Of Summer Slaw and Catnaps

Despite the havoc wreaked by our neighborhood skunk, we still have managed to bring some heads of cabbage to a harvestable size. (A few nights ago we could smell M. LePew, and the next morning all the broccoli was once again chewed on. He also nibbled on some of the Brussels sprouts, but left all the cabbages untouched. I don't understand this creature, but I am grateful that he's so finicky.)


Anyway, today I brought in one of our "Red Express" cabbages. It was just starting to split, and we wanted some cole slaw to top our pork barbecue: a win-win. The meat is Carolina-style, by the way, which is the only way to go. It's vinegary and delicious, and needs some creamy slaw on top. 

Last summer we made a pretty traditional cole slaw. This is basically the same, but it practically glows from the all the red cabbage:



Kirk shredded the whole head of cabbage in our nice, new Cuisinart. Even though it was small, that turned out to be a lot. Ditto on shredding the carrots I picked, plus a small onion (and its green tops). The dressing is mayonnaise, cider vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper. Kirk uses a pretty light hand on the dressing, as you can see in the photo — it's fairly dry. But when the cabbage is this fresh and spicy-sweet, you don't need much. 

We have lots of leftover slaw for sandwiches and sides throughout the week, and there's still more cabbages out in the garden. 

The next time I gather carrots and cabbages, though, I will have to find a new basket:



Fletch found this one that I left out in the garden, and promptly commandeered it for a new bed. I didn't have the heart to kick him out of it when it appears to be a perfect fit for him. Maybe I'll keep the basket in the broccoli bed so our sleepy gatekeeper can deter the skunks while he naps. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What to Do With an Unripe Watermelon

Image
Back on the first weekend of August we were so excited to see how big our watermelons were getting. We checked all the signs of ripeness: good sound, firm skin, yellow bottom. So Kirk brought one in: And we sliced it open: Shit. This is not meant to be a yellow watermelon. It only even looks that way in the photo because of the lighting — it's really white throughout. It's Sweet Favorite, and it's supposed to be red.  After the huge wave of disappointment rolled through the room, we all took a bite anyway.  It's not sweet, but it's not sour or bitter, either. It tastes like watermelon, just without the sugar. Kind of like a watermelon-flavored cucumber. It's too big to let go to waste, and we felt obligated to wrap it up and keep it in the fridge until we figured out something to with it.   Dish #1: Watermelon Kachumber Kachumber is an Indian salad that is normally made with cucumber. Here we used some of our unripe w...
Read more

So Where's Everybody From?

Image
I don't have any new garden pictures or updates for you today. I have to say, it's getting kind of hard to get a good photo during the one hour of waning daylight left by the time I get home from work. These are the darkest days now, as we hurtle toward the solstice. Without any photos for me to share with you today, I thought it would be a good time to ask: Where're y'all from? If you have never kept a blog of your own, you might not know that the writer of one gets a bunch of stats about who has hit on the webpage. Most of it's not very interesting: I don't care how many of you use your iPhone vs. a PC or what browser you use to surf the web. The one interesting part, though, is the map . Blogger keeps track of what country readers are in when they check out my page. It's fascinating! Here's my readership map for November: I figured my readers were mostly my Facebook friends, and I know where they are. But now my list of countries is gettin...
Read more

Last Weekend of Winter

Image
It's the last weekend of winter! Next weekend we'll be beyond the equinox, and the days will be ever-so-slightly longer than the nights.  We still have snow on the ground, lots of wind, and temperatures in the 30s, but we plowed ahead with our almost-spring garden chores anyway. Here's what we did this weekend: 1. Got the chickens out on the raised bed where to prep the soil for planting greens: 2. Poked around the greenhouse tunnels to harvest the last veggies: parsnips and a couple leeks, plus a few leftover fall cabbages for the chickens (which they were very  excited about). We do still have some spinach, mache and kale left as well, but not much. 3. Improved the maple sugaring set-up by building a bigger firebox: Kirk used leftover bricks we had lying around to make a floor (so as not to ruin the bricks on our patio), then got nine cinderblocks to make the three walls of the firebox (solid side toward the fire). He also picked up some steel...
Read more