I am very excited to share this new recipe. I will post another recipe soon, but just could not wait to share this beauty for the holidays. I must also apologize for not posting it well before the ThanksGiving Holiday, but I just thought about making it a week ago and harvested it today.
OMG! It is so delicious.
Here were my thought in my midnight brainstorm, "How about a cranberry cultured veggie, something sort of tart, yet sweet and sour." I purchased some cranberries, cooked them in sugar and water. Then I let them cool and refrigerated them.
The next day I prepped cabbage, onions, orange juice, ginger and spices. Then I began mixing them together until I got the flavor I wanted. The bad news is that I did not write down my exact ingredients, so take the ingredient list here with a grain of "cranberry". I will make another batch and give you the exact low-down. You can do it with these instructions though. Even if you can only let it ferment for a day or two, it will still be fantastic.
Start with two packs of fresh cranberries. Follow the directions on the package, which says to bring the cranberries to a boil with 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar. Cook for 10 minutes. The sugar in the cranberry mixture will help to ferment this mixture faster than regular fermented veggies where there is no extra sugar added. I had a concern that the mixture would be too sweet, but don't worry, the sugar is transformed and thus gives the finished recipe a slightly sweet, but spicy, sour flavor that has a fantastic bite from the ginger.
Ingredients:
3 cabbages with a yield of about 21 cups of fairly fine shredded cabbage
6 onions yielding about 3 cups of onions - shredded in small chunks
1 cup of peeled and shredded ginger
1 cup of fresh squeezed orange juice
1/3 cup salt
1-2 teaspoons of curry powder
3 teaspoons of cinnamon
Mix all of these ingredients together until you get the flavor you like. It should be very juicy because of the orange juice. Place the mixture in a crock, jars, or whatever you use to ferment your veggies. If you are using jars make sure you leave a little room because the juices get so excited they seem to want to ooooz out. I took a jar of these veggies to my friend to taste today. She loved them, and called me later to tell me that she and her husband ate the whole jar on their way home.
After you harvest the mixture, refrigerate. Serve with your ThanksGiving meal and/or any meal at all.