Cucumbers and More. . .

The sauerkraut is almost ready and we have started another jar.  We are truly blessed with our garden and so very thankful.  The cucumbers are now flowing like water and the hubbs did plant some picklers so, you guessed it, he now wants to make pickles.   We still are not that sure about true canning so we are going to try refrigerator pickles.  The hubbs is quite an adventurous man these days and is willing to try new things.  Youtube may be the death of us.  Yes, he found a recipe and directions on youtube.
We are using wide mouth quart sized mason jars.  We did two jars of pickles to start, so if these mess up we have messed up two jars.  I did not realize how easy refrigerator pickles could be to fix and they will last up to 3 months in the fridge.  I love pickles and have since I was little.  In our first jar I used whole cucumbers, the picklers, and in the second jar I sliced the cucumbers and did spears.  I was really surprised at how easy these are to fix, we have not tried them yet so I guess I will have to update you later on how they taste.
As with everything I do, I tweaked this recipe too.  We also have a good crop of onion so to our pickles I added onion.   Here is what we did:

In a clean quart sized mason jar we added:

3 cloves of fresh garlic crushed
3 tsp black pepper corns
1 small onion sliced (3 slices)
2 pinches of red pepper flakes
2 bunches of fresh dill  (1 bunch on the bottom and 1 bunch on the top)

place your cucumbers in your jar.
Liquid:
2 cups of water
4 Tbsp white vinegar
1 1/2 Tbsp Kosher salt

The happy little guys that get to go in the fridge.

Our jar with all the spices 

The final product to go in the fridge.

These have been in the fridge for three days and I tasted the spears yesterday and boy were they good.  If you like the Claussen pickles you will love refrigerator pickles.  I am going to try the whole pickles today and see how they turned out.  The spears are fabulous!!!!  The hubbs hit a home run with these.  We will be making more of these.  

Six Heads of Cabbage and My Hubby. . . .

My husbands family has a little German in their history and he loves German food.  Now back to the cabbage, we do not normally grow this much cabbage but this year they all survived.   We have had stir fry, soup, stew, and have given some away.   My hubby has not found Pinterest yet, thank goodness, but he knows how to Google.  He found a recipe for homemade sauerkraut and has been preparing for it all week.  Yesterday was the big day and I could not pass up the opportunity to share this adventure with you.  I have not ever had sauerkraut before so this really is going to be an adventure for me.  The hubbs loves the stuff and he is a pretty good cook so this is going to be very interesting.
Sauerkraut is not something that is fixed in one day, it is a process and in some areas they bury it in the ground.  We did not bury ours, it is just sitting on the counter processing.  We started by peeling the outer layers of the cabbage and then slicing the head thinly then adding 1 1/2 teaspoons of sea salt.

After adding the salt you mash the cabbage, almost like kneading bread.

This what your cabbage looks like after kneading it for five minutes.

You take that and put it in a clean mason jar and tamp it down to get the air out of it.

You then add the liquid that you made by kneading back to the mason jar to cover the cabbage.

You place a smaller jelly jar filled with rocks or beads to weight down the cabbage.

The cabbage needs to stay under the liquid.

You then cover the jar with cheese cloth to keep dust and anything else out of your cabbage.

This is what the cabbage looks like this morning all veiled in cheese cloth.

As you can tell I have it sitting in a bowl, they said the liquid may bubble out of the jar.

I am not sure how long we have to wait, but stay tuned, I will keep you updated on the cabbage process.  I said we had six heads, this is only a quarter of a head.  I see more stew in my future but, that is ok, because it will go in the freezer for the winter.   Stay tuned potatoes will be coming in soon.

Next Phase of the Garden. . .

We have almost eaten all of the broccoli and boy it was a lot of broccoli.   We have harvested two batches of peas so far.  These are one of my favorites, I told you about eating them right out of the garden as a kid.  Not much has changed.  I do have one bag in the freezer though from this first batch I picked.  Below is my second picking, I did keep some to eat just right out of the fridge.  I wish my kids like our garden produce as much as the hubbs and I do.  I guess I was older before I appreciated all that my mother did with her garden and all the goodies that came from it.  Sprat does love the potatoes and Big T did love the lettuce.   The hubbs and I are loving it all.
Tonight we will have peas and potatoes, the hubbs loves these.   I use my sweet peas with half water and half chicken broth with a little salt and some cut up potatoes.  You can also throw a little butter or olive oil in there too.  These cook slowly on the stove while preparing the rest of the meal.

These are the ones that I will freeze for this winter.  Yummmm