The Sundells, owners of The Root Cafe, are the cover subjects of Little Rock Family's August 2015 issue. Read more about them here: The Root Cafe's Sundell Family Dish on Food, Family and Forging Relationships. Here they offer their advice on feeding your family:

  • Learn to cook, because when you cook from scratch you control what ingredients go into your food.
  • You can sauté almost any vegetable, so go get yourself a good 12-inch cast iron skillet and buy whatever looks good at the farmers’ market that week.
  • Don’t be embarrassed to make the same 10 dinners at home all the time or make your kids the same thing for their school lunch every day. Kids love routine, and if they get tired of it they’ll tell you.
  • Shop for whole vegetables.
  • Learn to chop up and use a whole chicken since whole chickens are cheaper by the pound.
  • Shop seasonally even if you’re not shopping at the farmers’ market, because foods in season tend to be grown closer to home and cost less. If you’re serious about local foods, find a farmer you like and join their CSA (community supported agriculture), which is a subscription that gives you a basket of local produce every week throughout the growing season. There are also meat CSAs that can give you a year’s worth of local, responsibly produced meats for a reasonable price.

Favorite Family Meal

“Breakfast for Dinner!  It’s one of the meals that Corri makes at home on a regular basis, and it pulls together several aspects of our food philosophy: 

1) Buckwheat pancakes—a healthy alternative to traditional white flour;

2) Eggs from our backyard chickens;

3) Local sausage or bacon;

4) Real maple syrup (we say no to High Fructose Corn Syrup at home and at The Root);

5) Fresh fruit—whatever’s in season;

6) Food should be fun, and what’s more fun than breakfast for dinner?”

The Sundells’ Homemade Sauerkraut

We make our own sauerkraut at The Root to go on our Old World bratwurst and on the Reuben sandwich. It’s so easy, and it’s raw, which means it is chock full of healthy Lactobacillus bacteria (probiotics) that are good for you and your kids’ guts. Thanks to Erin Puryear for introducing us to this method:

  • 1 medium head green cabbage
  • 1 Tbsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. whole caraway seed (optional)
  1. Peel any dark and papery outer leaves from the cabbage until you are down to the tightly packed head. Quarter the cabbage (cutting from top to bottom) and remove the core.
  2. Lay the cabbage quarters on a cutting board and cut crosswise into 1/8” shreds, or thicker or thinner as you wish.
  3. Weigh 1.5 pounds of chopped cabbage, and put into a bowl large enough to hold it with some extra room. (If you have more cabbage chopped set it aside for another use, like soup or stir-fry.)
  4. Add the salt and caraway seed (if using). With a wooden meat mallet or other similar wooden utensil, gently pound and stir the cabbage until is thoroughly mixed with the salt and caraway and slightly less crispy than raw.
  5. Pack the cabbage into 1 half-gallon jar or 2 quart jars. Pour any juice that’s been released into the jar with the cabbage. Fill a small zip-lock bag with water, and put this in the jar to weight down the cabbage. Instead of a lid, cover with a thin cloth napkin secured with twine. Set it in an out-of-the-way place on your kitchen counter, at room temperature.
  6. Check the kraut the next day—the brine level in the jar should come over the cabbage. If not, add some water to make it so. Continue to check each day, skimming any mold that might form on the surface of the brine.
  7. Leave in your kitchen at room temperature for several weeks until it turns into sauerkraut! Begin testing after 3 or 4 weeks to see if it’s sour enough for you; if not just put the bag back on top and let it keep fermenting. Once the flavor is where you like it, put a regular lid on the jar and transfer it to the refrigerator. It will keep for months as long as the brine covers the cabbage.

This recipe multiplies fine, so have a friend over and make a year’s supply at one time! If making larger batches use a ceramic crock that can hold the whole batch at one time.

– Jack