Sauerkraut and Olives

[Wag]

I've loved sauerkraut ever since I was a small kid, even though most of my siblings and friends and family really didn't care for it. But it always came from a jar, from the store and had a ton of vinegar in it. Of course, I didn't know any different until I was about 16 or 17 and my mother made some home made kraut.

Talk about Food of the Gods. That was the most delicious food item I'd ever had.

So, I was at a local brewery a few weeks ago and ordered a brat with kraut and it was good but it was old bottled variety and I decided to try my hand at it. Recipes abound on Google: pick one. It's a two-week process and it just "completed" yesterday. Tried it this morning after letting it sit in the fridge overnight. Holy smokes, is it wonderful. I gotta go to the German deli and get some good sausages for it for later today.

MMMMMMMMMM!

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Soon after she did the kraut, Mom cured some olives. They were green, but they didn't taste like the typical green martini olives you get from a store. (I love those, too, btw.) Nope. These tasted like black olives but WAY better than the olives you get in a can at the store. Apparently, it's a lot of work to cure olives, kinda like the time it takes to do the kraut, or to can peaches, etc. But holy smokes, were those olives the best of the best.

I'm starting to look for a place to get olives and try a couple of recipes for it. Anyone else ever done this?

Any other exotic foods that we don't normally do at home because it's just so much easier to buy?

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As an afterthought, there have been years in the past when we've bought spaghetti sauce in a jar but several years ago, I decided I was tired of that garbage. We were always cooking up sausage or ground pork or beef and mushrooms to add to it anyway so why not go the rest of the way and do it right? Never looked back and the sauce now is light years ahead of a jar.

Best one I ever did was a cast iron over the grill version. Mesquite chips while the meat was cooking. Grabbed a few Roma tomatoes out of the garden and grilled them up next to the cast iron dutch oven and them plopped those in. Cooked everything down with the right spices and made enough for twenty people.

It lasted two days! Again, food of the gods.

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What else?

--Wag--

[Hickory]

Beer, brats and sauerkraut will get really get the bowls working.

[Hossfly]

To me everything is better when done fresh from the garden. Always had Fele’ in a jar, didn’t know it was just ground up sas a Fras leaves, we got them growing every where around here, you just have to know what it looks like. Fele’ is used to thicken the rue that starts most things here in Louisiana.

[JBinMN]

I enjoyed reading your post. Kind of made my mouth water a lil bit.


We make our own pasta sauce, but not the sauerkraut, nor the olives.

We have friends who do the sauerkraut every year though & they often let me have a jar. I am the only one here who likes it & I even like it just alone without anything else. I sometimes have it with sausage, or on a brat /frank, but most times I just eat it all by itself.

The olive idea is worth checking in to I am thinking. I may do that later.

And yes! Fresh from the garden is always the best!


Thanks!

[MaryB]

Try making old fashioned fermented brine cured pickles sometime! I keep them in the fridge when they are half sour and they keep souring as I use them up. Flavor from my childhood when I made the first batch! Grandma's pickles were always so good but I could never get that flavor with a vinegar pickle... fermented did the trick! I have 2 one gallon German fermenting crocks with a moat the lid sits in. Keep that filled with water as stuff ferments. I make a gallon of kraut every year too, I BBQ a lot of ribs in summer and save the rib tips/trimming for a inter meal of ribs braised in kraut.

This is the crock I use, can probably find a better price with a search. I found mine on Amazon but that seller is no longer there. https://store.samsonjuicers.com/schm...-pot-p207.aspx

[gbrown]

I have an 8 gallon crock that I make Sauerkraut in, about every 2 years. It's really good. Dad was from the German area of Texas NW of San Antonio, not far from New Braunfels and Fredericksburg. When I was about 19, he told mom he wanted to make some sauerkraut. Now, I had plenty of store bought kraut as a kid, and never really developed a taste for it. Homemade? Like night versus day. I make a salad with olive oil, green olives, fine chopped carrots, onions, bell peppers, kraut and elbow macaroni that I can eat for days. German supper--well browned sausage, potatoes, boiled & buttered and kraut--I'm in heaven. My wife originally turned her nose up at it the first time I made it. She tried some, finally, and loved it. I catch her eating it straight from the jar, now. All American supper? Kraut dogs, Mac & Cheese and Bush's Baked Beans--oh yeah.

[Boolit_Head]

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As an afterthought, there have been years in the past when we've bought spaghetti sauce in a jar but several years ago, I decided I was tired of that garbage. We were always cooking up sausage or ground pork or beef and mushrooms to add to it anyway so why not go the rest of the way and do it right? Never looked back and the sauce now is light years ahead of a jar.

Best one I ever did was a cast iron over the grill version. Mesquite chips while the meat was cooking. Grabbed a few Roma tomatoes out of the garden and grilled them up next to the cast iron dutch oven and them plopped those in. Cooked everything down with the right spices and made enough for twenty people.

It lasted two days! Again, food of the gods.

------------------

What else?

--Wag--

In my family if the spaghetti sauce was not from scratch did not simmer in the pot for the whole day it was just not fit to eat.

[fiberoptik]

Kimchi


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[fiberoptik]

Pickled peppers


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[Walks]

Kimchi in an "acquired" taste. I hope to be long dead before I "acquire" it.

Now a Good Polish Sausage covered in stone ground mustard & good sauerkraut made from purple cabbage, served on good rye bread. And a good HOT german potato salad on the side.

[winelover]

FWIW, you can rinse kraut, that comes out of cans, bottles or bags. My preference is the Silver Floss Bavarian style (caraway seeds) sauerkraut, hot or cold, right out of the can. We use it on hotdogs, polish kielbasa and Reuben corned beef sandwiches.

Winelover

[William Yanda]

Kimchi in an "acquired" taste. I hope to be long dead before I "acquire" it.

Now a Good Polish Sausage covered in stone ground mustard & good sauerkraut made from purple cabbage, served on good rye bread. And a good HOT german potato salad on the side.

The only reason I know to eat kimchi is self defense! 'specially winter kimchi, the summer version is not as strong.

[owejia]

After my Aunts funeral yesterday, my siblings were talking about some of the things we remembered from by gone days and my younger brother remarked that he had Mam-ma churn and the rock that she used to weigh the cabbage down with in the churn. I remember my Mother making kraut and I loved to eat the raw cabbage with the salt mixed with it. Still have the old kraut cutting knife that Dad made her.

[Hardcast416taylor]

You guys made me remember my `youthful` days on the farm. After a long day cutting and buzzing up several hay wagon loads of fire wood for the furnace in the home basement it was a real treat for what was dinner. Mom would make up a large pot of home made kraut with home made kilbasa from an animal we slaughtered and made up. Top this off with several still warm loaves of fresh bread with home churned butter made from cream from our milk cows. Between the 5 members of my family we usually finished it all off at dinner.Robert

[Wag]

Yesterday, I found some genuine knackwursts at a local German Deli. 50 minute drive each way. These were the real deal, not the **** we used to get at a grocery store that taste exactly the same as any ordinary hot dog.

Cooked two of those bad boys up and in the last three or four minutes in the cast iron, added some of my new kraut. Didn't add enough, though, as it cooks down quite a bit.

Every bit as good as I remember. In fact, so truly good, I completely forgot about adding any mustard to it!

Something else I used to love as a kid was pickled eggs and pickled pig's feet. The local grocery store has pig's feet but it's WAY over salted and WAY too much vinegar. They're okay, but not as good as I remember. Need to put that on the back burner for future kitchen projects.

I did read a lot on pickled eggs, though, and found some doable recipes. Then I stumbled across a guy who said, "Just put your hard boiled eggs in some pickle juice for a couple of weeks after you eat the pickles from a jar." Worked like a charm, surprisingly! Very little work involved.

Kimchi is something I've always loved in Korean restaurants but never tried to make it. Another one for the list.

The next kraut-making project will be significantly larger in scope and I think there is a lot of room for variation such as purple cabbage, shredded carrots, some other spices, etc.

And I need to get some more knackwursts or some decent brats. I'm hungry again!

--Wag--

[Mohawk Daddy]

Kimchi


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This. Google fermented vegetables to see how easy it is. Mine isn't authentic since I leave out the hot peppers. But fermented carrots, cabbage, radishes, cukes, garlic, sweet peppers, and whatever is handy is pretty good. A big crock, water and salt is enough to get started.

[EMC45]

Kimchi! Yum!

[gbrown]

FWIW, you can rinse kraut, that comes out of cans, bottles or bags. My preference is the Silver Floss Bavarian style (caraway seeds) sauerkraut, hot or cold, right out of the can. We use it on hotdogs, polish kielbasa and Reuben corned beef sandwiches.

Winelover

+1
Caraway is what I add to my sauerkraut, 1 tablespoon to 5 lbs of cabbage. Gives it a really good flavor.

[gbrown]

Kimchi! Yum!

I make that, also, but I gotta be careful to eat it when no one else is around. They all run outta the room holding their noses!!

[MT Gianni]

To answer your question, I have never seen raw olives for processing. Maybe a central California local might get some but never seen any shipped anywhere I have been. Amazon sells some "fresh" olives but they are packed in brine which is a cure or a start of one.