Pickled Cabbage with Beets

1 middle size cabbage

2 beets

2 carrots

3 cloves of garlic

 For the marinade

1 litre of water

2 tbsp of sugar

2 tbsp of salt

Few black peppercorns

1 bay leaf

1/2 cup of vinegar

1/2 cup of sunflower oil

Remove the center of the cabbage and cut the cabbage alongside for 8 parts. Peel the beets and the carrots; cut the beets for long chunks and shred the carrots. Peel the garlic cloves and slice them. Put all prepared veggies in a pot and make a marinade.

For the marinade, mix all the ingredients together (except sunflower oil), bring them to a boil and let it boil for about 5 min. Take from the stove, pour the oil into the marinade, mix it well and pour a hot marinade into the veggies. Cover with the lid and let it stay in a cold place till everything cools down. When it is completely cold, transfer the whole thing into the glass jar (jars), cover with the lid and put in a fridge to store. From my experience, it can stay in a fridge through the entire winter.

Enjoy!

Sauerkraut Salad

 

Sauerkraut salad is a staple of winter salads in my home country. If you have at least sauerkraut and potatoes that you preserved by yourself in a summer (grew it, fermented it, stored it etc), you will be ok for the winter - Ukrainian opinion. 

Here in Canada, I grow potatoes for our little family, but I am buying a good sauerkraut - my hands didn't get to fermenting a cabbage - yet, oh well, maybe one day...
So, my salad's ingredients are: sauerkraut, grated raw carrot, chopped onion, chives petals, a pinch of salt and sugar and a mix of sunflower and canola oil. I also use hemp or flax oil for this salad - tastes great for me! If I have some fresh or frozen dill, or fresh or frozen green onion, I add that, too. The salad can stay in a fridge for a couple days as a leftover - still good. 

To tell you about the health benefits of sauerkraut and other fermented foods - this is my husband's job. Well, not a job (he is retired) - healthy living lifestyle is his passion. Or, just google about the health benefits of sauerkraut - there is lots of info about it in the web.  
Speaking of me, I just looove sauerkraut - one of the tastes of my old country.

 

Drunken Cherry Cake

 

Handful of pitted cherries - sweet or sour, fresh or frozen - soak in rum or cognac at least for 24 hours.

Cake pan rub with butter, sprinkle some flour on top of the butter and put aside in a cold place.

Meanwhile, we will do the cake base. The base for the Drunken Cherry Cake is actually a chocolate sponge cake.

So we need:

6 eggs

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of sifted flour

1 tsp spoon of baking soda

3 tbsp of cocoa powder

 

Beet eggs and sugar with a mixer until fluffy. Carefully mix with dry ingredients - sifted flour, baking soda and cocoa powder. Pour the mixture into a cake pan and bake 50 min at 350 F.

Chill the sponge base. When it is completely cool, cut the top off - make it kind of like a lid. Then cut a circle with a knife and inside of the cake and make it like a bowl. Cut the removed middle of the cake into small chunks.

Now we will do the filling. 250 grams of softened butter beat up with half a can of condensed milk to a creamy texture. Then, add the cherries, drained (reserve the alcohol though!) and cut them into chunks if needed. Sour cherries are not necessary to be cut - they are relatively small in size. Sweet cherries are normally big, so better cut them - they will spread around better.

Add cherries and prepared chunks of sponge cake to the butter and condensed milk mixture, mix nicely. Meanwhile, soak the cake "bowl" and "lid" with reserved rum or cognac. Then, fill up the "bowl" with the creamy filling and cover up with the "lid".

Only one thing is left - to glaze the cake with a chocolate glaze.

In a small pot, mix together half a cup of cream or sour cream (I used an entire can of Fussel's cream), 2 tbsp. of cocoa powder and 4 tbsp. of sugar. Hit it up on a low setting - #3 on electric stove - until it starts bubbling. Boil for a couple min and glaze the cake.

Let the cake sit in a cool place at least for 12 hours, then enjoy it!