Fermented cabbage

I bought this pot some weeks ago because I want to make my own sauerkraut. It is healthy and I like the taste. I have made this process twice before, just using a glass jar. One time successfully, and one time it moulded ( It´s a shame I did not catch that one in a photo for you) . There are different descriptions and I try again.

This is the smallest pot I found ( on @lantis). In the Melitta, some natural sour milk has filtered. On the sides remain cheese, and in the jar buttermilk to be used because the juice of the cabbage will not be enough to cover the  grated cabbage. ( Covered, how many centimeters?)

These stones shall press the grated cabbage to keep them under the fluid, and they are really one of the reasons why I bought the pot. I cooked them so they are clean.

Grate and put some salt over,  not much but so it tastes good.

Press and squeeze which is easy because the salt helps breaking the firmness of the cabbage. 

Add spices which prevent rancidness ( not necessary but spices taste good also). Here garlic and juniper berries. Put cabbage in pot, covered ( first with a big cabbage leaf, which I forgot) with the stones and the broth.  Put lid on, and pour some water on the lid to prevent oxygen from circulating. The waterlocklid was another reason to buy this special gearing pot.  Keep on warm place during the first days of fermentation ( I have it beside the stove) ( one week? three days?). After that on a cooler place for three ? weeks.This is how my pot looks inside.

I googled a recipe which is more clarifying, and where you don´t have to use a ceramic pot. Look here! Let me know your success stories.

Economy

Updated economic report: I have made fourteen meals since I started this blog. Payed 78 Euro, buying ingredients so far. 5, 6  Euro per meal. I think it will be 1 Euro when I count the average sum after a year. ( The face with curly hair and earrings is made by one of my lovely granddaughters.)

Sprout!

Wheat- and mungsprouts are rich in taste, they give contrast in structure and are healthy. They store  vitamins, minerals, proteins and omega 3 for instance for a new plant. I don´t have any meal without them now. They give satisfaction and are easy to make.

You put seed and beans in jars and let them swell over night in water.

The next morning you empty the water through a strainer, pour the seed and beans back into their jars and keep them covered in room temperature. Rinse in new water every morning and evening until the small sprouts appear and have a length and taste that you enjoy. Keep the ready ones in the fridge. The difficult part here is to remember them every morning and evening.

Take away Mandala Meal

Me and my friend Cecilia have been away for two days. I packed for one meal. Same ingredients that I would have for a Mandala Meal, mixed together in two bowls, cauliflower, carrots, nuts, oil and apples separately. Practical, but maybe something gets lost which also affects the taste.

Kullaleden

I bought spinach,pepper, sauerkraut, beetroots,broccoli, carrots on the way home. 14 Euro.

 Now total:60 Euro.

Sharing

 I have a visitor. My dream is that I make mandalas together with family and friends. Yesterday I made my mandala meal for myself.

The visitor is Cecilia, a friend from childhood.  She took the photo of me, when we visited Skarhults Castle.

What I bought yesterday and what it cost.

Yesterday I had almost ran out of ingredients, however inventing coconut flakes as a topping gave new sensations of flavour and made me content anyway. But. It was time to go shopping.

I cycled the seven kilometers ( a little more than four miles) to Almarkaröd, where Jane Cimmerbeck and her husband Andreas have a farm and their organic shop, physically and as a webbshop. This is how it looks when you come from Östra Sallerup...

...and inside.

Sometimes younger members of the family help. Here are Emma, Isac and Linnea.

 Jane comes from Norway, her grandmothers were farming wives, one from a rich area, and the other from a poor. Jane says, she has learned a lot from how they worked, their philosophy and how they handled what nature gave.

This is what I took home. Walnuts, mungbeans, ginger, cauliflower, pepper, garlic, selleri ( root and stem), white and red cabbage, salad. Hm, I forgot beetroots, their intense color cheer up anything. 46 Euro of which walnuts are 13. Expensive? I don´t know yet. We will see next spring how much an average Mandala Meal costs. I now guess one Euro. Am I right? Keep counting.

Why I started this blog.

I live in the Swedish countryside since some years, rather far from shops. But one of the nearest, @lantis, sells organic stuff, and I love to buy my food there. As I have almost always been overweight, counting calories,weight watchers points and other boring figures I thought," if I allow myself to buy just beautiful vegetables and fruits, I don´t have to suffer too much trying to loose weight". I was tired too, often  had headache, my nose ran and had other allergic symptoms. So when I came home from the shop I wanted to cheer myself up a bit, taking the time to create and make something beautiful. I made my first food mandala ( in Swedish Matmandala). I felt happiness  grow inside.

The next day I made a new one, and the next.

For every  time my skills grew. I was happy with the results, took photos and shared on Facebook with lots of encouraging likes.  I also decided I would skip being a Weight Watcher, and instead listened to people who said that the most fattening is sugar and wheat flour.

Terrifying! Not because I ate a lot of sugar or wheat flour, but because I suddenly should eat full fat products. It works though. I loose weight, and for the first time without suffering. And this is not because I make Food Mandalas, but because I nourish myself well and that Food Mandalas once a day is an easy tool to achieve variation in an inexpensive way. I wrote about this on Facebook, and was encouraged to make a blog on the issue. So. Here it is. I want to show you how easy it is, and how fun. And in this blog I also will explore how much it will cost to replace one meal day with Food Mandala- eating. In todays post I show you some of the mandalas so far. Later on I will show how you can make them step by step. I will give you a report when it feels urgent , and I write in English because some of you might not know Swedish, and because I want to improve my language skills.