Medicine Bags and Beading

October 26^th

Today was a great day at the Ground2Griddle Kitchen!  Our guest Lillian Morris showed us how to make medicine bags from caribou and moose hide and then how to bead decorations onto them.  Most of us are not finished our beading so we plan to continue when we meet again next Tuesday. 

Lillian is a local First Nations elder from Moricetown and when we first met in May she offered to lead these beading sessions.  Today was a planning day which allows us extra time to fit in fun, learning activities such as these!  Thanks Lillian!

Sauerkraut Making with local sauerkraut guru...

Karen one of our town's local sauerkraut guru's kindly offered to share her skills to everyone at the Ground2Griddle kitchen.  Our first guest blogger as well!  It was so exciting to have the mysteries of sauerkraut revealed!  Visit the link to see the photos from this session.

Sauerkraut Making

Gail gathered up around 120 pounds of cabbage over the weekend.  The cabbage was picked right from the field which makes it perfect for sauerkraut making.  These winter cabbages (best to use) have lots of moisture to release in the process of making sauerkraut.

The cabbages are cleaned and have outer leaves removed then washed and drained.  They are cut in quarters and have the core removed.  The cabbage is shredded by using a shredder, which we used, placed over a large container to catch the shred.  The shredded cabbage is put in the crock and tamped down to crush the cabbage and release the juices and get fermentation started. For tamping we used the beautiful wooden tampers hand crafted by Bruce.   After about 2 inches of packed cabbage,  coarse salt (non-iodized) is sprinkled   over the layer.  We used slivers of fresh garlic at the same time as the garlic.  The process of shredding, salting with garlic and tamping is repeated until the crock is full to about 4 inches from the top.  The cabbage juice will be at the surface of the cabbage when the crock is full.  It was great having all the hands helping and the total of 17 gallons of sauerkraut was completed by lunch time.  Way to go!

Weight is required on top to keep air out of the cabbage and so it doesn't dry out during the 6 week fermentation stage.  Zip lock freezer bags work well to provide that weight.    Warmth (room temperature) is required to keep the fermentation going, so the crocks are now nicely nestled in the kitchen (or Jake's bedroom for the 12 gal crock) to ferment away.  Keep the lids on though or the house starts to smell like really dirty socks that have been forgotten about.

In 6 weeks, we'll be eating the best sauerkraut YOU'VE EVER HAD.  Thanks for the great day!

Harvesting from the wild

We went on a berry picking trip on Tuesday to Telkwa.  We picked an ice cream pail each of highbush cranberries and rose hips even though it was very much the end of the season.  Next week we will make jelly. 

It was a beautiful fall day with the wind blowing and the weather changing quickly from sunshine, clouds and rain.  We built a fire in the woodstove of the picnic shelter where we had our lunch.  Our hands were so cold from picking and the wind.  Next year we will have to get out about two weeks earlier to make it easier to see the berries as well as to get them at the peak of the season.  The cranberry bushes had already lost their leaves so they were harder to see.  With so many leaves off the trees though, we had great views of Tyhee Lake and the fall colours on the opposite hillside.

 Wild berries are one of the most amazing food sources we have here ranking high against the wild salmon run.   Huckleberry, Blueberry, Cranberry and Saskatoons...nothing is more thrilling than the free bounty offered by woods!  And these are just the most plentiful berries...I’ve seen wild raspberries, currants, gooseberries...