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Ribs, mashed potatoes. Maybe a salad to assuage the guilt. :)

We make kraut every year, (unless struck with lazyness), in relatively small batches, so here are some instructions that are pretty well complete for future reference.

In your case I'd say remove the top inch or so, add fresh kraut, a bit of brine - say a cup of water mixed with a tbsp of salt or so, and leave it for a bit. Even if the process doesn't seem active, slow fermentation will continue, and hope for the best.

First, you want a winter cabbage - the kind that appears in farmers markets in October(?) - the storage kind. An early (summer) variety will not be crunchy but soggy.

Wash and peel the outer leaves of the cabbage and reserve. Shred the cabbage finely (used to do this by hand, now we use a food processor), and add up to 1/4 shredded carrots by weight. (Other possible additions - whole or quartered apple, thyme, cranberries, whole hot pepper).

Scald the fermenting container with boiling water before making kraut, best made in a wooden barrel, but glass, earthenware, etc. works too.

Mix in your barrel or bowl with NON-iodized salt until the cabbage starts to release water. Pack it firmly into a jar/barrel, leaving a bit of room at the top, say 2 inches for a jar, 8 inches for a barrel, lay the reserved cabbage leaves on top, and cover loosely with some cheesecloth or kitchen towel. We often use a (clean) heavy can of tomatoes as weight to keep the cabbage submerged.

Keep at room temperature (no less than 60F), and as soon as foam starts to appear on top, use a skewer to poke several holes in the kraut, all the way to the bottom, daily. Remove the foam daily also, bacteria can start breeding in it. After the first few days, the cabbage will release a ton of juice, and it should be removed into a clean glass/cup/jar and add back to the cabbage if it starts to dry out. Fermentation will take 12-20 days, and is over when the liquid is clear and there's no more foam. It will continue to intensify in flavor with time though, and in the old days would be extremely strong by spring, which is where rinsing it would be helpfu.

Kraut will store great closer to fridge temperature in the fridge, root cellar, cool basement pretty much forever, although any foam/scum should be removed periodically. It should only be loosely covered in a barrel, and can have a lid on it in a glass jar. The lid and rim of the jar can be rinsed in a heavily salted solution to disinfect them every so often.

The proportions we use are:

3 quart jar

6.5 lbs cabbage
6-8 medium carrots (optional, should be weighed)
3 tbsp salt
1 tsp sugar (optional)

Enjoy! Despite the detailed instructions it takes about 30 min. to prepare and 2 min daily maintenance. The payoff is awesome, as it's not only tasty, but quite nutritious as well.

I can't recommend a brand - ours is the cheap-o version, but we STILL use it daily - I roast peppers/veggies in it, heat up burritos and other frozen foods that suffer in the microwave (which we don't own anyway), toast muffins for egg mcmuffins, heat up leftovers, make mini pizzas, etc. I love the regular oven for full trays of stews, roasts, whole chickens, but for small jobs the little one rocks. Now I feel the need for an upgrade!

And Jim Lahey's no knead bread is baked in a pre-heated dutch oven, should you need to replicate.

Creme brulee
Cheesecake
Brownies

Wow I entered a new dimention of existence with this topic!

That's a heck of a production, and something I'd love to try when the weather cools again.

I'm rather tired of people whipping out the argument that we can't feed X amount of people if we all shopped locally and sustainably. That's as illogical as cramming food left on your plate down your throat so that children in Africa don't starve. No one's asking you to give up feedin' the world by supporting your local farmer. But all the costs of 'cheap' supermarket food are subsidized by the govt, i.e. our tax dollars anyhow, so pushing those costs out of the way and hiding them does not in fact make them go away. I've been one of the poor described in the article, for several years. I STILL went out of my way to purchase some of my food from local farmers, most of whom deliver if you order over 50 bux of meat. I still bought organic milk at the store, and when I couldn't afford something I went without. I totally understand that some people cannot. ever. afford to choose pricy local stores, but most farms DELIVER. Whether it's through a CSA, a bulk order split between several friends, or even a private arrangement, you can indeed get at least half of your food from local sources. It will indeed be cheaper, probably healthier, and you'll be supporting your local economy, your own neighbors. We have several community gardens that grow food for the food bank, just for those reasons and people love it. There is a large continuum of shopping locally, but snide comments calling it a fad or worse is just as annoying.

We've lived without a microwave for a couple of years now, since ours too bit the dust. Haven't missed it one bit. And frankly, the more data comes out saying that it may not be all that healthy to nuke food, the more glad I am.

@ Marxy - I'm with you.

I adore Tabasco for it's vinegary tang for many things, but my newly discovered fave this year was Miss Anna's sweet and sassy sauce AND their mellow pepper sauce. Oh frag they're good.

http://www.missannashotsauce.com/flavors.html#S

I adore roasted duck at the late night chinese food joint. Or a kebab. Every time I drink I get super hungry at some point... and all bets are off. :)

@Jerzee maybe if someone is THAT drunk that they lose control of their swallowing function, AND no one is around to save their drunk self, then they win a darwin award. Eating when drunk sounds like a personal choice (and necessity) to me.