Tag Archives: salt

Salt is a mineral composed of sodium & chloride.
Cooks love salt because salt makes everything taste better.
Salt is the primary ingredient cooks use for seasoning foods.

🔴 Naan Pizza. Convenience comes at a cost.


Ingredients count. Those ingredients assembled above are the ones I use when I make naan pizza. It’s really tasty. And it doesn’t take a lot of time to assemble and cook. But sourcing the right ingredients is crucial. From left to right going counter clockwise, here’s what I need to assemble:

Red onion. Easy to pick up in most supermarkets.

Fresh Mozzarella. If you don’t live near a market or grocer that makes fresh mozzarella, you’re out of luck. Unless you’re willing to make your own which I’ve been told is pretty easy to do. I lucked out because both in the city and where I live in the Hudson Valley we have good sources.

Jarred Pesto. Italian industrial manufacturers have done a credible job with this classic olive oil, basil, parmigiana, pine nut mixture. For me at least. The brand I used depends on what the store I shop in carries. I avoid any brand that contains seed oil, natural flavors, flavor extracts, whey, starch, flours. Why avoid seed oil? Because pesto needs to be made with olive oil to taste good.

Marinara Sauce. As with pesto, the brand depends on the store I shop in. I avoid flavor additives of any kind and I look for whole peeled tomatoes instead of tomato purée.

Naan. The best tasting naan I’ve ever used was an artisan product made on a small scale and carried locally when we lived in New York City. Now that we’ve moved to the Hudson valley, I need to make do with what is available. The naan pictured above is an industrially formulated product made with a predictable set of dough conditioners, commodity seed oils, mold inhibitors, cosmetic additives, and extracts. It’s not as chewy or clean tasting as the naan I used to use but it works and it’s available.

VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

My naan pizza has two things going for it – taste and convenience. Well except for the time I spend sourcing. But I’m a fanatic when it comes to sourcing. If I could find a chewier, freshly baked tradition naan, I’d track it down too. But my choices are limited to what is reasonably available, so I need to compromise and settle for well crated shelf stable product formulated with a couple of cosmetic additives.

Pizza has many positive attributes going for it, but healthy is not one of them. So we’re already in the territory of comparative unhealthiness. I’m not even sure if the low-fat, low sodium versions meet the austere criteria favored by the food police. On the other hand, my naan pizza has a healthier nutrient profile than commodity brands or popular take out offerings. And because I use good quality ingredients which are flavorful in and of themselves, I don’t need to use as much salt.

🟢Steel Cut Oats. Warm, chewy, sweet, and healthy.


A bowl of oatmeal made with steel cut oats is one of my favorite breakfasts. Especially appreciated when it’s cold outside and I want something warm inside my gut.

Steel cut oats are the closest version to oats in their whole, unprocessed form. Those unprocessed oats are called oat groats. Making oatmeal with steel cut oats is a time intensive process so it’s understandable why most of my fellow Americans prefer the option of quick cooked oats. But nothing can match the flavor of a well cooked soft, chewy, deliciously nutty consistency bowl of steel cut oatmeal.

The ingredient I use to make a bowl of oatmeal reads clean and un-trafficked: water, steel cut oats, blueberries, strawberries, pecans, turbinado sugar, butter, salt. You can see the pecans if you look closely for brown edges peaking out from time to time between oats and fruits. The ingredients I use are mostly minimally processed except for the culinary processed ingredients – sugar, butter, salt.

In one of those rare moments of consensus what tastes delicious to me actually matches what the friendly food police would allow me to label healthy. Whole Grains, Fruit, Protein (pecans are now protein foods) qualify my bowl of oatmeal as food. And as long as I limit my serving size to one cup, those nutrients of concern (added sugar, sodium, saturated fat) comply with current “healthy” thresholds.

In today’s food marketplace, oatmeals come in different degrees of processing. At one extreme is my bowl of steel cut oatmeal – time consuming to make and labor intensive to source and prep. At the other extreme is off the shelf instant oatmeal – boil in a cup, just add water, no added sugar made with novel or artificial sweeteners, often fortified with folate, and definitively #UPF ultra-processed.

And that brings me to the food matrix and cellular / acellular nutrition.

VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

The USDA defines “food matrix” as the nutrient and non-nutrient components of foods and their molecular relationships to each other. In other words the food matrix is the cell’s molecular structure.

There’s a complementary concept floating in and out of certain European research studies that focuses on cellular nutrients. The logic goes something like this – nutrients that remain within the cell structure – cellular nutrients – take longer to metabolize and by extension are considered healthier than nutrients that have been extracted then added back in.

Here in the US, both enrichment and fortification are common practice. And both processes require adding isolated nutrients back into a food product. Both are examples of acellular nutrients. Acellular nutrients are rapidly and completely digested in the stomach and small intestines.

Does the body care are whether nutrients arrive in a cellular structure or if these nutrients are acellular? Here in the US, the answer is pretty consistently that it makes no difference. Moreover, folate fortification has good research data to support a clear health benefit.

What can be said with certainty however is that our gut evolved over the millennia to metabolism cellular nutrients, not acellular nutrients.

🟢Green Split Pea Soup. Too much salt.

Winter is soup weather. The colder it get outside, and trust me here in New York’s Hudson Valley it can get pretty chilly, the more I appreciate a bowl of steaming hot soup. Warms me up from the inside out.

My ingredient list is simple. Green split peas, water, mirepoix (onion, carrot, fennel), olive oil, salt. It’s a tradition recipes made from scratch with no assistance from any processed or ultra-processed products so the recipes gets a green 🟢 dot.

I think I just heard someone ask what is a mirepoix? Mirepoix is a French word and it’s the basic flavor enhancement made for much of classic French cuisine. The French version consists of onion, carrot, celery. But the concept is global, infinitely mutable, and every traditional culinary cuisines uses some form of aromatic vegetable flavor base. It’s how cooks and chefs enhanced flavor prior to the industrial food era.

The taste of home made split pea soup can’t be captured in any canned or instant soup I’ve ever tasted. Cleaner. Fresher. More robust fully developed flavors. I’m not a food scientist so I can’t tell you why however. What I do know is the best quality ingredients make the most flavorful soup.

Industrially formulated soups will sometimes use combinations of aromatic vegetables but today it’s also common to use artificial or natural flavors. Industrial processors find it easier and cheaper to pick and choose from the myriad of flavorings now available.

Whether you are an home cook like me or an industrial manufacturer, the problem with soup is the same. Too much salt. Soup is notorious for being high in sodium. My home made version uses less than commercial brands do, but it’s still a lot. And for sure when it comes to using the word “healthy” on a product label, “healthy” is the Kiss of Death ☠️.

VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

Within our regulatory framework, there are multiple perspectives on how to evaluate salt and health outcomes. The health problem with salt is the relationship between sodium and blood pressure in some people. And the problem with high blood pressure is it can increase the risk for cardiovascular vascular disease. It’s at this point regulatory guidelines can get messy. Using the example of my homemade soup, let’s take a look at just how messy …

❌ The Nutrition Facts Label reflect a high sodium value. High means a cup provided more than 20% of the DV (Daily Value). The Dietary Guidelines has set the value for sodium at 2300mg per day using CDRR (Chronic Disease Risk Reduction) methodology.

✅ The FDA has established a Voluntary Sodium Reduction program for food processors and restaurants. This program evaluates sodium using grams per 100 for shelf stable soup. Without boring you with calculations, my homemade spite pea soup is already below target for all three categories – restaurant, frozen, and shelf stable soups.

It’s a dilemma and a bit of a kerfuffle. Is the food police going to come after me because when I salt to taste, I increase my risk for cardio vascular problems? Or should I get a standing ovation because I’m doing better than most of my fellow Americans because I my split pea soup is homemade?

🟡Grilled Chicken, Red Peppers, Pinto Beans, Pasta. Moderate salt.

Food is complex. Nutrition is wicked hard. Cutting through all those layers is no small feat, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

Americans are used to starting with nutrients. So my first suggestion is to forget nutrients for a moment and focus on the food. Those gorgeous red peppers. The grilled chicken strips. That occasional pinto bean that is peeking out here and there. Or the pasta. The Italians call the pasta “elicodale” which translates into English as spiral shaped and as you can see those deep ridges create a sort of spiral pattern.

The grilled chicken dish is freshly prepared with traditional ingredients. But as noted above, nearly a third of the calories come from ingredients which are classified as ultra-processed – NOVA Group 4 UPF. These ingredients are the grilled chicken, the vegetable broth, and the tomato basil sauce.

These three items are industrially formulated convenience products and all were developed relatively recently. Home cooks like me know that making vegetable broth or red sauce from scratch takes time. And cutting up and grilling chicken breast strips is messy. Scratch cooking tastes better, but life intercedes so I’m okay using industrially formulated products as long as they are made with simple intact ingredients and do not contain flavors, colors, texture modifiers, or acellular nutrients.

The 29% calories UPF noted above is the sum of the calories from the vegetable broth, grilled chicken, and tomato basil sauce. The yellow 🟡 dot means I used ultraprocessed products but each of the products I used are acceptable. To me.

Focusing on food is easy. For those not used to home cooking, it may take some practice but it’s a skill anyone can develop. It just takes practice.

Focusing on nutrients is not easy.  The Nutrition Facts Label can be helpful for assessing the three nutrients that health professionals recommend limiting. As you’ll note from the label above, the sodium percentage stands out from the other Daily Value percentages. Palatability is as important to me as health when I cook at home so I salt to taste. Although I use salt in moderation, the food police will still bang on my head for using too much salt. Compared to the high sodium valued seen in restaurant meals or Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) however, my moderate use looks a lot better.

VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

American who pay attention to labels are used to putting nutrients first because that’s the message labels have been reinforcing for the last 50 years. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has been nutrient focused for 5 decades! It wasn’t until December 2024 that a “meaningful amount” of food became a component for using the word “healthy” on food product labels. It’s a positive step however and I applaud the FDA for finally acknowledging that food does count.

🟢Mayocoba Beans. Freshly prepared. Salt to taste.



Is it just me or am I the only one who loves beans because they can taste good?

Pictured above  are some beautiful Mayocoba beans I made for a holliday dinner last year as an accompaniment for roasted duck. Mayocoba beans are savory enough to stand on their own yet earthy enough to share the plate with a robust partner. Like roast duck.

The Mayocoba bean is a native of Peru. Mayocobas grow many places now including California which is where I source from. My taste for savory beans developed early on because I grew up eating Mexican street food and New England baked beans on a regular basis. We probably go through about 20 pounds a year per person. The average American on the other hand eats closer to 6 pounds.

Beans do need tender loving care to achieve tastiness. Heirloom beans, some culinary skill, an honest olive oil, the right amount of salt, flavorful aromatics like onion, carrot, fennel, and a handful of parsley.

Why heirloom beans? Because these varieties tend to have more nuanced flavor profiles than commodity crops.

THE VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

 Beans have officially displaced kale as the new nutrition obsession as per a headline that crossed my feed recently. My dietitian colleagues, the advisory committee for DGA2025, a growing number of Influencers, and the combined marketing muscle of American farmers who grow them – everyone seems to agree that a healthy dietary pattern includes eating a lot more beans.

If those Mayocoba beans pictured above were a product however I couldn’t market them as healthy because I used too much salt. At the same time, the amount I used meets the FDA Phase II sodium goal for restaurants.

In my view, we’re not going to be able to persuade Americans to eat more beans if we ignore palatability.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to make a respectable place for moderation within the healthy model?

 

 

🟢Roasted Cauliflower. Freshly prepared. Salt to taste.

The final meeting of our Dietary Guidelines 2025 Advisory Committee meeting was held this past week. The committee members have again concluded that me and my fellow Americans don’t follow the guidelines and we eat poorly. Not much change since the first set of guidelines was published back in 1980.

And that brings me to cauliflower.

October is a great month for eating more cauliflower. It’s peak season for fall vegetables here in the Hudson Valley and that cauliflower pictured above came from a local farm stand. Local, seasonal cauliflower gets to my farm stand a lot faster than commodity cauliflower grown in California or Texas and I can taste the difference. Cauliflower imports from the west coast are welcome during winter and early spring but it’s October so I always opt for local.

By weight and by calories, roasted cauliflower is made with mostly minimally processed ingredients and therefore deserves a NOVA mostly minimally processed green dot 🟢.

Even better, if my roasted cauliflower were a product I could probably use the word “healthy” on the label. I’m not stingy with olive oil and I salt to taste because I want my vegetables to be irresistibly delicious, so I was pleasantly surprised how good the stats looked for sodium and saturated fat. Nutrition stats are pegged to specific FDA reference amounts (85g for vegetables). That’s the serving size gram amounts you’ll see for example on frozen cauliflower in the freezer case. My serving is about twice a big as the reference amount because I love the taste of my roasted cauliflower. But you better believe that I too would use the smaller serving amount if I were marketing a product and could make a “healthy” nutrient content claim.

Now back to eating more plants. Eating more roasted cauliflower is a delicious way to eat more plants / vegetables. And the guidelines are clear that Americans don’t eat enough vegetables. It’s October and cauliflower is in season so joyfully and with great pleasure, I’m only too happy to comply.

THE VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

As per our current dietary guidelines, a healthy eating pattern is based on nutrient-dense plant-based foods. I applaud the plant-based part of the recommendation, but I do have concerns about the nutrient-dense component. Salting to taste means using just enough salt to highlight the flavors of the food, but never so much that salt overpowers the food. Sometime when I run the stats, sodium falls below the “healthy” threshold and sometimes it doesn’t.

Most of my fellow Americans don’t cook on a regular basis anyway. They depend on the food industry. In many ways, the guidelines are as much about setting limits on the food industry as they are about providing individual Americans with the nutrition facts to make informed decisions.

Here’s the dilemma. The food industry wants to sell us what we enjoy eating which as it stand right now is food products that are high in fat, sugar, salt. The dietary guidelines recommend restricting our choices to food products that are low fat, sugar, salt to reduce the risk of chronic disease development. Something gets lost in the battle between high versus low however. And that something is moderation. And that loss concern me.

🟡Actual Veggies Burger. Quickly assembled. Tastes good.


Veggie burgers were born during the 1980s. The rational was simple – concentrate or extract the protein component of a plant instead of using muscle meat. Next enhance using texture modifiers, colors, flavors to form a flattened, rounded patty that resembled a ground beef paddy. These original veggie burgers were clearly ultra-processed. 

An alternative method was to use an intact food like black beans or mushrooms. Since I am partial to the intact food approach, I have always favored for black bean version. So when I found a new black bean burger “chef crafted with caramelized onion”, I decided to give Actual Veggies Black Bean Burger a try.

Like every other veggie burger in the freezer unit of an American supermarket, Actual Veggies meet the criteria for an UPF – an industrially formulated mass produced food product with considerably more than 5 ingredients.

There are good reasons to be cautious with UPF. A decade of research, most of which has been done outside the US, has established significant correlation between percentage of ultra processed food products in the dietary pattern and negative health outcomes. On the other hand, avoiding UPF means systematically avoiding convenience products and about 70% of the food currently sold in our supermarkets.

Not an easy decision especially if you’re a working mom or dad and depend on convenience to feed the family. Even tough for folks like me who prefer the taste of freshly prepared but welcome a break from the daily grind of scratch cooking. So the question then becomes, where do we draw the line between acceptable convenience and frivolous indulgence.

The best place to start thinking about making a decision is to start with an ingredient list.

The Actual Veggies burger list reads as follows: Black Bean, Carrot, Parsnip, Oat, Yellow Onion, Red Onion, Red Pepper, Chickpea Flour, Lemon, Spice Blend (Ovata Seed, Kosher Salt, Garlic Powder, Paprika, Chili Powder, Cumin, Black Pepper).

There are no added colors, no added artificial or natural flavors, and no texture modifying agents like xanthan gum or lecithin or methylcellulose. On visual inspection, I can see the black beans are intact and I can see small flecks of red pepper. The rest of those vegetables however have lost their individuality and become part of the puréed mass that holds the burger together.

I do see one “unfamiliar” ingredients I don’t keep in my kitchen cabinet – ovata seed. In fact I’d never heard of ovata seed until I read the ingredient list. Here’s what came back from a Google search. Plantago ovata is a common medicinal plant widely cultivated in tropical regions of the world. The outer seed coat of P. ovata, obtained by cleaning the seeds, contains soluble and insoluble fibre in a ratio of 7:3, making products containing P. ovata husk an ideal source of health-beneficial fibre.

Time savings are significant – I didn’t have to make my own black bean burger or bake my own brioche bun or mix up a batch of home made mayonnaise.

There’s a taste test to follow of course, but in terms of degree of processing, Actual Veggies burger gets a yellow dot. 🟡

THE VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

Always important to remember that people eat food not ingredients. That means the burger needs to be all dressed up before I take my first bite or run the numbers. Besides the Actual Veggies, I used an artisan brioche bun from a local Northeast regional baker, some olive oil for frying. I also added a couple slices of tomato, some mayo, and lettuce.

I’m happy to report that my Actual Veggies burger passed my taste test.

The calories clocked in around 400 / 450. Nutrient analysis reflects 11 grams protein (plant based protein for the sustainable crowd), 8 grams dietary fiber, and a serving of vegetables (Actual Veggies, lettuce, tomato).

The sodium does look high and there’s not enough potassium to balance the potassium:sodium ratio. The sodium comes from ultra-processed foods (my brioche bun, the mayo, the Actual Veggie). But honestly, if I had done it all from scratch, the sodium would have roughly comparable.

The CDRR for sodium is 2300mg per day independent of age, gender, or lifestyle. The Advisory Committee DGA2025 meeting #6 this year made a sobering assessment regarding sodium reduction in US dietary patterns. Sodium exceeds 2300mg even when criteria are applied to identify lower nutrient density foods. My reading of that assessment is Americans are going to have to adjust to a No Added Salt dietary pattern to comply with the CDRR. And I’m not sure setting such an austere goal is helpful. Or even attainable without enlisting the food police.

🔴Boca Burger. Quickly assembled posture child for UPF


The Boca Burger has been around since 1979.

That means Boca marks the beginning of an era. During the 1980’s, the dominance of ultra-processing #UPF was established in our American food environment.

A plant based burger is a lot more sophisticated today than it was in 1979. Most plant based burgers however, regardless of the degree of sophistication, are classified as NOVA Group 4 / #UPF.

The Boca I served for dinner the other night consisted of the burger, hamburger bun, shredded lettuce, tomato, mayo. There’s not much controversy over what makes the Boca ultra-processed. Or for that matter what makes the commodity hamburger bun ultra-processed. Both are industrially formulated convenience products manufacturer with markers and processes not available to home cooks. Both products have a lengthy ingredient list. Commodity mayo is also ultra-processed because it usually contains a preservative but I’m okay with food safety. The shredded lettuce and tomato are both minimally processed but these ingredients constitute only about 25% by weight.

So that’s the scoop. Thanks to the Nutrition Facts Label we know my Boca Burger puts lots of sodium on the plate. Using the NOVA lens, it’s easy to see why my Boca Burger qualifies as ultra-processed. In my opinion #UPF is not a reason to avoid the Boca Burger unless …

THE VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

My significant other likes burgers and buns. He’s okay with plant based and that’s why I gave Boca a shot. Keeping a meal in the freezer that can be reheated and served on those days when I don’t have time to cook is handy so I’m always evaluating options.

He was fine with the Boca. My problem with most industrially formulated foods is they are boring – they always taste the same.

But my digestion was not happy. Something in the combination upset my gut.

Just because an additive is safe doesn’t mean the substance sets well in everyone’s gut. My gut is unhappy with one of the substances. Is it the soy protein concentrate? Or perhaps the modified cellulose, the wheat gluten, the hydrolyzed wheat protein, or the natural flavor? Or perhaps it’s simply that my gut is not used to metabolizing substances that I don’t eat on a regular basis.

What ever the reason, it’s still okay to say no thanks. Trusting your gut is just common sense and there’s nothing wrong with good old fashioned common sense.

Working my way through the CSA.

leek, potatoes, rutabaga, nutmeg

leek, potatoes, rutabaga, nutmeg

Picked up my last load from the CSA the day before Thanksgiving and am still working my way through. Over the six months of the season I got 270 pounds of vegetables. In other words, I picked up and brought home 10 to 20 pounds per week. Every week for 26 weeks. My goal was to eat or distribute everything and on that count I’ve done an outstanding job. So far. But I’m not finished yet.

Pictured above are some potatoes and a lovely bunch of leeks for my soup. Up in one corner is a rutabaga which I’m going to use with the potatoes and in the other corner a nutmeg which I will grate as the soup finishes cooking. An appreciation goes to James Beard for the suggestion of using nutmeg in leek and potato soup. I’m pretty creative in the kitchen, but I never would have thought of that one on my own.

I love leeks but they are sometimes a pain in the neck because they can be full of sand. These leeks were comparatively sand free so in no time I have them washed and sliced them.

Now I put a couple of tablespoons olive oil in the 4 liter soup pot, toss in the leeks, and let them braise. As the leeks soften and get aromatic, I scrub and cut up the potatoes leaving the skin on for extra fiber and nutrients. The rutabaga got added because I don’t know what else to do with it. It’s the same color as the potatoes and hopefully it will all just blend right in.

I add a liter of low sodium stock, chuck in the potatoes and the rutabaga, and let it all come to a boil. Then turn the heat down and gently simmer until the potatoes are soft.

My preference is low sodium stock not because I don’t want salt but because I want to add the salt to my taste. Also the presalted stocks do not taste as clean to my palate as the low sodium ones.

When the potatoes are soft enough to mash, I pull out the food mill. A wonderful kitchen devise that manually pulverized vegetables into chunks or purée pieces. The food mill is much gentler than the food processor. What is really cool about using the food mill is that the potatoes and leeks go in one end and out the other end comes soup. Back into the pot. Adjust the seasonings. Grate in some nutmeg. I used half the piece. Add more water or stock if the consistency is too thick. And as a final touch, I stir in a good sized piece of butter.

And there you have it, a nourishing late fall soup.

Best of all my leeks and the rutabaga are gone. And all I have left is 7 pounds of potatoes in my pantry. Hummmmmm …

Just don’t do anything that will poison us!

image

Those were Jeff’s words of encouragement when I told him I wanted to make a sauerkraut.

Why you may be asking did I want to make sauerkraut? Here’s why. My CSA had put a gigantic humongous incredibly heavy 5 1/2 pound cabbage in my box and, along with other 10 pounds of assorted vegetables, I had one week before the next delivery to figure out what to do with the lavish abundance. Besides I never made a sauerkraut before.

Now I am not a complete novice. I did ferment some cucumbers once. Granted it was way before I met Jeff, but I didn’t poison my self that time. And that was really before I had a clue what I was doing.

Just for the record, those fermented cucumbers were the best pickles I have ever eaten.

I still don’t really know what I’m doing now, but I’m a lot more knowledgeable today and even more important I know where to start looking. So with Jeff’s words of encouragement ringing in my ears, I began my search.

For do it yourself sauerkraut, the Internet really excels. So I did my due diligence reading up on the matter and determined that fermentation is one of the older forms of preservation practiced by us humans. As it is technically called, lacto-fermentation has been practiced for centuries as a method for preserving excess vegetable at the end of the growing season.

During the fermentation process, the vegetables are cut or shredded, and salt is added. The salt draws out the vegetable liquid and the vegetables ferment in their juices.

State Extension Services seem to have the more detailed technical information like percentage of salt solution and temperature ranges most favorable to promote the growth of the good guys i.e. lactic acid and discourage entry of the bad guys i.e. spoilage or food poisoning microorganisms otherwise know as the stuff that makes you sick.

I also checked a FaceBook group for people who love to ferment all kinds of weird stuff. I got a lot of moral support and realized there were lots of people out there who ferment cabbage into sauerkraut and have lived to talk about it.

I need to Follow directions. Need to be careful. It’s times like this I am glad I took microbiology.

Okay, if primitive illiterate humans can ferment a cabbage and live to tell about it, a well educated, intelligent, twenty-first century female should certainly be able to rise to the occasion.

So I gathered my references, pulled out my biggest bread bowl, washed and sliced my caggage, measured out my salt solution, and set it all to ferment at the appropriate temperature. And I checked it every day.

The fermentation process appears to be variable. As little as three days and as long as three months. Depends on which source you read and which person you talk to. However on day ten, here in New York we got hit with a cold spell so I decided it was time to close down the cottage industry. I packed the sauerkraut into to liter glass containers and moved them to the frig. We had pork chops on Sunday, so I served some kraut alongside with sweet potatoes.

Jeff’s responce “This tastes pretty good … It sure tastes like sauerkraut … “.

Next step is to build up enough courage to take a taste straight up. I tagged it safe. Now I need to follow through and taste it without heating the kraut up first.