Friday 30 September 2011

Who knew......


Who knew ....... that cabbages had babies .... not me for sure.  That's the nice things about growing your own food there's always something new to learn.



This yucky looking cabbage was left in the cabbage patch seemingly no use to anyone, but closer investigation .....



... revealed it had little babies growing at the base ...



... and when opened up it was perfect inside.  The chickens got all the outer leaves (with their resident slugs and caterpillers) and we had the inner leaves shredded and made into coleslaw with onion, carrot, kohl rabi and mayonnaise ...... yummy !

The little babies, in total there were four, were lightly steamed and tossed in butter and pine nuts and were eaten with our homemade quiche for tea last night.

Sue xx

9 comments:

  1. Coleslaw...yum...and with Kohlrabi! YAY!
    Very interesting that the cabbage was sprouting babies. The more the merrier :)

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  2. Do you think this is a first, perhaps you have put so much care into growing them they decided to reward you.

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  3. aww bless. Last night at the comedy eve they served up creamy mash potato with spring onion & savoy cabbage mashed in then popped in the oven to get a crispy topping... heavenly !

    I used to work in a school for speech impaired children & we took the children to a dig your own farm. It was around the time that "Cabbage patch dolls" were popular. One ( stupid ) supply teacher told the children that babies were born in cabage patches !!!

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  4. Your meal sounded lovely! I was told that if you cut the cabbage off carefully and left the stump in the ground then babies would grow around the edge of the stump so you get a second much smaller harvest. Since there is only the two of us now, staggering the harvest seems a good idea because otherwise there is too much at one time for us to get through when it is still in fresh condition.

    The Simple Green Coop had a recipe for coleslaw that was brilliant. They said that they had been told that it kept for 6 weeks. We made a big batch and it kept for more than 3 weeks before it started going a bit too "cabbagey" smelling, if you know what I mean. They chopped finely the cabbage, onion, carrot, pepper and whatever else they wanted. The dressing was one part veg/olive oil to one part sugar or honey to one part cider vinegar - all brought to the boil, stirring all the time, then poured over the cabbage mixture.

    http://simple-green-frugal-co-op.blogspot.com/search?q=coleslaw

    We'd only ever made coleslaw before with a mayonnaise/yoghurt dressing as my husband doesn't like vinaigrette but this was a lovely version. And I like being able to make a bigger batch and have it keep a while.

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  5. Sue if you cut a cross in the plant which is left after having cut your cabbage you will get little greens growing after a week or so. Apologies if you know this. Ali

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  6. maybe the cabbage had been eyeing up the brussels sprouts and thoughtit would have a go!

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  7. I didnt know cabbages had babies! this is a thrifty revelation. Bettyx

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  8. Isn't it wonderful learning something new?

    Even at our age!

    Sft x

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  9. I love your cabbage babies. I have never grown cabbage - I feel inspired to give it a go seeing your photos.
    I have grown broccoli in the past and was delighted to find that if I cut off the head and left the plant that new little "flowers" came out and tasted delicious.

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