www.tanstaafl.co.uk

Well, ok, tomatoes and cucumbers have featured quite a bit too, but to my surprise the cabbages have done particularly well despite the heat and lack of rain. Finding new and interesting ways to eat cabbage has been at least as much of a challenge as Baldrick’s rat-based trench cuisine.

Coleslaw has been an easy stand-by, especially when it was hot enough that I was lifting pre-roasted potatoes and no-one wanted to eat anything that was more than ten degrees above absolute zero, so I’ve been making about a kilo each week (and it still takes several weeks to get through a single cabbage). Unfortunately my daughter hates mayonnaise and can sniff it out at one part per billion. She thinks it’s the work of the devil, though obviously she’s wrong. That particular distinction is shared by peanut butter and marmite. I will brook no dissent here: I’ve been brewing my own beer for forty years and not once have I ever looked at the trub left in the bottom of the fermentation vessel and though “You know, I reckon I could make something really tasty out of that”.

The solution to this problem (which probably gives a healthier end result) has been to take the chopped cabbage, grated carrot and sliced red onion (all grown in the veggie plot) and make a dressing of greek yoghurt, (home-made) cider vinegar, lemon juice, a blob of (home-made again) honey and another blob of whole-grain mustard. Add salt and pepper and mix the whole lot together. Sorted for another week.