Port Potager

This is a very belated post, but I did something different with my New Year’s resolutions this year. Instead of one big resolution, I decided to try 12 limited-term resolutions instead — one per month of the year for 2017. This seems like enough time to build a new habit — experts say it takes three weeks — but not so long that you’re deprived of something forever. It also offers a chance to pause and reflect to see if that new habit is one I actually want stick with or not. The last time I talked about a New Year’s resolution on the blog, we ended up cutting $20,000 out of our annual spending , so I am expecting some interesting results — and success — with these mini-resolutions as well. To play a bit of catch-up... January: Giving Up Added Sugar For starters, I opened 2017 by giving up added sugar from my diet. After a long holiday season of lots of eating and drinking — and a whole lot of sweets! — this was a significant change. For my purposes, added sugar meant sugary ...

Remember all the cabbage we were fermenting into sauerkraut ? Well, two weeks later, we took the brick and the plate off the crock to see what we had: Mmmm. That forkful was salty, but full of flavor. As with Virginia ham, salt is the major preservative of sauerkraut, and it is a good idea to rinse it a bit before eating it. As you can see above, our sauerkraut after two weeks is still quite green, and it is also still fairly crunchy. This could probably sit in the crock for another two weeks to be fully finished, but we really wanted to have some on New Year's, so we called it done. We also decided that we would call this concoction "new sauerkraut," since it is still pretty mild and fresh tasting — like a new, fresh pickle instead of one that's been in brine for six months. I think the kids liked this mild version better than the stronger, more traditional sauerkraut.  At this point you may be wondering: why the obsession with eating sau...