Sauerkraut Day

No eggs yet. I went back in the archives to check when our first hens started laying, and we calculated that, if these hens are like the others (and we have no basis for that assumption), the earliest we can expect an egg would be Tuesday, September 23.
Even though the first official day of autumn is not until that very Tuesday (late this year—what’s up with that?), the weather is autumn-like today. Low, gray clouds are skittering across the sky, blown by a chilly wind. Bah. When I’m done with the post, I’m going to bake some bread and then head out to the garden to continue the end-of-season clean up.

Last Sunday, Pat and Nancy came out for the annual putting up of sauerkraut. We grew some enormous heads of cabbage. We harvested about a dozen or so. We took one or two of the Danish Ballhead and all of the Stonehead, which were sunburned and beginning to split. We left most of the Danish Ballhead and all of the Kaitlin because they have no visible signs of damage and will keep better in the garden. We will eat those fresh or freeze them later in the season.

Part of the harvest. Note exceptionally tight leaves in the cut cabbage in the bowl.

The cabbages were exceptionally solid this year. A single cabbage weighed over four pounds. When we got to calculating, we figured we must be making in excess of 40 pounds of sauerkraut. This will be WAY too much sauerkraut. Yet once we get started, well….

The evidence: a 4.75-pound cabbage

Hilda and Nancy cleaned the cabbages and cut them into halves or quarters, depending on the size. Nancy cut open a cabbage that looked exactly like the brain, right down to having a core at the proper angle of the brain stem.

Hilda (in back) and Nancy prepping cabbage

Nancy and the brain cabbage 

I did the slicing, as Pat can’t even look at the slicer without getting the willies. The wire mesh slicing glove I got a few years ago ranks among the top 10 best purchases of my life. It is so much easier to use than the lame and boxy finger protection device that came with the kraut slicer.

Pat weighed the cabbage, mixed in the salt, and packed the cabbage into the crocks. 

Pat mixing in the salt

We used our new crock and crock weights for the first time this year. The latter is another top 10 purchase (at least among items that get used once a year), much superior to the plastic bag filled with water that we have used previously. Also, the crock has a heavy ceramic lid which seems to be preventing spillover as the volume inside the crock expands with the accumulating carbon dioxide. We filled the crock way too full. I forgot all about the expansion problem while we were packing the cabbage. I remembered in time to put a tray under the crock when we set it in the root cellar. I learned that trick last year after cleaning up a puddle of sauerkraut brine from the cement floor. One would think that one could remove the gas by pressing down on the weights and get the level down to where it was, but one would be wrong.

The crock beginning to bubble on the day it was made

The crock this morning on the brink of overflowing

Terry has had a spectacular squash harvest this year. The Delicata are really, really good. So creamy and delicious! Last year some of them were unpleasantly fibrous. So far, we are two for two at having the perfect custard-like texture. Who would have thought I would ever be one to go on and on about squash? I used to hate squash as a child. It is a good thing I have learned to like it. We have literally ahundreds. As I contemplate my winter menus and take into consideration what we have in the larder, I realize we need to eat Delicata four times a week and sauerkraut at least twice. I wonder what sauerkraut-stuffed Delicata would be like.

Part of the squash and pumpkin harvest. The round orange squash in the foreground are Golden Nugget, a new variety for us this year. The Delicata are the white squash with green strips in the bushel baskets and the two boxes in the back.