Things to do with Red Cabbage

The other week, our local Abel & Cole driver lost a red cabbage in the street. 

How pretty is that?

The Husband gleefully brought it home, and it sat in the fridge for a few days – it’s not really cooked red cabbage weather (or, mentally, I don’t WANT  it to be cooked red cabbage weather – all this wind and rain – too much for the soul to take), and much as the Husband and I love it braised with apple, the kids aren’t keen.

However, with a weekend of camping looming for the Bank Holiday, I took the opportunity to turn it into a salad to take with us. I get all neurotic about whether we eat enough fresh stuff when we camp so I try and make up some salad type stuff so that it’s easy. Half the problem is that although I get neurotic about it, when it comes to is, I can't necessarily be arsed to do anything about it when I'm actually there, so I need to have it done beforehand, ready to take in a plastic box, for easy eating.

 I turned to Hugh, and adapted a recipe out of Veg Everyday, using what I had, as follows:

Half a red cabbage finely chopped/shredded

2 carrots, grated

As many dried dates as you have and think will be a nice balance, chopped

Juice of an orange

Just mix together the cabbage, carrot and dates, and toss in the orange juice. I would have zested the orange too, except the one that was sitting the fridge looking tired and a little shrivelly had already been zested - I think I used it in the loaf cake I made last week...

The salad was crunchy and delicious, and made me feel less guilty about the hotdogs we had on Saturday lunchtime as the drizzle drizzled on the Dorset coast....

Last night, slightly more inspired than I was on Tuesday evening, I needed something to go with my salmon and lime fishcakes. The other half of the cabbage was sitting there in the fridge looking sad, so this is what I did with it:

Shredded the cabbage, finely sliced half a red onion (the grocery delivery arrived so I had access to such exotic ingredients as red onions), mixed these together with the juice of 11/2  limes – I’d already used the zest in the fishcakes, and had been pondering lime mayonnaise but then Blue said “Couldn’t we just have normal mayonnaise, Mummy?” so I thought I’d use the line juice in the salad instead - and threw in half a pack of toasted pine nuts and a teaspoon of poppy seeds. I had been hoping to find some cashews in the cupboard but it was not to be, so pine nuts and poppy seeds it was.

I did some peas for the kids too, but I needn’t have bothered: the kids both enjoyed it, and there was enough left over for the Husband to take some for lunch. Result.