Chop Chop Chop

Wednesday was another canning day. It was making cabbage slaw to start our home made and canned sauerkraut. It has a milder kraut taste than the processed sauerkraut found in cans stocked on store shelves. The actual fermented flavor of the cabbage isn’t smothered in the powerful vinegary sour taste, although I prefer the store bought brand Silver Floss sauerkraut for use on my hot dogs with a little yellow mustard.

We ran several large heads of flat head cabbage through an electric slicer to shred the cabbage heads into thinly sliced cabbage slaw. It was much safer than the old manual mandolins. It keeps the razor sharp blades away from fingers and knuckles. Once the cabbage is shredded, it is placed into a crock or food-grade plastic bucket. Salt is measured out and added slowly as it is mashed to release the juices. We were using the thick part of a baseball bat to macerate the coarse vegetable. A layer of full cabbage leaves are laid in top and weighted down. A one-way valve on top of the bucket lid allows air to be released as the fermentation gases are released. The valve and lid prevents contamination from dirt or bugs. After the fermentation process of 4 weeks or more, the kraut is then placed into jars and canned.

Thursday was a free day to get my laundry done and to mow. I had a late doctor’s appointment and one of my cohorts had an early doctor’s appointment and she also needed to mow her lawn, thus the free from canning day. As I mowed my lawn, somehow one of my T shirts fell off the clothes line and my John Deere lawn tractor decided to chop it up. I have no idea how I missed seeing a turquoise shirt on the ground, but the mower didn’t miss it. It nearly stalled the engine. I had to fetch a pair of scissors to finally remove the shredded shirt from the blades. It was my “canning” shirt that matched a shirt another of our canning crew wears.

I finished mowing in the rain and had to let the clothes hang on the line to finish drying after the extra rinse of the brief rain shower. I took a shower to get ready to visit my physician. She had to fill out a form saying because I was still able to function as a driver for our church van. It was a new policy from the insurance company for the church saying there was no physical or mental reason to prevent me from safely operating a vehicle. I passed.