Sweet Summer Slaw

This year we are growing red cabbage in our garden, as requested by myself. I love to use red cabbage in salads, soups, stir-fry, you name it. It is always so inexpensive and yields so much cabbage! The only problem is, I can't finish it on my own before it starts to go bad. So now we have four mature cabbage plants in the backyard...time to be creative I guess.

Thankfully they did not all grow at the same rate, and there is a large window for harvesting. Last week I picked the first (and biggest) head of red cabbage. It was a beautiful bright purple once I peeled away the dark and dingy outer leaves. I decided to make a big cabbage salad. I feel like vegetables grown in your own yard deserve to be eaten raw at first to really enjoy their natural flavour, so that is what I did. This salad is colourful, sweet, and truly is the taste of summer.

Sweet Summer Slaw

4.5 cups of chopped red cabbage

purple overload!

0.5 cups of sliced onion

3 medium carrots, chopped julienne
3 corn on the cobs, yielding about 1 cup of kernels
handful of basil leaves, chopped finely
olive oil
cider vinegar
salt and pepper
garlic powder

Chop everything "julienne" style as best you can. Thinly sliced pieces allows you to get multiple veggies in one bite which means more uniform flavour. I tossed all the veggies together with the basil and added olive oil and cider vinegar in about a 1:2 ratio. Then added garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste. The salad is excellent on it's own just like this (and oh so colourful). The basil and corn are wonderful together and sweeten up the crunchy cabbage. I am in love with the corn and basil combination.

Now we have tonnes of tomatoes right now, and the only reason why there are not tomatoes in this salad is because my mom doesn't like them. However, once in my own bowl, I made some personal modifications to this salad that made it even better.

I added about 1 medium tomato, 1/2 can tuna, and a couple tablespoons of cottage cheese. These additions made the salad a complete meal and was incredibly satisfying.

Like I said earlier, we have a TON of tomatoes. I'm averaging about 4 to 6 tomatoes a day I think, so I'm sure getting my dose of antioxidant carotenoids. "Where are all the tomato recipes?" you ask? They are on their way. I have been eating a lot of raw tomatoes, but my lunch today, utilizing oven roasted tomatoes, was so out of this world, that it has pushed it's way to the front of my posting list and you should be reading all about it very soon.