Hard Workin' Day, Mar 24

This week, our neighbor Vickie posted to our local Buy Nothing group on Facebook that her recently-bought property had some dead trees on it. Some were still standing and others were already cut down. So, we made arrangements to go over there today with our chainsaw and our F-150 and get a bunch of firewood. 

We spent about 3 hours cutting trees into pieces small enough to fit into the back of the truck, then our neighbors offered to let us borrow their trailer to take even more home, which was helpful because we had a couple of larger chunks of trunk from a tree we cut completely down. 

Here's a pic of all the wood in our backyard. The new stuff from today is behind the chopped wood we already had. It's probably about $250 worth of firewood! Thanks, Vickie!

 

Vickie also gave me a couple bags of fruit she'd gotten from a neighbor's tree. Grapefruit, oranges, and apples!

 

I'm busily perusing my recipe books to get ideas for what to make. Current favorites are Brandied Apple Rings, Grapefruit Segments in Mint Syrup (or Grapefruit Curd), and Orange Marmalade (possibly with Rhubarb). I need to ponder a bit and see what fancy strikes me. 

Food today:

Breakfast smoothie. 

Lunch was a low-carb tortilla with cream cheese, sliced turkey, and green leafy sprouts. 

Dinner will be leftover pork tenderloin. 

Other stuff I did today:

I cycled my water kefir. 

I started a new ferment today: sliced carrots and daikon radish in a 5% brine. I've got a pint-and-a-half jar topped with a "Pickle Pipe" airlock, and a pint jar topped with a Re-Cap and a water airlock. 

 

I checked in on my sauerkraut. Look how much more brine there is in it today!

 

I need to keep the weighted jar in the fermenter for another day or so, but it looks like it'll be ok after that. We'll see. 

In other news, I asked my German cousins for our family sauerkraut recipe to see what other ingredients I should try next, and it turns out that my family doesn't make fermented sauerkraut! Instead they make a boiled cabbage seasoned with herbs and spices (such as juniper) and served with bratwurst or ham. My mom's generation lived in Emsland, but my generation mostly lives in East Frisia, both of which are part of Lower Saxony. (East Frisia is north of Emsland.) My cousin Harald says he uses a traditional East Frisian recipe. And this does explain why my mom never made fermented sauerkraut but ALWAYS made boiled cabbage, other than just for the sake of convenience. 

At any rate, I really can't stand boiled cabbage AT ALL 🤢, so I'll just keep experimenting with the fermented kind - I think I want to try the Lemon-Dill Kraut recipe in my "Fermented Vegetables" book next. 

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