Of Cabbages and Kings

Or at least King-sized projects.

We had success growing cabbage last year but we don't yet have the proper storage to try and keep it whole. We dried some - I highly recommend it. I shredded it the way I would use it in meals later, blanched it and then put it in the Excalibur. When I rehydrate it there is still some crunch and all the flavor and expected aroma. It's been a very positive experience.

Still, we wanted to try something more with it. That's when I opened up my newest Backwoods Home magazine (last summer) and found Jackie Clay-Atkinson's article that included Amish Canned Coleslaw. That sounded like something we could really get behind.

So we chopped, we shredded, we prepped. And then we realized that we didn't own a single bowl big enough for our ambition. What to do?! We needed something large. We needed something that would hold liquid. We needed something clean enough to eat out of. We needed...

A large plastic storage tote. (Don't get into the whole BPA thing with me, please. It was not in this long and it worked very well for our needs.)

And we canned up the most delicious coleslaw! It really delivered on the promise that it would taste great. How nice to pop open a crispy, delicious cabbage side whenever we please.

Kent is very good at canning. I'd never make it through the season without all his help.

 

Here's a link to the recipe online. You'll need to read down the page, past the sqiurrel relocation, past the daffodil bulbs and the vegetable broth:

 

Amish Canned Coleslaw

 

And here is the text lifted from that link:

 

I love the Amish canned coleslaw, BUT it is NOT an approved recipe. (It is basically pickled sweet cabbage, so I’m not too worried. I can’t tell you to try it, only that generations of Amish have used it and so have I for a few years now.) Here’s the recipe:

1½ cups vinegar
2 cups sugar
½ tsp. celery seed
½ tsp. mustard seed
2 tsp. salt
1 large head cabbage
1 cup diced celery
½ cup diced onions
2 cups shredded carrots

Mix vinegar, sugar, and seasonings. Mix with vegetables. Stir very well. Pack into sterile jars and process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes. (If you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet, consult your canning book for directions on increasing your processing time to suit your altitude.) — Jackie

More Homestead Summer

Once the garden began producing, there was something to harvest daily, hard but satisfying work. Here come Steph and Kent with a load - and a little help.

 

 

And also satisfying is sitting down to a meal and realizing that you grew most of what you are eating. Here's a dinner of chicken pot pie with our own chickens and veggies, refrigerator cucumbers and coleslaw.

 

 
We grew dry beans for the first time. These were called "French Horticultural". I thought they looked like Jacob's Cattle. And so easy to grow. Plant them, make sure they get weeded and watered, wait for them to dry out, snap off the pods and shell them at your leisure. We'll be planting at least three times as many this year.
 

 
Here's a homestead breakfast - pancakes with fresh milled grain, eggs, from our chickens, maple syrup from our trees and our own strawberries. Makes my mouth water. And maybe this year we'll add a cold glass of our own goat milk!

 
And maybe sometimes when we sit around the dinner table we talk of unusual and somewhat obscure questions, like:

"If you pull a vacuum on a marshmallow, what happens?" This was probably preceded by conversation about vacuum sealing food, the qualities of food being sealed and the science of what happens in a vacuum.

Which meant we had to immediately grab the Foodsaver and find out! It expanded impressively.