Turnip Kraut

We have the big stone crock for making sauerkraut and I wrote about it, with pictures, in this blog post. It always seems like if I’m going to get that crock out and get the cabbage shredder out, I need to make a LOT of kraut. It was actually Vince who found the Easy Fermenter lids that work with wide mouth jars. Using those lids, you can ferment in any wide mouth jar, though I think they recommended half gallon size jars.

One thing I love about the lids is the little slider thing that you can move around and set it on the date either when you started or when the fermenting should be completed.

I started two jars of turnip sauerkraut and one jar of turnip pickles on May 19. The pickles were supposed to take 4 or 5 days and I don’t remember . . I guess it took about that long. We liked the pickles enough that I made another jar of them.

I figured the kraut would take about two weeks so I started tasting it Thursday and today as the day I decided it was just right.

Vince was over in the shop doing something so I scooped out about a tablespoon of it and ran over for him to taste it. He had not tasted it at all yet. I knew what I thought but I wanted to hear what he thought. He loved it. He thought what I thought . . if he didn’t know it was turnips, and it was on hot dogs or mixed with mashed potatoes or scrambled eggs, he’d really have a hard time knowing it wasn’t cabbage.

We now have another quart and a 1-1/2 pint jar of turnip pickles and three quarts of turnip kraut. I’m so happy I tried it. I can grow turnips easily here but I haven’t had much luck growing cabbage.

I’m really impressed with the Easy Fermenter lids. It’s so much easier to work with those than it is with that big crock and the results were great. I’m always afraid when washing that big crock that I’m either going to break it or chip the granite countertop. I do believe,  unless I’m making a whole lot of sauerkraut, I’ll be using half gallon jars and Easy Fermenter lids from now on.