Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Back to the Prairie: Bounties of Spring



   Down in the garden Grandma has a knife in hand and large buckets to fill; spring cabbage is ready for harvest. Pulling back the large outer leaves, she cuts the large firm heads. My job is to load them into the buckets as she chops them but the fresh spring air and warm sparkling sunshine keep distracting me.
   Back in the big farm kitchen the cabbage heads are washed before the hard cores are cut out. One by one the cabbages are shredded into fine pieces and sprinkled with plenty of fine salt. Worked and wrenched the salty shreds fill bowl after bowl all around the room. Time for the big brown crock to make it's way to the garage....we're making sauerkraut.
   In the coolness of the garage, Grandma fills the large crock with the salty wet cabbage shredded the day before..the wooden 'plate' is set in it's place to weight the cabbage under it's juices. It takes forever for cabbage to become kraut! Yet, as we daily 'churn the kraut' our minds wander to the various things she will make with this tasty treat: kraut and hot dogs, even my favorite sauerkraut pizza!
   Day after day we wait for the kraut to be just right..then packing and canning and setting on the scary basement shelves...just another blessing of this spring's bounty.

3 comments:

Clint Baker said...

You can ship some of that Kraut this way if you want, when you get it done, lol! I love Kraut! Never thought of it on pizza.

Unknown said...

I wish I could, but the post office might object!
There was a pizza place- Smiling Joe's, I think- that had this on it's menu..delish. Regular pizza crust and tomato sauce..drain your kraut well and add a bit of brown sugar to it..spread over your pizza, add mozzarella; bake as usual. Voila, kraut pizza.

Kathleen said...

Funny you should mention sourkraut on your pizza. My husband loves this and when I married him, I thought he was crazy until I tried it. Truly yummy! I'm enjoying all your recent posts. I hope Farmer Boy did well in the contest. I'm so impressed with what you can get accomplished!