Sauerkraut (again)

Our Fall Cabbage Harvest

The weather in southeastern Pennsylvania is finally turning to freezing nights and moderate days, so it's time to harvest the fall cabbage crop.  We have been cutting cabbages one at a time for cole slaw, but the freeze-thaw cycle is bound to ruin them if we don't get them all in now.  That's a lot of cabbage for two people so it's time to try making some sauerkraut.

The coming of winter also leads to the search for firewood and the other day I cut down a large dead hickory tree down by the bank of the creek.  I rigged a snatch block (type of pulley) from a tree at the top of the hillside and with a long line used the 4x4 pickup truck to haul the hickory logs up the hill to the yard.  This afternoon, I used the chainsaw to hog out a blank to be carved into a hickory sauerkraut tamper.

Hickory Cabbage Tamper Blank

Ace Hardware provided a handy 2 gallon plastic sauerkraut "crock" but I still needed something for the pressure lid that fit the inside of the crock.  I cut a round of hickory about 2" thick and with first the ax and then chisel carved it down to a round lid that fits inside the plastic crock for applying pressure to the sauerkraut as it works.

I started by washing everything in distilled white vinegar per Uncle Tim's suggestion.  Three green and one red cabbage heads yielded about 6 lbs of sliced cabbage.  I layered this into the crock sprinkling it with about 3 1/2 tablespoons of salt as it was layered.  Each layer was tamped down with the hickory tamper blank.  (This will be more elegant after the blank is carved into a properly shaped tamper with a handle but in the mean time that big ole chunk o' wood did a great job of tamping 'em cabbage down.)  At the end, I covered the cabbage with the round hickory pressure lid and weighted it down with the tamper blank.  Within an hour enough water had been extracted from the cabbage to form a brine which covered the lid and the sauerkraut was starting to work, forming bubbles when pressed down.  This all seems too simple to be true but after experimenting with pickles this year I am beginning to really appreciate lacto-bacteria.  With a little luck, we should have fresh homemade sauerkraut for Thanksgiving dinner this year.  Well see...

Ace Hardware Sourced the 2 Gal. Plastic "Crock"

Hickory Pressure Lid for the Crock

Grilled Potatoes

Time to get a November entry up on this blog!

I have talked before about our old friend, the currently much maligned potato.  For the record, the complete nutritional facts on a typical potato are listed at the end of this posting.  A potato is an excellent source of carbs.  It has almost no fat.  The solids portion are 10% protein leading to 7.5% protein calories with complete essential amino acids.  With a little fat supplement, you could live a healthy life on these.  The problem is that most prep methods for potatoes tend to add way too much fat for the average diet:  French fries; deep fat fried chips;  baked potato globbed with sour cream and butter; potato salad dressed with mayonnaise;  Dad's best mashers with way to much butter for healthy eating; potatoes for hash fried in bacon grease; etc.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I have been on the lookout for tasty ways prepare potatoes without adding excess fat.  Last time we dug potatoes from the garden we discovered that you can mash garden fresh,  new red potatoes with zero butter and get an excellent product.  Really, mashers with no butter.  But don't try that with a mid-winter white potato from the grocery store.

Last night, based on completely misunderstanding something Kanga was trying to tell me, it occurred to me that you could probably grill thick potato slices on the George Forman grill without a lot of grease.  I tried it.  I sprayed the grill lightly with PAM but I think you could get by with skipping even this little bit of oil.  I used grocery store white potatoes sliced about 3/8" thick.  They cooked up beautifully.  Add salt, pepper, fajita rub, whatever, it's good eating.  Try to cut the slices to very even thickness so they all get contacted by the top surface of the grill.  Of course if you are grilling on the BBQ you can probably bake/grill potato slices or wedges there also.  I guess the whole idea of grilling potatoes in not really a novel concept but it had not occurred to me to try it on the Forman grill with no grease before.

Food                                         Potato                Units      Percents

Portion                                         1                                          

Wt                                               214                                      

AA Score                                     100%                                   

Calories                                       199                       Calories    

  From Carbohydrate                     182                       Calories     91.4%

  From Fat                                    2                           Calories     1.2%

  From Protein                              15                         Calories     7.5%

  From Alcohol                              0                           Calories     0.0%

Total Carbohydrate                        45.2                      g               21%

Dietary Fiber                                 4.7                        g               2.2%

Starch                                          36.9                      g               17%

Sugars                                         2.5                        g               1.2%

Sucrose                                       856                       mg           

Glucose                                       942                       mg           

Fructose                                      727                       mg           

Lactose                                        0                           mg           

Maltose                                        0                           mg           

Galactose                                    0                           mg           

Total Fat                                      0.29                      g               0.1%

Saturated Fat                               0.07                      g               0.0%

Monounsaturated Fat                    0.00                      g               0.0%

Polyunsaturated Fat                      0.14                      g               0.1%

Total trans fatty acids                    0                           mg           

Total trans-monoenoic fatty acids   0                           mg           

Total trans-polyenoic fatty acids     0                           mg           

Total Omega-3 fatty acids              28                         mg           

Total Omega-6 fatty acids              92                         mg           

Protein                                         5                           g               2.5%

Tryptophan                                   84                         mg           

Threonine                                     195                       mg           

Isoleucine                                     216                       mg           

Leucine                                        321                       mg           

Lysine                                          325                       mg           

Methionine                                   84                         mg           

Cystine                                        66                         mg           

Phenylalanine                               238                       mg           

Tyrosine                                       197                       mg           

Valine                                          302                       mg           

Arginine                                       246                       mg           

Histidine                                       115                       mg           

Alanine                                        165                       mg           

Aspartic acid                                1308                      mg           

Glutamic acid                               897                       mg           

Glycine                                        158                       mg           

Proline                                         193                       mg           

Serine                                          233                       mg           

Hydroxyproline                              0                           mg           

Cholesterol                                   0                           mg           

Phytosterols                                 0                           mg           

Alpha Carotene                             0                           mcg         

Beta Carotene                              13                         mcg         

Beta Cryptoxanthin                       0                           mcg         

Beta Tocopherol                            0                           mg           

Betaine                                        0                           mg           

Choline                                        32                         mg           

Delta Tocopherol                           0                           mg           

Dietary Folate Equivalents             60                         mcg         

Folate                                          60                         mcg         

Folic Acid                                     0                           mcg         

Food Folate                                  60                         mcg         

Gamma Tocopherol                       0                           mg           

Lutein+Zeaxanthin                         64                         mcg         

Lycopene                                     0                           mcg         

Niacin                                          3                           mg           

Pantothenic Acid                          1                           mg           

Retinol                                         0                           mcg         

Retinol Activity Equivalent              2                           mcg         

Riboflavin                                      0                           mg           

Thiamin                                        0                           mg           

Vitamin A                                     21                         IU            

Vitamin B12                                 0                           mcg         

Vitamin B6                                   1                           mg           

Vitamin C                                     21                         mg           

Vitamin D                                     0                           IU            

Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol)         0                           mg           

Vitamin K                                     4                           mcg         

Calcium                                       32                         mg           

Copper                                         0                           mg           

Fluoride                                        0                           mcg         

Iron                                              2                           mg           

Magnesium                                  60                         mg           

Manganese                                  1                           mg           

Phosphorus                                  150                       mg           

Potassium                                    1145                      mg           

Selenium                                      1                           mcg         

Sodium                                        21                         mg           

Zinc                                             1                           mg           

Alcohol                                        0                           g              

Water                                          160                       g               75%

Ash                                             3                           g               1.3%

Caffeine                                        0                           mg           

Theobromine                                 0                           mg           

Stuffed acorn squash

Here's a new recipe I'm going to try this week.  Haven't made it yet, but I'm fairly convinced that there's no way it can be bad.

Edit:  Ok, so I tried this last night...you have to make it!  The sweetness of the squash + the spiciness of the mixture = deliciousness.  This is high up on our list of favorite recipes now.  Not to mention, it's beautiful and looks impressive even though it's quite easy.

 

 

 

 

Ingredients

• 3 acorn squash, (3/4-1 pound each)
• 5 ounces bulk turkey sausage (I used chipotle chicken sausage since it was on sale)
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 jalapeno, chopped
• 1/2 medium red bell pepper,chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 cups chopped cherry tomatoes
• 1 small chopped zuchinni
• 1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Several dashes hot red pepper sauce, to taste
• 1 cup shredded cheese (I used pepper jack)

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly coat a large baking sheet with cooking spray.
2. Cut squash in half horizontally. Scoop out and discard seeds. Place the squash cut-side down on the prepared baking sheet. Bake until tender, about 45 minutes.
3. 
   

   Meanwhile, lightly coat a large skillet with cooking spray; heat over medium heat. Add sausage and cook, stirring and breaking up with a wooden spoon, until lightly browned, 3 to 5 minutes. Add onion and bell pepper; cook, stirring often, until softened, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in garlic, chili powder and cumin; cook for 30 seconds. Stir in tomatoes, beans, salt and hot sauce, scraping up any browned bits. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer until the tomatoes are broken down, 10 to 12 minutes.
4. When the squash are tender, reduce oven temperature to 325°. Fill the squash halves with the turkey mixture. Top with cheese. Place on the baking sheet and bake until the filling is heated through and the cheese is melted, 8 to 10 minutes.

Try it!

Molly

Fajita (and everything else) rub

Over the summer we developed a new favorite meal, inspired by Molly.  It requires a liberal use of Fajita rub, the recipe for which we discovered several years ago in the BBQ Bible: sauces, rubs, and marinades, Bastes, butters, and glazes book by Steven Raichlen.

Fajita Rub - makes 1 cup - stores nicely in a jelly jar

1/4 c paprika
3 T course salt
2 T pure chili powder
2 T cracked black pepper
2 T garlic powder
1 1/2 T sugar
1 T onion powder
1 T dried cilantro (I usually don't have this on hand, and excluding it seems to have no negative effects)
1 1/2 t. ground cumin
1/2 t. ground allspice

Mix everything together.  Store in an airtight container.

A short investment of time to make this rub yields a lot of saved time down the raod, in so far as you can put it on just about anything that you want to add flavor to in seconds.

Our new favorite meal involves cutting zucchini, adding it to a saute pan with some olive oil, sprinkling with this rub, and cooking over medium low heat with the lid on, stirring occasionally, until the rest of dinner is ready.  The salt in the rub will pull liquid out of the zucchini, reducing the need for oil.  Add some corn (ideally fresh, but frozen also works) and, if you need to clean out your fridge or garden, some tomatoes, towards the end.  Cook some onions and peppers in a skillet, a la traditional fajitas, with a generous sprinkling of fajita rub.  Serve it all in a tortilla with some black beans, queso fresco, guac if you've got it, cilantro if you like it, etc.  Delicious and healthy, and you can add just about anything else you've got in your fridge - just sprinkle it with the fajita rub and it will blend right in!  I'm sure I'll be making this with winter squash as the seasons change (though given that it was 90 degrees here today I'm starting to despair of that ever happening).

Saturday dinner - steak sandwiches

We had steak sandwiches for dinner last night, and boy were they good!  It's becoming one of our favorite Saturday dinners, because they're are reasonably quick, but also seem special and are delicious.  Basically we just get all the components together and everyone can assemble whatever they want.  Usually we include: fresh homemade bread, grilled steak, bleu or brie cheese, caramelized onions, and wilted arugula.  mmm, mmm, yummm...!  And a glass of wine to finish it off.

I'm becoming a big fan of putting dry arugula or spinach in a bowl in the microwave for a min or two.  It just wilts the greens, rather than really cooking them down, so the texture is better.  Plus, they don't get as watery.  I especially like this method for prepping greens for sandwiches.

Caramelized onions - I finally figured out the secret to perfect silky cooked onions: salt!  Put a bit of oil  (you shouldn't need more than a couple tablespoons for several onions) in your pan, then add thinly sliced onions.  Sprinkle some salt over top, stir, cover, and turn the burner on to medium low/low (I use a heat of 3-4 out of 9).  Stir occasionally.  The salt draws water out of the onions as they cook, preventing them from burning.  Keep the lid on when you're not stirring to keep that moisture in the pan.  Keep cooking until the onions are how you like them - you can get them completely translucent and sweet if you don't rush it.  If you're ever in doubt, turn the heat down.  Patience!  It can take 20-30 min to do it right.  If you like a little brown, just turn up the heat at the end and/or take the lid off.  I think these make a great, healthy addition to a sandwich.  An onion has similar nutrition as an apple, right?  And these are silky enough that there's no need for mayo or anything like that.  Will doesn't like onions, but if I'm holding back a little to be polite, Aleks and I will easily finish off 3 large onions worth of caramelized onions in a dinner.

Sausage Lentil Stew

Hey hey,

Anyone have that delicious sausage lentil stew recipe?

Molly

October 8, 2012:
I wanted to comment with a photo so I am using my supernatural powers to append my comment to Molly's original post, rather than including this comment as a "comment".  I added Mom's recipe that we all got used to as you were growing up in a "comment", below.

Today, I wanted to make Sausage and Lentil Stew.  Before I got the "official" recipe from Mom, I looked at Maggie's entry from Epicurious and cruised around the internet a bit to get some ideas for Sausage and Lentil Stew, paying particular attention to several that used kale.

Now that's a carrot!

It is the end of the season here in southeastern Pennsylvania, but we have not had first frost and the garden has not given up yet, so a trip up the lane was in order.  The take was a carrot weighing in at 508 g, some red and green pepperocini, a hot red pepper, a bunch of fresh parsley, and several stalks of garden celery (stalks small and tough needing a lot of cooking but beautiful leaves with great stew/soup flavor), not to mention a couple of leaves of kale.

I chose to work with Hatfield Sweet Italian sausage (sweet Italian used in several internet recipes) and to add some chicken broth (also common to several internet recipes).  I cut the sausage into chunks about 1" long and cooked them in the microwave for 10 minutes at 50% power and set them aside.

I added the chicken broth (non-fat, reduced sodium - not to worry, I got the sodium back up later), 32 oz., to the pot and added 6 c. of water to bring the total to 10 c., then started cookin':

Parsnips (from the store; we have never tried to grow these), 3 small, 183 g
Carrot, 276 g after pealing, cleaning, and cutting
Onion, 3 small, 232 g.
Garlic, 6 smallish cloves, 16 g - coulda used more in my view
Lentils, 2 c. - I used green; multicolor would be pretty but I got pretty from the veg this time
Add the sausage in about here
Bay leaf, 2
Potatoes, 3 medium, 382 g
Black peppercorns, some
Celery, 46 g, from the garden, chopped up
Spicy carrot tops, 24 g - don't throw out those beautiful greens from the carrot!
Hot red pepper, 1 small, 3g, chopped fine
Red bell pepper, 55 g - we have had great bell peppers this year and they add great color!
Pepperocini, red and green, cut into rings, 42 g - colorful pepperocini rings are  just fun!
Fresh thyme from the herb garden, some
Fresh lovage from the herb garden, some
Tomatoes, everything left form the last picking, 273 g
Salt and pepper to taste

I figured it would take 55 minutes form the time I added the lentils and added the other ingredients in the order given to kind of regulate the cooking time.  When we were 10 minutes off done, I added two leaves of kale, chopped, and the handful of parsley shown in the photo, also chopped.

OK, I ain't lyin'; this was good.  We ate it with a pan full of steamed broccoli with lemon juice, fresh from the garden.  I guess this is just another example of walking out to the garden in October, taking some of what's there, and cooking it up into an end-of-season-pease-porridge with lentils, except this time we included some sausage as well.

Fall Baking has arrived!

It's a brisk 99 here in Tucson today.  I spent yesterday afternoon in the pool.  I'm on fall break from school.  Clearly this means it's fall baking season....

This is not a healthy recipe, but it sure is delicious.  I saw sweet potato cheesecake at a restaurant the other week and wanted to try it.  I didn't order it, instead I thought I'd just make my own.  Well, I searched and searched for recipes until I came across one that I liked.

This sweet potato cheesecake was, by far, the best cheesecake I've ever made.  It was incredibly creamy and rich...plus it tasted like fall!  If you're ever in the mood for a special treat, or if you have a big group of people coming over, make this!

Sweet Potato Cheesecake

Crust:

2 cups gingersnap crumbs

1/2 cup finely ground pecans

8 tablespoons salted butter, melted

Filling:

3 (8-ounce) packages of cream cheese, at room temperature

2 cups cooked, mashed sweet potatoes

3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk

1/4 cup sour cream

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Some nutmeg (I never measure spices anymore)

Some ginger (why not?)

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Optional garnish: whipped cream, candied pecans, caramel sauce

PREHEAT oven to 550 degrees.

COMBINE gingersnap crumbs and pecans.  Add melted butter. Press crust into bottom and sides of springform pan.

BEAT cream cheese until smooth. Add sweet potatoes, eggs, egg yolk, sour cream, sugar, cinnamon, flour and vanilla. Beat together until well combined.

POUR cream cheese mixture into crust. Spread out evenly and place in oven for 10-12 minutes, until cake begins to puff.  Lower temperature to 250 and bake until cake is set.  It should still jiggle in the middle.  Turn off the oven and prop open the door and allow the cake to cool until you forget about it.  At some point, remember that you have a cake in the oven and put it into the fridge.

I made a caramel pecan sauce to serve with this, which I didn't end up using.  Most people ate it with the sauce, but I found the cake to be sweet enough without it.  Also I didn't want the caramel to over-power the other flavors.

If you are going to bake it using this method, you really have to watch in the beginning.  You don't want it to burn, which can happen quickly at 550.  

Alright, I'm going to go eat some leftovers :-).  

Molly