The night before last we had a freeze which finally killed our beans. The freeze was a wake up call to start picking what needed to be picked in the garden. The first thing I wanted to deal with was the Michihili Chinese cabbages. The problem with them is that they are BIG cabbages. They get over two feet tall. They just don't fit in the fridge well. Sometimes I cut them in half so they will fit but the best way to deal with them is to use them when you pick them. I picked just one and one is a lot to deal with. The cabbage was eight pounds. That is a lot of cabbage.
First up was Peking Raviolis. My daughter had eaten most of them up before. She would take a packet of pork ravs and a packet of vegetable ravs and have them for lunch. So this time I elected to make a mix. I made enough mix for about 120 ravs. It takes me about an hour to make 60 (which is how many dumpling wrappers come in a packet). So I turned on the TV and got to it. I did half of them yesterday and hope to get the other half done today. Once they are formed I freeze them. If I have the energy for it, I'll do it again with the next cabbage next week. Sadly they don't take all that much cabbage. How much is 4 cups of chopped cabbage. A pound maybe?
The second meal to make was cabbage soup. This is so much easier to make. And I recruited my townhouse mate to help. So we multiplied the recipe by four and used up three pounds of cabbage.
Rav filling on the left, soup on the right.
After having a nice lunch of soup we packed up the rest. I had five pint containers filled for future lunches. And I still had a huge cabbage to eat. Sigh. Eight pounds of cabbage is a huge amount to go through. And I had run out of ground pork in my fridge. It seems all the cabbage recipes that I freeze use pork.
So I tried something new. I took a pound of cabbage and made pickled cabbage. But I'm not a fan. The recipe was way too sweet and way too puckery. Next time I'll tone it down.
Sadly at the end of the day I still had the above left to stick into the fridge. The size is a bit deceptive as it is 18" long. I found how it grew interesting. I love the spiral in the leaves, but it sure made it more of a pain to chop. Today I have other things to do as my MIL is visiting, but I did have time to make some coleslaw dressing so I'll chop some of that cabbage up and call it salad. That ought to get rid of another pound or so.
Whenever I have excess cabbage I make lactoferment kraut.
ReplyDeleteWait, wait...I know this one! ... *thinks... what do you do with 8lbs of cabbage*
ReplyDeleteso what do you put in the mixture exactly....fried cabbage, ground pork, garlic, ginger, 5 spice? Anything else?
ReplyDeleteAlso are you using the pot sticker pre made pkg or egg roll pre made. I had some leftover pork tenderloin when I cooked two of them and made some pot stickers just for the heck of it. And they turned out....and they were really really good. I can't remember what I put in them put I had a couple pot sticker things leftover and had 1/2 a pint of strawberries so chopped them up threw in the sugar and viola....even they were outstanding.
I put in a lot of things, but I use:
Delete2 c minced bunching onions, 12 oz mixed mushrooms (about half shitake), 4 c Chinese cabbage, 1 1/2 c carrot, 1 c garlic chives, 2 1/2 T ginger, 1 lbs ground pork, 1/2 lb ground raw shrimp, 1/2 t white pepper, 1 1/2 t salt, t sugar, 1/2 c cilantro, T sesame oil. All of that used up two packages of the premade gyoza wrappers. So the round pot sticker ones, not the square wanton ones or the egg roll ones.
Definitely make sauerkraut. That uses loads of cabbage.
ReplyDeleteMy thought also. Plus it keeps, like, forever.
Deletewhat about spring rolls ? the use up a bit of cabbage
ReplyDeleteNow that is one big cabbage!!!! Nancy
ReplyDeleteThe Michihili is my favorite of the Chinese cabbages, and hard to find at the farmers' market. We love it in a pasta dish we had in Kyoto — chopped up and sautéed with tons of garlic and a some hot pepper, tossed with spaghetti, parmesan, and lots of black pepper.
ReplyDelete