Hey ho!

This one is less about some shit that's been included in our food etc.

Having been brought up with the mentality of "he's a growing lad" and being routinely fed generous portion sizes, I find it hard not to eat too much.

It can be quite surprising to learn what actual portion sizes should be when it comes to an accurate calorific value of any given food.

So with that in mind, I'm lucky that my partner serves us smaller portions, but I also know that it's in my mind that I might be still hungry after a meal, so rather than picking at things I shouldn't I've been learning about stuff that is reputed to be good for us, but isn't necessarily high calorie.

Fermented foods are often done with salt i.e. one that comes easily to mind is sauerkraut. When I first tried some, it was "factory produced" in a jar. I can recall thinking that it wasn't too bad, just not something that I'd go out of my way to get again. Yet not so long ago, we had some veg in the fridge that was getting on a bit, so I had a dig around and as most of the veg that was degrading etc, was cabbage I found some recipes on the net and had a read.

A basic sauerkraut is just chopped cabbage, a few spices and salt. Basically it's 1 tablespoon of salt to 1.5 pounds of shredded cabbage - I make it a little lower i.e. 1 tablespoon of salt to 1 kilo of shredded cabbage. The cabbage can be shredded by hand (obviously remove any wilted and manky looking outer leaves, then quarter the cabbage and remove the stalk (but if you're patient, you can always grate that as well, as it's perfectly edible) or by machine/processor. Put it in a bowl, add the requisite amount of salt, use hands to mix the salt in evenly while giving the cabbage a good "scrunching to". Then just cover it and leave it for up to 6 hours. This helps some of the cabbage juice/water to come out making a brine. Then it's just a case of mixing in a table spoon of peppercorns and teaspoon of caraway and fennel seeds in. Mix the spices in to spread them throughout the cabbage.

The cabbage mixture is then packed into sanitised/sterilised jars - I use the end of a rolling pin to pack the veg mix in tightly. As you pack the cabbage in, you get some brine coming out on the top, which is fine. Then you just need something to keep all the cabbage below the level of the brine - I have some small glass jars (Lidl picnic portions of Pate) that fit in nicely. Some have suggested that the Gu pudding range make some small chocolate puddings in little glass dishes that work well. Hell you could even do like they do in Korea for Kimchi and find an appropriate sized beach pebble (easily sanitised/sterilised and just as easily reused for future batches). If you are using screw top type kilner (or Mason in America) jars, then once you see bubbles coming up through the kraut, you'll have to relieve the pressure (often called "burping" the jars) by unscrewing the lids gently (over a sink or bowl is handy as you can sometimes get some of the juice/brine pushed up and out). If you have the flip/clip top type jars it's a bit easier as the pressure will build up but then force the excess pressure out through the rubber seal - so just keep the jars standing in a bowl for any liquid that makes it out.

After about 1 to 2 weeks the ferment will have subsided and you can move the jar to the fridge (did I mention that during the ferment I keep them at room temp - in a bowl, on the floor of our larder). The chilling will halt any last fermentation and you can start digging in. If you leave it at room temp, it won't do any harm just that the fermented taste will develop to be a little stronger.

I like it with sausage in a sandwich or roll, maybe with cheese in a toasted sandwich, or even as an extra veg side portion with main meal. It's quite versatile and can be used where you might use a vinegar based sauce or condiment - it's not as acidic tasting and being only cabbage, spices and salt, will be lower calorie than sauces etc......