Sour

A couple of weeks ago, I had the brilliant idea that I wanted to make cabbage rolls for Easter.

Now, in my family, cabbage rolls are made with sour cabbage, so the first step would be to make sour cabbage.

I called my mom and explained my plan. She reassured me that making sour cabbage only takes a week, and she gave me the recipe for sour cabbage, which I wrote down on an extremely secure location - the back of last month's water bill.

I planned to make the sour cabbage in the crock of my crock pot, so when I did my grocery shopping I bought a head of cabbage. I came home, only to discover that it was too tall for the crock pot. I needed another location to make the sour cabbage.

I went out to the grocery store again and found a set of stacking plastic canisters. I brought them home, and the head of cabbage fit in the third biggest one.

I followed the recipe, which involved hacking out the core of the cabbage, adding salt and vinegar, and filling the container with water. I'd share the proportions, but am unable to do so due to the extremely secure location of the recipe.

When that was all done, I weighted it down with a plate ... except I have wimpy Corelle plates, so I added a bowl to keep the cabbage under the brine solution.



I waited a day, then hauled the cabbage out of the water and rinsed it off. Back in the brine it went.

I repeated that every day, pulling off loose pieces of cabbage whenever possible. It was a slow process.

On Saturday, I forgot to rinse it until I got home from a movie. That's the day it really started progressing - a bunch of leaves loosened that day.

Today, I was able to loosen all of the leaves, which made the cabbage much bigger than the jar.

I stuffed the cabbage into sterilized jars and filled them with the brine. When that was done, I processed them in the canner.

Now I'm sitting in the living room, listening to the pop of the jars sealing. (We're at 5 of the 6 so far).

This weekend, I'll open a jar and make cabbage rolls. I've never done that, but I have a recipe.

It's in an extremely secure location.