Saturday, May 14, 2011

Red Cabbage Sauerkraut, anyone?

      I have never grown red cabbage before.  However, a book on fermenting food I recently read said red cabbage sauerkraut was really good, and another gardening cook book said stir-frying red cabbage "intensified the wonderful sweet flavor", so I decided to try growing some this year.
    Yesterday I found a tiny green cabbage worm on one of the leaves-- but alas! Those little critters stand out plainly on the red cabbage leaves! They better go back to the green cabbage where they can stealthily hide and do their damage.(Part of the game of gardening is to see if I can find a cabbage worm every time I make a trip to the garden.. must be the youth in me!)






Do you know about Sorrel? I started growing it about 3 years ago and it is a big hit with some in my family. With my permission, the grandsons rush out to the garden and munch on the lemon flavored leaves. So we call it "lemon lettuce". A little bit adds real zest to a salad.  Another good thing about sorrel is that, unlike lettuce, it is a perennial.  It slowly spreads, and you can eat it even when the hot summer comes. The seed catalog suggested you cook the larger leaves, so I tried that in my Spanokopitas along with the cooked spinach. 


A couple of weeks ago I got to help plant another earth box.  I am thankful again for the blessings of grandchildren. And thankfulness pertaining to the garden-- it's been so good to start eating salads with greens from my garden-- kale, sorrell, different lettuces, radishes all make for a very crisp and tasty salad!