Sauerkraut

Kitchen Update: Yes I know the renovations are taking longer than anticipated but we've been slowed by weather, company and waiting for things like the sink and hinges ordered online that took a bit longer to get here than anticipated. Besides we are doing it ourselves which really means life gets in the way. Last night we tore off the old laminate from the wall and removed the back splash from the existing counter tops. We discovered a plug receptacle that had been covered over but it is in a good location so the electrician is coming out Friday morning to connect it properly. We would do it ourselves but we aren't sure were to connect it to. This morning we cut the breakfast island top to the shape we want it then after seeing it we are debating cutting it shorter and possibly narrower. So that is where we are at right now. I will be making a more detailed post on my homemaking blog later today.

Summer is in full swing here. The weather has been hot, muggy and stormy perfect for grilling to keep the heat out of the house. Salads and cold dishes are working nicely as well. Meals have been a bit simpler to prepare with the kitchen renovations. It seems like we are doing something daily on renovation except when I have to clean up for family, company or want to can something. The kitchen really needs to be fully functional during these times.

For all the grilling we do, hotdogs and sausages are not high up on the list. In order of preference for grilled meats are beef, chicken, pork and while hotdogs and sausages can be made from one or more of those meats, they just aren't our first choice. We tend to have these on hand mainly for company because some prefer a hotdog or sausage to a burger. We even have a friend and I kid you not prefers either a hamburger or hotdog to steak!

Honey Garlic Sausage

The local schools have moved away from selling chocolate bars as a fund raiser. Instead they are selling things like cookie dough and popcorn. The local soccer kids were selling boxes of meat so we supported them and bought a couple of boxes. What you get is a coupon saying you made that purchase then you go pick it up. It's rather a nice way to do fundraising yet giving those who donate something useful. Not that chocolate bars and popcorn aren't useful but meats are a better value in my book :)

We grilled honey garlic sausage on the weekend. It was nothing fancy but with the warm temperatures and kitchen it was a nice meal paired with a salad. To me sausages just beg for sauerkraut, a good mustard and lots of onions. On this occasion I used fresh chopped onions but sauteed onions are even better! I adjust the sauerkraut recipe to use 10 lb of cabbage that yields about 10 - 250 ml jars of sauerkraut. I know that isn't a lot but we don't go through a lot of sauerkraut. As always please see my additional notes.

Sauerkraut

50 lb cabbage
1 lb canning salt

Remove the outer leaves and bottom stem portion of the cabbage. Wash and drain. Cut into 2 - inch wedges. Shred 5 lb of cabbage using the food shredder/slicer attachment for the KitchenAid® stand mixer or use the shredding blade on your food processor. Place in a large bowl. Thoroughly mix 3 tbsp canning salt with the cabbage. Let stand several minutes to wilt. Pack salted cabbage firmly and evenly into a large, clean pickling crock*. Use a wooden spoon or tamper to press down firmly until the juice comes to the surface. Repeat shredding, salting and packing the cabbage in batches of 5 lb until the crock is filled to within 3 to 4 - inches of the top. If the juice does not cover the cabbage, add brine.** Cover the cabbage with cheesecloth and tuck edges down against the insides of the container. Weigh the cabbage under the brine. Allow to sit at room temperature until bubbles appear indicating fermentation has started. Remove and discard scum formation daily. Allow to ferment at room temperature (70º to 75º F) 3 to 6 weeks.

To can: Bring the sauerkraut to a simmer but do not boil. Pack the into hot, sterilized jars leaving ½ - inch headspace. Ladle hot liquid over the sauerkraut leaving ½ - inch. Wipe the rims. Adjust two piece lids. Process 15 minutes for pints, 20 minutes for quarts in boiling water bath canner.

* crock - I use a 5 gallon food grade pail
** Brine: 1½ tbsp canning salt to 1 quart of water; bring to a boil then cool and use as required.

Boat Ride Food - Decker's Landing

The summer is in full swing so our lives revolve around water activities. After all our property backs onto the water, we have a boat and we live on the beautiful Great Lakes waterway. We boat on Lakes Huron, St. Clair and Erie as well as the connecting waterways and waterways flowing into these waters. Most times we pack a picnic lunch or snacks, eating out mainly when staying overnight but my husband. Quite often when boating you have to walk a block or more from the marina to find a good restaurant. We've discovered all the best stops for eating along these waterways and I have to tell you that Decker's Landing in Algonac, Michigan is one of the best! It is right at the marina so all we do is dock and find a seat!

Decker's is hosting a Margaritaville Weekend Memorial on July 18 and 19, 2008 in memory of Susan Bell, Joe Hamilton and Katy O'Neil who We went to Decker's last week. The one thing about boaters aside of being some of the friendliest folk you have ever met is they stick together and help each other. I saw where they are holding a Margaritaville tragically lost their lives in a boating accident on Lake St. Clair on May 24, 2008. Brian Lepp and Robert Diegel were seriously wounded with severe facial injuries. Trust funds have been set up for Austin and Lucas Bell as well as Lydia Hamilton. If you would like more information on this event, would like to book a boat slip or donate to the cause please call Deckers at 1-810-794-0581. Please support this cause if you can.

Decker's Landing can be reached by land or water. Outdoor seating overlooks the water where you can enjoy boat traffic while enjoying your favourite meal. Indoor seating is spacious with a good view of the water or you can sit around their pleasant bar. The wait staff is likely one of the friendliest you will ever meet! The food is wonderful especially their onion rings of which I will explain a bit further in this post. They have live entertainment on the weekends during the summer as well.

Great Lakes

We docked the boat then found an empty glider seat. That's one of the neat things about Decker's is most of the outdoor seating is covered gliders overlooking the water. You can watch the boats docking as well as other water traffic. It is just a real pleasant spot to while away a few summer hours!

My husband ordered a Great Lakes as a drink before dinner. The Great Lakes is a beautiful looking specialty drink, a deep turquoise frozen drink served in a frosted wine carafe. The colour reminded me of the colours of the wake behind the boat. It was a perfect The ingredients are light rum, dark rum, blue caraco and pineapple juice.


Please Note: Boating and drinking do not mix! We were there for a couple of hours so one drink was fine for the Captain of the Vessel aka my husband as he is a large man and it was with a meal. [I don't advocate drinking and boating as in drinking en route or stopping simply to drink without eating. I think you know what I mean.]
Onion Rings

We really aren't into fast food restaurants. Seriously for the price you pay at one of those restaurants you can get a much tastier meal at mom and pop type restaurants. For the most part the meals will be healthier for you as well.

Decker's has the most awesome onions rings aside from homemade. These are a must have appetizer whenever we stop there. The onion rings come in a paper lined plastic basket. They are fried to perfection with a crispy, golden crust covering sweet, tender onion slices. These onion rings are the perfect snack while watching the boats. Our boat was docked in a slip almost in front of us so we snacked on onion rings while talking about what we needed to do for the boat. The outside needs a cleaning and polishing. We need to hang a couple of new flags. All that will wait :)

Canadian Walleye

My husband ordered the Canadian Walleye entrée. The large walleye portion was beautifully done with light breading fried to golden perfection. It was presented pleasantly but not fussy. The light, fluffy and tasty fish was accompanied with a vegetable medley of broccoli, cauliflower and carrot coins, boiled red potato halves and a choice of soup or salad for $12.95. He ordered the French Onion soup instead of the optional salad. This is just a lovely meal right from the presentation to the quality of food. My husband gave it two thumbs up!

Decker Burger

I'm seriously not a huge burger fan. I love my husband's homemade burgers, burgers from one bar and grill we frequent and from Decker's. That's it! I'm rather picky that way. Seriously the meal choices were reversed! It was a beautiful, warm day so I ordered the Decker burger for $7.95 with cheese for an additional 50¢. It came with fries and coleslaw along with lettuce, dill pickle slices and onion slices. This is seriously a beautiful burger. The only complaint I have is they use processed cheese (American cheese) slices instead of actual cheese slices. Again, I'm being very picky here but I can tolerate actual cheese because the processed cheese slices really do a number on me being lactose intolerant. I just pre-treat because this burger is worth it :)

Decker's is the perfect boating spot to spend a few hours in the summer.

[Waving hi to my friends from Decker's. We'll see you soon and thanks for your wonderful hospitality!] - no affiliation just a boater who appreciates a good marina.]

Yummy Dinner! White Pizza

One of the nicest things about the internet is we can easily keep in touch with our kids. Sharing pictures of what we made for dinner has become a favourite activity. They are all talented cooks! A couple of days ago I received pictures along with the recipes for a white pizza made by one of our kids. I immediately called to ask if I could blog about it. Even though I knew there wouldn't be a problem sharing this wonderful pizza with my readers, I still asked. (Thanks for sharing both, sweetie!)

My best pizza dough has both beer and sugar as ingredients something the kids are avoiding as much as possible with the grandbaby. We occasionally use alcohol as an ingredient when cooking however despite claims that the alcohol burns off during the cooking process, that is false! There is a handy alcohol burn off chart here. Even though there isn't a lot of alcohol left in the food there is still some and that needs to be considered when serving the dish to children or those who for whatever reason choose to abstain from alcohol. We have both family and friends that abstain so I make two versions of the same dish, one with alcohol. So do consider do the same if you cook with alcohol. Food like wine jelly or jams made with alcohol should be well labeled as they tend to have a fairly high alcohol content.

White Pizza

The kids have been raving about the following pizza dough that they accidentally stumbled upon. According to them "Hands-down, one of the best pizzas we have ever had! The dough is so fluffy and good that we are making calzones out of it tonight." The kids said that even though the dough contained cornmeal it was not gritty. Using chicken and broccoli is a lovely combination. The Alfredo sauce was homemade as well.

It looks so mouthwatering that I have this recipe on the top of my next to try recipes! The dough was made in a breadmachine but you can easily make it using the KitchenAid® stand mixer. Simply mix the dry ingredients together in the stand mixer bowl then stir the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl and slowly pour into the dry while mixing on speed 2. Adjust flour if needed so the dough leaves the side of the mixing bowl. Knead on speed 2 until smooth and elastic.

Cornmeal Pizza Dough

1 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup olive oil
3 2/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup medium-grind yellow cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons SAF yeast or 2 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

Combine ingredients and follow your manufacturers directions for your bread machine.


White Pizza
- dough as prepared above
- slice mushrooms and broccoli and cook together (no seasoning)
- cook chicken with no seasoning
- spread Alfredo sauce on bottom
- add broccoli and mushroom mixture
- add chicken
- sprinkle garlic pepper on top
- top with shredded mozzarella cheese

Please Note: Photo and instructions are ©b1 (one of Garden Gnome's kids who is looking at the possibility of changing careers to become a professional chef in the next few years).

A Burger With Attitude for Canada Day 2008

Happy Canada Day

Many people celebrate Canada Day by having get-togethers that include grilling hamburgers and hot dogs. In our neck of the woods we are hoping that the latest trend of raining almost daily will end. Today we woke to more rain and winds out of the north so the temperature had dropped quite a few degrees. We are planning to do a little boating tomorrow depending on the weather. Grilling will likely be part of our celebrations if we don't stop at one of our favourite haunts while boating. Later in the evening weather permitting we will sit on the dock to enjoy the fireworks. We don't set them off ourselves but don't mind enjoying seeing various displays. I do hope the rain holds off and it warms a bit!

Burger With Attitude

I've mentioned before that my husband makes the most fantastic homemade burger patties using fresh ground beef. However, there is no reason that a burger always has to be made using ground beef. Saturday he decided to make burgers but with a twist. Instead of using just ground beef he added ground pork and turkey to the beef. Then end result was a flavourful, juicy burger with a noticeable but pleasant difference in taste.

The following recipe is for a large batch of patties with about a third used to make meatballs. We were entertaining that evening so the meatballs were cooked then went into the slow cooker with sauce for later. The burger patties freeze nicely either raw or cooked as does the cooked meatballs. This is something we regularly do when cooking for stocking the freezer with homemade convenience foods. It is a frugal use of time and the energy source used to cook the food.

Toppings: iceburg lettuce, aged sharp cheddar cheese, tomatoes, dill pickles, onions, jalapeno peppers
Condiments: Miracle Whip®, ketchup, mustard, relish

Combination Burger Patties

5 lb lean ground beef
2 lb ground pork
2 lb ground turkey
2 ½ dry bread crumbs
6 eggs, slightly beaten
1½ tbsp garlic pepper
¼ c Heinz 57 steak sauce

Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl using your hands. Form into large patties* about 5 - inch diameter and ¾ - inch thick or form into 2 - inch meatballs**.

Grilling: The most important thing when grilling burgers besides having your grill set to the correct temperature (medium) is to never press the patty to flatten. Flattening forces all those lovely juices out of the burger and increases flare-ups. The second most import thing when grilling is to only flip the burger once. Use a large barbeque flipper to flip the burger to prevent the patty breaking. Flip when the patty is nicely browned with defined grill marks. Grill on the other side until the burger is nicely browned with well defined grill marks and the interior registers at least 71ºC/160ºF*** on an instant read thermometer***.

Frying (meatballs): Heat 2 to 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil on medium in a fry pan. Place meatballs in a single layer on the bottom of the fry pan. Fry until browned. Turn and continue cooking until browned through. Remove from fry pan using a slotted spoon. Repeat until all meatballs are cooked. If freezing allow to cool then flash freeze in a single layer and package into freezer bags. If using the same day, place in slow cooker, add sauce then set on low until ready to use.

* The patties will shrink in diameter and thicken while grilling. Alternately you can use a burger patty press if desired.
** A meatballer can be used for this.
*** The old advice to cook until no longer pink is no longer recommended. The inside can still look pink depending on whether the ground beef was fresh or frozen and how it was thawed when cooked to the proper temperature however, depending on where the ground meat was purchased can look brown before it is safely cooked. Therefore it is best to use an instant read thermometer to ensure your burgers have been cooked to the proper temperature.