The past few summer Saturdays I have picked Rachel up at 7 a.m. and we’ve gone on the yard-sale shopping trip around town. Sometimes we don’t find any real treasures, but we see friends, wander in and out of yards in neighborhoods we didn’t know about, stop for coffee, and generally have a lovely time. Rachel has the uncanny knack of spotting the good stuff right away. This is what she spotted for me today, and I love it. I wonder what the previous owners actually did with a 10-gallon crock. Any ideas?
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Make homemade sauerkraut or pickles!
you could get an electric grinder from your next garage sale and then go to a co-op and get wheat and keep your home made flour in it! Fresh, home ground flour is so yummy everything! That is making me want to go and make some bread! 🙂
I love putting my umbrellas in these big crocks. My mom and Grandma, in the winter, keep kindling and news paper rolls for the fire in them.
Wow…you found that at a yard sale?! What a treasure! My mom loves old crocks and uses them in many different ways. One year we did actually make sauerkraut in them; but currently I believe they’re housing her supplies of corn flour and rolled oats. She also has a small one that sits on her butcher block with all her whisks, spatulas, wooden spoons, etc. Very cute and convenient.
I used to have one of these until one particular Navy move when the movers packed it in a book box on it’s side. I kept huge bunches of dried flowers in it. I especially loved dried hydrangeas and lavender.
Plant a little house tree in it.
Oh, wait. That’s what is setting right next to the crock already, right?
Maybe you need another little tree…?
=)
I am pretty sure Emily is right about it being a pickle crock. My mother had one that she made 9 day pickles in.
it’s not very glamorous – but my sil uses hers as a trash can! 🙂
My mom keeps hers in the living room, stocked full of old wood thread spools for kids to play with. They love them. But it’s not a 10 gallon one, she uses that for making home made sauerkraut. The sew shop here does have a 10 gallon one filled with buttons and shovels for the kids to play with. That’s a freakin’ lot of buttons.
Now my husband would love to have this to make pickled corn on the cob. He loves it, but I have never mastered the art of making it like his granny did. Anyone have a recipe? Great eye for treasure hunting!
Ten gallons of buttons…that sounds heavenly…especially since I’d immediately start sorting them all, and it might take eternity!
Are you kidding me? It is the perfect prop for you to point to (when life gets dicy) and proclaim, “That’s a big ole crock!”
I think this is OK since Paul said — “I count it all dung…” and that is in the Bible.
We like to ferment things in our home, grapes and cabbage mostly. Your crock is perfect for fermenting cabbage. Here is a link to my favorite food preservation website, specifically their fermentation section.
http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can6a_ferment.html
Oh, don’t leave this crock outside in winter. A friend did this, as she used hers as a decoration on the front porch, and it cracked.
Or…. you could sell it for $150 on eBay (really!) and buy yourself a 30-year supply of gourmet pickles made by somebody else. 🙂
Wow, Renee, that’s a cool website! I’m curious about fermented grapes though!?!
Cabbage and pickles, yes. I have heard about that too.
I did have one that was a 5 gallon size. It sat in the rock wall corner behind the wood stove. Many times I lowered three half gallon wide-mouthed jars full of yogurt milk to culture over night as the fire cooled for the evening. I tucked a blanket around them to insulate. Sometime the next morning or mid- day they came out and were transfered to the fridge with fresh firm yogurt. We would sweeten with honey (that my hubby harvested or raspberries from the freezer) Did I really do all that??!! Come to think of it we did make a nice batch of kraut one year before it broke and I got a new electric yogurt maker!
Rayia probably had the most practical use for the crock. I could see you using it for something like umbrellas, kindling, or a planter outside. My grandfather had his filled, and I mean to the top, with walnuts in the winter. He had a hand held nutcracker on the top and we’d just eat some whenever we wanted a treat.
Meat can also be “potted” – where it is cooked and then stacked in a large ceramic crock. Each layer of meat is then covered with its own grease or lard until the whole crock is full. Meat preserved this way, and kept fairly cool, can last for months and months.