Homemade sauerkraut is more than just delicious, it’s actually enormously healthful. For lovers of homemade food everywhere, this basic recipe can be your guide to experimenting with kraut adventures. While kraut has the reputation of being a German food, it’s actually just the German name for the simple brine fermentation that is a common practice of preserving vegetables in cultures throughout the world. Pickles and kimchee are other examples, for instance.
If you love the crunchy, tangy taste of sauerkraut, you’re actually tapping into an ancient tastebud tradition. Fermented vegetables have been in the human diet for thousands of years! Our ancestors were working in harmony with the microbial environment to preserve food with fermentation, and without the aid of a refrigerator, probably even before the advent of fire.
And yet, in the past few generations (you can thank Louis Pasteur for this), we have erased the actual TRUE goodness of sauerkraut and its brethren from the modern American diet. You see, the sauerkraut and pickles you buy in the store have been heat processed, and so robbed of many of the valuable micro nutrients our bodies have thrived on for eons.
But the good news is, you can easily remedy this grave gastric injustice right in your very own kitchen. You can stage a silent coup of the industrial food monopoly in a jar or crock of your own design. So far, there are no food police, so you’re still allowed to enjoy delicious food of made in the privacy of your subversive culinary habitat. And it’s so easy.
Wild Fermentation - How fermented food can change the world
I have to give a shout out to my friend Mike Clark for turning me on to this wonderful book. Wild Fermentation not only tells you how to make kraut from scratch, it chronicles the makings of dozens of fermented culinary delights that anyone can master. This book is more than just a great DIY guide, it’s a manifesto for health, wellness, and whole food, free from industrial processing. Wild Fermentation encourages us to take control of our own diets and take back our culinary history from the powerful food industry that perpetuates our separation from the grounding, life-giving forces of nature.
Everything I learned about sauerkraut I learned from this book by Sandor Ellis Katz. And, yes, I admit it freaked me out at first to be eating something that had been sitting at room temperature for several days. But overcoming my fear has paid off big time. Now there is not a day that a crock of kraut is not seasoning in some corner of my kitchen.
Sauerkraut recipe
A pictoral step-by-step of kraut making.
In this recipe I used equal parts red and green cabbage, plus I added some lovely fresh, local beet greens.
Chop the cabbage and greens into bite-sized pieces.
After producing a thick layer of chopped veggies, sprinkle some sea salt. No need to measure. But err on the light side. A good rule of thumb is about one tablespoon per cabbage head.
Continue until all your vegetables are chopped. Then mix them up, distributing the salt throughout.
Pack the vegetables tightly into a jar or crock. I use a wooden spoon or mallet (intended for meat tenderizing). The crushing of the leaves helps the salt to penetrate the vegetables and draw out the water.
Choose a lid that will fit very snugly inside the crock or jar. A bit of space is allowable, but you want to be sure to keep ALL the vegetables submerged under the brine. You’ll also want to weigh down the lid with a heavy rock or another jar filled with water.
Use a snug fitting lid with a weight,
or use a tightly fitting jar filled with water
to weigh down the kraut below the brine level.
Here I use a tupperware lid,
and weigh it down with a
boiled rock from Lake Michigan!
Press down the weight every few hours or so until you you are assured that water has risen above the vegetables. It can take up to 24 hours for the salt to completely leech the water from the vegetables. If after 24 hours there’s still not enough water to cover the veggies, you’ll want to add a bit of brine. Use 1 tablespoon of salt, completely dissolved, per cup of water.
The brine should be over your lid,
and no veggies showing!
This can take up to 24 hours.
It is VERY IMPORTANT that your lid is snug enough that NO VEGETABLES are floating to the top. Vegetables MUST stay submerged, or you are going to invite the wrong kind of bacteria into your crock - and the result will just be putrid vegetables rather than fermented kraut. (You’ll know from the smell, trust me. And nothing is sadder than having to throw out your lovingly chopped cabbage that never got the chance to fulfill its nutritive potential.)
Leave your crock ajar, but cover it with a towel to keep out dust (or cat hair!)
So now you wait. Don’t seal the crock. Leave it open a crack. You will want to cover it with a clean dish towel to keep dust out, but allow air to circulate. Each day or so you may want to check your crock to be sure all is well. The water has a tendency to evaporate if your home is very dry or the weather is warm. After day four or five you can remove the weight and lid and sample your kraut. I’ve found that day ten to twelve (here in winter in Michigan) is when I find it “perfect” - I then take out a big handful to put it in the fridge to enjoy. I carefully repack the crock, submerging the cabbage and weighing it down, to let the remaining kraut season even further, creating new taste variations as it ages.
Kraut around my house never lasts past week three, as we eat it pretty quickly, but you can continue to store it under brine for many weeks in cool weather. Of course in hot weather the kraut will mature more quickly.
Finished purple kraut
So that’s it! Pretty simple! I like to add my kraut to a sandwich of steamed kale, mustard, and tahini on rye bread for a lovely vegetarian ruben. It’s also amazing on sausages. Or just straight out of the jar! My roommate and I love to just eat a bowl of it when it has finally reached maturity..sort of a little kraut celebration, an epicurean tribute to the wonders of home fermenting!
I’ve experimented with combinations of cabbages and greens - probably my favorite combo being a spicy pink kraut I accomplished by combing four heads of green cabbage, one head of red cabbage, two large bunches of mustard greens, and four tablespoons of mustard seeds.
Makings of spicier kraut
Feel free to experiment! Add garlic and peppercorns. Spinach and kale. Get creative! Enjoy!
I heard a fable of an exotic bacon-chocolate chip cookie, which had made an appearance at a party I’d sadly missed. Having been notable enough to be the most mentionable event of the party, I was intrigued. Later, after seeing a lot of online talk about the bacon chocolate bars, I decided to investigate this mythical cookie, intending to recreate its magic for myself.
With the incentive of a party invite, I searched the internet and finally uncovered a recipe in the cache of a defunct blog (RIP neverbashfulwithbutter.com, thanks for the inspiration!). To this, I added a real maple glaze. The cookie was well received (all gone), and I shared a picture on line.
I’ve now had about a dozen requests for the recipe, so why not post it here?
This obviously is NOT health food! But truly a divine treat - containing two of the world’s most loved foods in one cookie! Plus, the maple icing adds a fantastic bridge to lift the sultry smokiness of the bacon to its fully realized high chocolate note.
The trend this anti-shopping holiday season is toward making gifts for the yuletide - imagine the delight and surprise of your family and friends after receiving these delectable beauties from your kitchen!
THE RECIPE
Makes one dozen cookies
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup white granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 1/2 cups flour (I prefer to mix 1 c unbleached white with 1/2 c of Whole Wheat pastry flour, but all white will do)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup bacon bits (this must be REAL bacon that you cooked to crispness, drained of fat on paper towels, and then chopped into bits yourself - nothing less will do! As far as quantity, I used a bit less than 1 pound of bacon to make the cup, leaving out three strips for garnish. But you can adjust according to your bravery or taste.)
ALL TOGETHER NOW
Soften the butter to room temperature before you begin. Beat the butter, sugars, vanilla and eggs until well creamed. Sift together the flours, salt, and baking soda. Add the dry mix to the butter and cream mix, and stir together until a batter forms. Add the chocolate chips and bacon bits and stir until combined. Spoon a generous dollop onto a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie sheet (or an oil misted cookie sheet will do, though parchment paper keeps your cookie sheet nicer). Place the dollops at least an inch apart.
Bake cookies for approximately 11 minutes, or until the dough starts to turn brown along the edges. Remove the cookies and allow them to cool while you prepare the glaze.
REAL MAPLE GLAZE
6 level tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
2 tablespoons real maple syrup
Sift the sugar into the syrup. Whisk together vigorously until smooth and creamy.
Place the glaze on the cooled cookies, working with two spoons to help you edge the sticky sweet glob onto the cookie. Top with a piece of crisped bacon.
A NOTE ABOUT INGREDIENTS
I recommend using nitrate-free bacon, which can be had at organic grocers or ordered online. The very finest in bacon comes from Benton’s in Tennessee and can be ordered from Zingerman’s.
Always use the freshest and highest quality eggs and butter you can find. The quality of these ingredients is THE difference between good and amazing baking.
I think you’ll love this cookie as much as my friends and I did. Enjoy!
Ask me if I’d like some carrot soup and, like most people, I’d answer, “uhh…what are my other options? ” But all that has changed since I discovered this recipe!
I’ve realized in recent months that I was throwing away too much food, so I’m trying to be more disciplined and efficient with what’s on hand. This week I had a big bag of baby carrots, just sitting there, waiting for inspiration. I had not much else in the way of vegetables, either. And true to my mandate to stick with what’s in my fridge, I decided to try to find some way to use those little suckers.
RECIPE BOOK COLLECTION TO THE RESCUE
I use carrots in vegetable soups and salads, but don’t really have any tricks up my sleeve for highlighting them. To the rescue - the always entertaining Isa Chandra Moskowitz, creator of the PPK (Post Punk Kitchen). Whether you’re vegan or not, you’ve gotta love Isa’s style and her cookbooks, just loaded with thoughtful alternatives, enlightening suggestions and inspiration to be creative.
From her book Vegan with a Vengeance I found her recipe for Carrot Bisque. I noted I luckily had all the ingredients on hand — this one calls for a can of coconut milk (I keep a couple of cans from Trader Joe’s tucked away for Thai curry emergencies). So i was all set! I varied the recipe a bit - hers called for curry powder and I just made my own little curry with cumin, red pepper, garam masala and ginger. (Curry is actually a combination of spices that varies from region to region, and even family to family, in India, so I rarely keep the nebulously titled “curry powder” around - instead opt to make impromptu variations.)
CURRY SOUP?! WE HAVE A WINNER!
I have to say the sweet nutty richness of the coconut milk, with the spice of the pepper and cumin, made this a truly complex, satisfying and memorable soup. HIGHLY recommended! (I actually just bought more carrots today, an extra big bag, with plans to pair it with that last can of coconut milk waiting patiently in the pantry.)
COMPLETING THE MEAL
But the challenge was not over! I had to make the soup part of a complete winter-night meal. I had some cooked chick peas that needed to be used or they were going to riot their way right into the garbage can. So I whipped up a little crowd-pleasing hummus, adding cumin to bridge the gap between the two dishes. It was actually a great meal, receiving favorable views from the assembled diners - myself included.
Ever since moving to the Detroit area three years ago, I’ve been delighting in the wonders of scrumptious little dumplings known as pierogi. The Polish population of the area lends itself to some amazing little delis that offer their housemade version of the treat, as well as small-company packaged varieties. The little dumplings can be filled with potatoes, cheese, mushrooms, kraut - some are even filled with a “sweet cheese”! Yum!
I’ve been determined to make them for some time, and finally got my chance this week.
FLOUR SUBSTITUTION - SHORTAGE IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION!
I seem to have a problem rolling out thin sheets of dough. Circumstances were such that I had a borrowed pasta maker for one night (thanks, Sam!) to do the rolling for me. When we got down to business, I was disappointed to realize I’d used all my white flour for cakes earlier in the month. So rather than dash to the store, we decided to try with the flours I had on hand - atta and unbleached whole wheat white.
Atta flour is a whole wheat flour that has a roasted taste. It’s processed very, very fine, so dough made from it can be rolled thinner than the courser-ground whole wheats we are used to seeing. Atta is used for naan and chipati. (I keep it around for pretzels.) Overall, the results with these non-traditional flours were delicious.
There was no shortage of recipes on line, but I stuck with one that was easily adapted to vegan ingredients. I think with a thinner dough I would’ve had a higher (and better) filling-to-dough ratio, and will aim for that next time. But for now, they taste great, and I like the fact they are a little healthier than the traditional recipe!
In retrospect, I wish I’d used more atta flour, which would’ve made a stretchier dough (and thinner). I’m modifying my final recipe here to include more atta, thinking this ratio will be best for anyone wanting to try this non-traditional twist…
THE DOUGH
1 c. unbleached white whole wheat and 1c. atta flour, sifted together
1 egg (or 1/4 cup egg replacement powder + 3 tbsp water for vegan)
1/2 c. lukewarm water
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. melted butter (or Earth Balance margarine for vegan)
and..
THE FILLING
Cheese and potato
6 oz. mild cheddar cheese, shredded (or 3/4 cup of nutritional yeast for vegan)
2lb potatoes, boiled and mashed
1 medium onion
3 tbsp butter or Earth Balance margarine
Dice onion and saute in butter. Mix well with the potatoes and shredded cheese, and add salt and pepper. Allow to cool before filling the dumplings.
Sauerkraut
10-12 oz. sauerkraut
2 tbsp butter (or Earth Balance)
1 medium onion
Rinse sauerkraut, but not so much that all the tang is gone! Saute onion in butter/margarine. Chop Kraut and add to onions. Add salt and pepper, stirring occasionally. Let cool for 20 minutes before filling dumplings.
PREPARATION
Make dough by simply mixing sifted four together with all other ingredients and knead in bowl. Rest it for 1/2 hour, covered. Then knead the dough again on a floured surface. You can either roll to 1/8 inch thickness, or use a pasta maker, like I did, to roll the dough thin. Cut out circles with a glass or large can edge - you’ll want the diameter of the circle to be between 3 - 4 inches.
Sifting the flour - beside our cheese and potato filling.
Putting a bit of dough through the pasta maker.
Cutting out the circle.
Fill with about a table poonful of your favorite filling. Then wet the edge of half the circle and press the edges together. Be sure to seal VERY well, as you don’t want the filling spilling out into the boiling water as they cook!! Heartbreaking!
Adding some filling - Kraut in this one.
Wetting the edge on a potato-filled pierogi.
Pinching the edges tightly together.
Ready to boil!
Bring water to a boil and add salt, just as if you were cooking pasta. Drop the pierogi gently into the boiling water. When the pierogi float to the top, turn down the heat to a low boil, and cook for about 5-7 more minutes. Remove the finished pierogi with slotted spoon.
Ready to enjoy!
EAT THEM UP!
At this point you can either serve them right from the boil with melted butter, or lightly fry them in butter or margarine (my favorite way!) until they brown, as in the picture at the top of the post. Some people even make a sour cream sauce with chopped onion, butter, and sour cream and pour this over the top of their pierogi.
You’ll want to eat what you make within a week, but pierogi also freeze really well. We sprayed some with olive oil to keep them from sticking and tucked them away for later! As long as you’re taking the time to assemble these little guys, you may as well make a bunch to enjoy for several meals.
OK, I have been on a quest lately to perfect the vegan “Twinkie Cupcake.” This isn’t an original idea. I was inspired by a recipe for vegan twinkies made blogosphere-famous by Schmooed Food (recipes from the vegan lunchbox) - fun site that recreates a lot of children’s standards in a vegan incarnation.
I tried the recipe as it was written (mostly), and…I don’t know, the cake part was a little heavy. And the filling, while tasty in its own right (malt=yum), was not the fluffy texture one would expect in a “twinkie.” And besides that, the whole thing begged for some contrast (like chocolate ganache frosting, for instance).
So in my own test kitchen, after several attempts, I devised a winner! One friend who ate one of these lovelies told me it was too good to associate with the name Twinkie. I felt bad that he had a negative impression of this sacred childhood classic, but I got the point.
This is mostly an adaptation and combination of several recipes, since I am not chemistry-savvy enough to be a truly original baker…
Here goes (makes two dozen cupcakes):
The Cupcake
(adaptation of Chez Bettay’s vanilla cupcake recipe)
- 2 cups plain soy milk, (you can use vanilla flavored, too, but may want to adjust how much vanilla extract you add!)
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
3 cups unbleached white flour (type of flour is important - whole wheat pastry flour just doesn’t do well in vanilla cupcakes)
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1-1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup Earth Balance (or other soy margarine), soft
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar (I use Florida Crystals - organic and US grown/produced)
1/2 tablespoon coconut extract (this gives a richer flavor, but your cakes will not taste like coconut)
1-1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract (try to use the best you can find. Good Vanilla makes a big difference!)
Preheat the oven to 350.
Add vinegar to the soy milk and set aside (mixture will curdle)
Sift together the dry ingredients (flour through salt), except sugar.
Using a hand blender on a low setting, cream together the margarine and sugar, and slowly add the extracts. Then slowly add the soy milk/vinegar mixture. Now you are ready to blend in the dry ingredients. Blend just until it is all wet, as you don’t want to over mix (this will affect fluffiness!).
Fill your paper or aluminum muffin cups using a 1/4-cup measuring scoop. Helpful hint: spray the muffin cups with spray oil (I use spectrum’s canola, largely flavorless) for ease of removing the cupcake from it’s paper after baking.
Bake for about 30 minutes, but you may want to start checking them around the 25 mark depending on you oven.
The Filling
- 1/2 cup Earth Balance (or other soy margarine)
1 cup non hydrogenated shortening
1-1/2 cup caster sugar (this part is important! - if you can’t find any in the market, buy it online)
1/2 cup malt powder (get this at home brew shops, light is preferred)
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of coconut extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
Using you hand blender, cream together the shortening and margarine. Add sugar and malt powder and blend well - for at least five minutes. Finally add your extracts and salt and blend for one more minute.
The Icing
(this one is all me, from years of ganache-making)
- 8 oz of semi sweet chocolate, chunked up into small bits
1/2 cup soy milk
In a small frying or sauce pan, bring soy milk to a simmer, slowly add the chocolate and remove from heat. Stir constantly until all the chocolate has melted.
Putting it together:
You have to wait for these puppies to cool before you do anything, or the filling will seep into the cake and wow, what a let down.
Here’s what I do: I jab my finger into the top center of the cooled cake, all the way to the “floor,” to create a well. Using an icing bag fitted with any large opening tip, I fill each cupcake with that gooey, creamy filling.
Then (timing here is important), I take the still warm small pan of ganache, tip it to the side to get some depth, and carefully dip each cupcake into the chocolate. Then set the cupcakes in the fridge for about 15 minutes to set the ganache.
Finally, take the icing bag of filling mix, fit it with a star tip, and make little flowers on top to hide the dent you made to house the filling. (the ganache alone just won’t do the trick). If you’d like , you can dust the final product with confectioners sugar or cocnut to make it extra pretty.
Voila! Chocolate-dipped twinkie cupcakes! My first semi-original baking recipe. Only don’t go blaming me when you gain 10 pounds! While these little gems may be vegan, they are NOT low fat!!!
Ok, so for reasons I’ve alluded to in my last post, I’m trying to be animal-product free, at least until farmer’s market season starts, when I can be sure to get farm-fresh eggs.
It’s been a great challenge and I actually am feeling great. But being the adventurous sort that I am, I’ve gotten a bit tired of tofu, seitan, beans, nuts and nutritional yeast for my protein sources. (Well, that’a a lie. I’m still not tied of nutritional yeast. That on popcorn is like an addictive bag of cheetos, only less styrofoam-ish and without the dayglo color!)
And so… recently I found out about the virtues fu. How come no vegans ever mention fu? I found out about it from the Just Bento site, which isn’t even neccessarily vegetarian, (though healthy bent, for sure). Fu has about 1 gram of protein for every 15 calories. And NO fat. What are we waiting for?!? Let’s all get busy and start singing the praises of fu! Alert the skinny bitches for inclusion in Skinny Bitch 2.
Fun fu
So fu comes in many shapes and forms. When you find them in the grocery, you’ll notice that they actually have odd little names, reminiscent of anime characters, such as matsutake, chikuwabu and komachibu. It’s a great pantry staple, as it’s dried and just hangs out in there til you’re ready for it. One day you’re out of tofu and beans, you’re debating a trip to the grocery at some god awful hour, where you’ll have to resort to some late-night, corporate-stocked store, and just then your little buddies in the pantry speak up, having been waiting on the side lines for this, their savior moment: “hey, remember me? That dried-bread-looking stuff? It’s time…”
So you soak this dried-bread-looking stuff in water, just about 2 minutes is enough. You sort of squeeze it out then. And add it to stir fries or soups. That’s about it. It is essentially wheat gluten and has no flavor at all, yet it absorbs the flavors of whatever you cook it with, much like it’s dense cousin tofu, but even more absorb-y.
Not to be confused with TOfu
For instance, one of my favorite ways to cook it is to braise it in a mixture of soy sauce, mirin, garlic, chili paste (just a touch) and mushroom broth, and it ends up so flavorful!!! (And with a chewy sort of texture that will satisfy any flesh-gnawing urges.) I then add another couple of tablespoons of liquid and toss in some prepared rice*, a handful of greens, and mushrooms, simmer until all the liquid is absorbed, and then I have a steaming little exotic gourmet plate of low-fat, high-protein and high-fiber goodness. It’s an excellent, filling, and healthy meal in !Less Than 10 Minutes! In other words, a great thing to have in your repetoire if you are busy person in need of a quick protein source, such as myslef.
Happy fu, dancing in a pan
(they DO kinda shimmy as they simmer!)
Another quick meal with some fu protein added: Miso soup! Just boil a couple of cups of water or broth, add a little soy sauce, toss in some dried seaweed (I like wakame, myself, but the seaweed is of course entirely optional), possibly some bok choy or mushrooms (I love mushrooms, can you tell?), and add your fu for some protein punch. Toward the end of cooking (once the dried seaweed and Fu are fully reconstituted, about 5 minutes), remove the pan from the heat and take about a quarter cup of the broth and mash in your miso paste until well blended (fully boiling the miso kills off beneficial enzymes). Pour that miso concentrate into the cooling soup, along with a dash of sesame oil, if you’d like. The fu soaks up the flavor of the broth and miso and adds some interest and texture to this healthy soup. (I also like to spoon in some prepared rice*, to cool it off and complete the meal at the same time!)
(Well, maybe I blogged too soon about no vegans shouting out fu’s many attributes: I noticed that always inventive and inspirational SusanV has a version of Oden, using fu and root vegetables. This savory stew looks to be a scrumptious soup-fu combination, too! I’ll have to try that one next!)
So get to your nearest Asian grocery. Go snooping near the dried stuff, like the seaweeds and mushrooms. Chances are good you’ll find some fus to experiment with! Let me know what you come up with!
*Rice (a footnote - or foodnote?)
So I’ve long been a fan of Helen Nearing’s Simple Food book. Helen, along with her famous husband Scott, was a renowned “back to nature”-ist, well before hippies even existed. Helen’s book is a great collection of common sense advice and the most impossibly simple recipes of wholesome good sense. Sometimes with such vague details as “place in a hot oven,” so you’ve got to figure it out yourself, possibly through a ruined dish or two. From her basic recipe, and my own experimentations (as I found the cook times and proportions just weren’t working for me) comes my essential staple of Baked Rice. I make this rice on a Sunday and it carries me as a base for a few breakasts, lunches, and dinners throughout the week.
Crazy-Easy Baked Rice (from Helen to me to you)
2 cups short grain brown rice (or 1.5 cups short grain brown and .5 cups wild rice for a little extra crunch in your texture)
4 cups veggie or mushroom broth
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 to 2 teaspoons salt
1 to 2 teaspoons white or black pepper (or a combination of both - preferably fresh ground, of course)
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds (optional)
This is so easy, it might become a staple in YOUR kitchen: Simply put all ingredients in a casserole dish and cover. Cook for about 50 minutes to an hour at 350 and you’ve got this yummy rice supply to add to tofu scrambles, burritos (with beans), soups or stir fries… or Fu (see, full circle after all!).
