

Directions:

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease a square (8″x8″) baking pan.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine almond meal, sugar, oat flour, baking powder, and sea salt.

3. In a small bowl, whisk egg with a fork, then add oil, vanilla, and almond milk.

Whisk together until emulsified and add to dry ingredients. Stir together until combined. Batter will be thick and sticky.

4. In a medium bowl, toss frozen fruit with extra 1 Tbsp oat flour to coat. Stir fruit into cake batter and transfer to square baking pan.

Hey– nobody said it was going to look pretty. Appearances aren’t everything, you know.

5. Bake at 350F for 40-45 minutes, or until golden brown on the top. Makes 9 diet-sized portions (or 2 to 4 “Hungry Man” portions. I won’t judge you if you eat half a pan at once, because I’ve been there before, not to mention last week.)

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Do you have a sweet tooth, dear readers?

    Do you indulge your sweet tooth under the guise of recycling like I do?

Any birthday wishes for yours truly (hint, hint)?

Holy Shiitake Stew!

My mom is serious about whole foods (the concept, not the store), and she doesn’t waste her time with single-serve portions. Ever. Even when she cooks just for herself, she prepares weeks of meals in advance. Bushels of gorgeous garlic bulbs fill every nook and cranny of her kitchen, and her fridge is always packed to overflowing with juicing carrots and leafy greens. (In fact, the first time Marty ever witnessed the splendour of her kitchen– with bags of organic grains peeking out from random cupboards and jars of decadent ingredients dotting every shelf (even local bay leaves!) — I suddenly made a lot more sense to him. The apple did not fall very far from the tree in this particular case, and it probably reassured Marty to realize that I am not the only person in the world who caresses bunches of kale in hushed reverence and admiration. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…)

Garlic worthy of adoration

I had requested specific items in advance of my mom’s visit: lemons, ginger root, turmeric root, a bit of garlic, and rolled oats. (We drink the best tea every morning, with fresh lemon juice, ginger, turmeric, and cayenne pepper in it, so we go through those ingredients like nobody’s business.) My mom did not disappoint. She brought us LEMONS! and GINGER! and TURMERIC! and 25 POUNDS OF ROLLED OATS!, along with enough garlic to keep the whole cast of Twilight far, far away forever and ever amen. Alleluia!

Gee, I hope you didn’t say ‘A’ lemon, because I brought LEMONS!!

What I wasn’t expecting was the mushrooms. Specifically, my mom showed up with what she termed a “dealer’s weight” of shiitakes. She wasn’t kidding. As I watched– breath held with cautious expectation– my mom unveiled a hefty-sized paper bag stuffed to the brim with mushrooms. Upon seeing these elaborate flowers of the forest ground, both of us emitted our signature, clan-patented squeals of delight! (Thankfully, Marty was on a bike ride at the time and didn’t have to deal with two nut cases culinary aficionados. We were free to be as enamoured with the fungi as we liked.)

Soft-core shiitake porn

Shiitake close-up. You’re welcome.

Not wanting to let even one of these beauties go to waste, Marty and I have enjoyed mushroom soup and shiitake-studded omelets for the past week. This evening, I also made us a variation of our regular mushroom soup and dubbed it Holy Shiitake Stew. Have some mushrooms lying around, shiitake or not? Here’s a beautiful, soul-warming, and vegan way to enjoy them. (Non-vegan boot-wearing is optional.) Bon appetit! 🙂

Holy Shiitake Stew

You Will Need:

– 1 Tbsp coconut or other cooking oil

– 1 large onion, coarsely chopped

– 3-4 carrots, sliced

– 3-4 celery stalks, sliced

– Fresh garlic to taste (I used 2 large cloves), thinly sliced

– 2 pounds of shiitake mushrooms, or mixed mushrooms to taste. Take 1.5 lbs of mushrooms and wash and coarsely chop them. The other half pound should be washed and cut into bite-sized chunks.

– 6-8 cups of water or vegetable broth

– Salt and pepper to taste

– 1 tsp each of thyme and curry powder

– dash of caraway seeds, if you’re feeling adventurous

How To Make It:

1. In a stock pot, saute onions in coconut oil over low heat. Cover pot and check on onions occasionally, stirring until they are soft and translucent (approx 5-7 minutes).

2. Add carrots and garlic to the pot, along with 1/2 cup of water or stock. Cover and let cook on low to medium heat for around 5 minutes, until carrots start to soften.

3. Add celery and another 1/2 cup of water or stock to pot. Cover and let cook on medium heat for around 5 minutes.

Just in case you need to see what the soup looks like at this point

4. Add 1.5 lbs of chopped mushrooms to pot, along with 4 cups of water or stock. Water will not cover the mushrooms at this point, but they will soften and reduce in size very quickly. Cover pot.

Mushrooms!

5. Cook mushrooms with the rest of the vegetables until everything is tender, stirring as needed. Add rest of water or stock, salt, pepper, curry powder, and thyme. Bring to a boil, cover, and then simmer on low heat for 30 minutes.

Soup after 30 minutes of simmering, pre-blending

6. Meanwhile, saute remaining 1/2 pound of mushrooms in a pan with a small amount of water (and caraway seeds if you so desire) until tender. Remove from heat and set aside.

7. After soup has simmered for 30 minutes, remove from heat and blend in the stock pot until smooth using a hand blender.

8. Add sauteed mushrooms to smooth soup mixture to give it some texture. Adjust seasoning if needed. Serve hot over a whole grain or with fresh garlic toast. Holy shiitake, it’s delicious! 🙂

Dr. Obvious Comes to Town: How to Make Vanilla Extract at Home

I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, especially when it comes to knowing things that have actual, real-world applications. I can go on and on about mostly useless trivia (god bless Master of Arts degrees), but I always seem to be learning basic things that other people have knownsince the 1980s… at least.

That said, Dr. Obvious paid a visit to our quiet, lakeside community recently, and I was flabbergasted to discover the following new (to me) facts:

1. It is possible to make vanilla extract at home.

This should not have been news to me, having descended from a woman who insisted on making her own ketchup, curry pastes, bread, and soup stocks. My mom endeavoured to make as much food from scratch as possible when we were growing up, but somehow, the thought that vanilla extract could also be made at home escaped me until very recently. I just assumed it was untouchable.

I use a ton of vanilla in my kitchen. It goes in my oatmeal every morning, flavours my weekly batch of almond milk, and features prominently in any cake or baked good recipe I test out (for scientific purposes only. Obviously.) Each bottle of vanilla extract runs around a hefty $8-$12 from the store, so discovering that I could make a schwack of vanilla extract– easily, by myself, at home, for a fraction of the cost of the store-bought variety– felt like the Secret of Life had been whispered sweetly into my ear. Homemade vanilla extract! Who knew?

Starting the process off by steeping vanilla beans in alcohol

2. Bourbon = Whiskey

The recipe I found online for homemade vanilla extract called for some bourbon. I ventured out to the local liquor store, post-haste, and scanned the aisles for the telltale “Bourbon” sign. None could be found! I saw signs for Wine, B.C. Wine, Beer, Vodka, Liqueurs, and all sorts of other spirits, but the Bourbon sign was conspicuously absent from the lot.

I felt certain that this was not possible– surely liquor stores sell bourbon… and scotch… and beer (at least if that terrible George Thorogood song has any truth to it whatsoever)– so I focused on the shelves more intently, pleading silently with the myriad bottles to point the way to the bourbon without me having to ask a clerk. (A thing you should know about me and liquor stores: I’m not a drinker at all, so I inevitably end up looking like a wide-eyed, probably underage kid whenever I go into one. It doesn’t help that I’m usually wearing a junior high-appropriate backpack. (Blame commuting by foot.) I’m a tad self-conscious about my lack of liquor store savvy, so I usually overcompensate and pretend I know exactly what I’m doing as I stroll regally through the aisles. This air of overconfidence, in turn, tends to make liquor store clerks suspicious– like I’m not of legal drinking age and/or trying to steal something. Guess how often I get ID’d at liquor stores? Almost every single time. Showing my ID isn’t a huge deal, but it’s awkward and embarrassing to know that the only reason I’m getting carded in the first place is because I’ve acted like a total freak.)

Anyway: bourbon. I lingered in certain sections of the liquor store, trying to locate a godforsaken bottle of bourbon. I knew it wasn’t vodka. I knew it wasn’t wine. Finally, I stumbled into the whiskey section and noted with confusion that there were bottles of scotch, rye, and Irish whiskeys there. Another awkward minute passed, and thankfully, I happened to read the blessed words “bourbon” on a bottle of Jim Beam. Yes! Bourbon!! I snatched it up (in retrospect, a little too swiftly) and then was promptly asked to show my ID to the clerk at the till. Next time I’ll know: bourbon IS whiskey. I might even escape the dreaded ID check– Thank you, Dr. Obvious!

Bless you, Mr. Beam

3. Vanilla is a ‘bean’ in the ‘green’, ‘yellow’, or ‘string’ sense of the term, not in the ‘mung’ or ‘kidney’ sense.

I felt so mature bringing home a bottle of Jim Beam bourbon. I win liquor store shopping! I laid it out on the kitchen counter when I got home, along with a clean jar and several vanilla pods.

The recipe calls for a ratio of 4 vanilla beans to 1 cup of bourbon, so I gleefully laid out three long vanilla pods and sliced them open lengthwise, fully expecting tiny “beans”– many more than four of them– to spill forth.

Um….

Vanilla pods are not like pea pods. No spherical pearls of sumptuous vanilla roll out of vanilla pods. For future reference: the long black pods are vanilla beans. Inside the pods, there are only sticky, smaller-than-poppy-seed grits. If you decide to make your own vanilla extract, use four long pods in every one cup of bourbon. (And, on that note, try to buy the vanilla pods in bulk. I bought my first few individually from Planet Organic and ended up paying more for 3 measly beans than I did for approximately 10 beans in bulk from Mountain Rose Herbs. Lessons learned, Dr. Obvious– lessons learned!)

The difference between beans and seeds is duly noted

4. “Bourbon” Vanilla Extract can actually be made with vodka.

Be honest: you see a bottle of “Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Extract” at the store and automatically assume it was made with bourbon whiskey. I did, too! Alas, it was only after I purchased a gigantic bottle of Jim Beam Bourbon that I read more about vanilla extract online. Turns out that the “bourbon” part actually refers to the type of vanilla bean that is used, not the alcohol itself. There are “Tahitian” and “Bourbon” types of vanilla beans, and just about any ol’ alcohol can be used as a base to make your own extract. Just don’t use beer. I think that would be nasty.

I saw several people writing online that they’ve found vodka to be the best when making vanilla extract at home. (Apparently it is one of the most tasteless alcohols around and really allows the vanilla flavour to punch through.) I will happily attempt my own extract with vodka after I’ve guzzled down a whole liter of bourbon-based vanilla extract, but that could take a while… In the meantime, I’m waiting for my Jim Beam-based extract to mature and will definitely report back once I finally crack open the jar. 🙂

One week of sitting, with original Jim Beam bottle on left side for comparison

Two weeks of sitting… only six more weeks to wait!

To Make Your Own Vanilla Extract at Home:

1. Use a ratio of 4 vanilla beans (aka pods, not non-existent pearl-seeds!) to 1 cup of alcohol (bourbon or vodka, though others have reported delicious-tasting vanilla extract with a bottle of Jack Daniels)

2. Slice beans lengthwise and place into clean jar with alcohol.

3. Wait.

4. Gently shake your vanilla brew every couple of days.

5. Use as you would store-bought vanilla extract after 8 weeks of waiting. Patience is a virtue, my friends.

6. Marvel at all the money you saved, simply by putting vanilla beans in a jar with regular ol’ alcohol.

7. Thank Dr. Obvious for coming to town! 🙂

I started off with a modest 3/4 cup of alcohol and 3 vanilla beans, partly because I wanted to test this recipe out before making a gallon of it, but mostly because I had only purchased 3 vanilla pods in advance from Planet Organic. I assumed that 3 pods would contain 30+ seeds/beans inside, but I was so wrong. I’ve since ordered a giant sack of vanilla beans/pods from Mountain Rose Herbs, and I will be adding them to my mostly-full Jim Beam bottle in the next few days.