chopping...revisisted

Weelllll.....

 After posting...and then talking with the wonderful and all knowing mackadamian, I remember that he and his uncle had reminisced about his grandparents and his parents making sauerkraut...not as cool as i thought i was....or am i ever....

but, yes, it has been done before, not charting any new ground here....

and family that has those wonderfully huge crocks...feel free to spread the love and share.....(i'll give you yummy homemade sauerkraut in return...and maybe share a few recipes with you from great great grandmothers ledger collection...oh you know the ones..the coveted ones.....that's right....)

most of us will never chart new ground....but we can chart a better life...and that's what i feel like we (i mean my husband and i...cuz man he is all on top of this...he jsut can't get enough of food blogs and reading about what we should  not eat...and my lamenting about needing some land to till...)

now we are adding a healthy and cancer fighting food that we know what has gone into it.....

and there are still nutrients in it. unlike the store bought brands that are vinegared to make it taste like it is fermented....but with none of the optimum health benefits.

With only one minor but rather sharp incident.....this is what it looks like...it was so easy...including the slicing of the finger.....y'all should try it!!! Seriously!

all the cabbage sliced and ready

The onions...

The food safe plastic pail....(um family.....the crock would really look better here....just sayin)

here is the almost end product, with the salt and caraway seeds added.....

it has sat for about an hour, and now I will tamp it....and then place a nice heavy rock aka 2 quart jar filled with water on top of a plate to weight it down and keep it all under the cabbage juice...

you could even do this with one or two heads of cabbage...including purple cabbage (how pretty would that be?!) in a glass jar.....

now this bad boy pail...will be out in my cooler garage...because it will be giving off a STRONG odor.....think kimchi smell......yum, that sounds good!! I can't believe at one time i didn't like the stuff.....

so the question is..how do I get the little mcd's to eat sauerkraut...saying it is good for them...just won't cut it....

do you have any favorite recipes?  will you share them with me? (great...now I have a crazy song running through my head that the mctwins always pull up on my phone...will you sing it with me...picture #1 mctwin yelling this at the top of her voice! over...and over...and over..and...)

here is my favorite recipe..that a few of the mckiddos will eat.....

Bean and Sauerkraut Salad

2 cups sauerkraut

2 cups cut green beans (1 14.5 oz can, drained)

2 cups wax beans ( 15 oz can, drained)

2 cups red, kidney or garbanzo beans, drained

1 cup sliced green pepper

1/2 cup sliced red pepper (this is a good time to use those frozen peppers.....if you don't have fresh!)

Heat 3/4 olive oil, 1/2 cup sugar and 1 cup sliced red onion to a simmer then cool.  Mix with the beans and chill several hours or overnight.  Add fresh ground pepper just before serving.  Serves 8.

An apple a day.....er.....fermented?

Day two in the juice fast and I am still going strong...on the couch.....

ha...if only.....I have walked five miles this morning, taken the kids swimming and done several flights of the stairs to do laundry....


but whatta you care......do you care?  A little.....

you are reading...right?

Well lets proceed then....since part of the juice fast is taking olive oil three times a day in the place of your meals...swallowing oil straight can be somewhat of a challenge and remind me of taking castor oil when I was way too preggo......so.........

I added a few drops of cider vinegar since I love that on green salad....it worked like a charm.

But I also found while surfing the web...that cider vinegar is just one awesome product.  So I will share a few things that I saw and learned here and here.

Now I had heard this things here and there, apple cider vinegar kept my heartburn at a low simmer when I was pregnant with the mctwins....and hello.....even better....they say that it is a tool for good digestion and weight loss.

And afterall, it must be true...Macks' grandpa had a saying....

"soak it in cider".......except my husband draws it out...so I pretend that this is really what he meant....

AND....the ole hubby will be happy to hear, that if you soak beans with a 1/4 cup cider vinegar, it will take the, um...how do we say this politely.....the....sssshhhhhh....flatulence......that was a hard word to say!!! And not because he gets a gassy tummy.....either.


Salute!