- most of a head of red cabbage (about 6" in diameter) chopped finely
- 1/2 a large zip-lock bag of frozen cucumber slices chopped
- 20 med/small apples cored and chopped (about 5 cups)
- 1 1/2 cups of frozen chopped tree spinach leaves
- 1 med./large onion chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic minced
- approx. 2 cups of chopped frozen rhubarb
- approx. 2 cups of chopped frozen rhubarb
2 1/2 Tbsp. Himalayan pink salt plus 1/8 tsp. sprinkled on the top of each jar
I mixed everything together except the cabbage and then for ease of further mixing I transferred 1/2 of the mixture to my second large glass bowl and then added the cabbage in equal proportions to both bowls... After stirring everything well, I put the contents of both bowls into one and then transferred the mixture to 4 liter mason jars, firmly packed to the shoulder. After filling the jars I sprinkled the extra 1/8 tsp of salt on top of each jar. I think they may ferment slowly as they start their fermenting process already quite cold from all the frozen ingredients and this is a precaution to keep mold from forming... However, they only spent 4 days covered in front of one of my rads (my "warm" cupboard over my stove is no longer SO warm) so my precaution was probably unnecessary... At this point it was clear they were fermenting well so I moved them to the fridge to stabilize and be eaten...
Note: I pick the apples from a local tree that I don't think has ever been sprayed. They are a little on the sour side so most people don't like them. Consequently I think I'm the only one who gathers apples from this tree and I've been taking them for almost 10 years now... They are usually VERY good; tart and crisp with just a few bruises here and there and I'm usually able to keep them in my COLD bedroom until April or May of the following year. However, this year worms have invaded. There's A LOT of waste and as many of them are already starting to get soft, I'm not at all sure I'm going to be able to keep them like I have in the past. I've cored and quartered about 6 large bags full and put them in my freezer. These won't be crisp, but they're still fine for cooking or fermenting and I'm using the rest in all my meals and ferments as quickly as I can...salvaging the edible parts starting with the worst looking apples so they don't lie around for long... as a result they're in this ferment too... and the quantity is just what I would normally get from about 20 med./small apples...
However, this has taught me something about worms and apples... Until now I felt like worms weren't so serious. I'd always been able to cut out wormy parts while still leaving a fair amount of good eating apple behind... This has NOT been my experience this year. Also, even though the tree I collect from isn't sprayed the damage has been slight. There were only a few wormy apples and I could deal with a few. I also didn't realize the impart worms can have on an apple's storage keeping ability. It's clear I need to address this issue with my own small apple trees. They're still too young to produce fruit, but I need to start thinking about how I can mitigate the potential damage... I know I do NOT want to spray!!! So I'll need to investigate alternatives...
