Lots and lots of cabbage

On Wellington Anniversary Day I entered my first ever A and P show with some homegrown produce. And wouldn't you know it I got first place! (Please note that even though the competition level wasn't as high as one might have expected my cabbage was still the bomb regardless).

Mega cabbage

But alas what to do with all the cabbage afterwards. After 3 meals of coleslaw there was still  ¾ of a cabbage left. My only other experience of having this much cabbage was in Form 1 when we learnt to make coleslaw in cooking class. The teacher (Mrs Watson) gathered all the leftover cabbage and made sauerkraut with it. Then for the rest of the term we used sauerkraut in other recipes. In particular I remember putting sauerkraut on pizza.

Mrs Watson had some interesting ideas about cooking (she pretty much put lemon pepper on everything) but I like that she didn't want to waste the cabbage and came up with another way to use it. Kiwi ingenuity for you (with a german twist)!

So anyway I don't have a copy of her version of sauerkraut and all the recipes I read involve quite a process of fermentation. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to such lengths considering I can't even remember what the stuff tastes like!

I wasn't kidding about the amount of cabbage

So I found this straight forward option for pickling cabbage here. It pretty much involves packing shredded cabbage into sterilized jars then putting some honey and salt and then hot water, sealing them and then leaving them in the hot water cupboard for a week.

I added some grated apple and caraway seeds to my mix. Next time I may be a little bit more adventurous.

With a bit of honey and salt on the top awaiting hot water

So apparently I can open and eat the cabbage in a weeks time or wait another 6 but if I open it between weeks 1-6 it will be quite sour. This is all a bit scientific but it has to go through 3 stages of fermentation. Interesting stuff!

Sealed and ready to be banished to the darkness

Will follow up with some notes once it has fermented!

Lots and lots of cabbage

Jars of goodness

The baking section of my cupboard was an absolute mess so I decided that putting all the items in jars would not only solve this problem but look cool too.

It all started with the jar with the blue lid which I picked up at the Sallies op-shop for less than $1. It makes the brown sugar look so good that I just want to eat it with a spoon.

While at my local tip shop Trash Palace I thought I would have a look for some similar jars like this one and continue the trend.

Hidden underneath trays and trays of other assorted kitchen items I stumbled across a huge collection of French "Arc" glass jars.

Jackpot!

Once I soaked them and removed the old 70's labels off them they came up looking rather sweet. I have filled them with all my different baking goods. Don't they look good (despite my shonky photography!)

It seems I am not the only person to come across such cool jars. Caroline, the ultimate vintage/second hand shopper also found what looks to be that same jars! You can see her treasure finds at her blog.

Jars of goodness