Festive Red Cabbage

Tomorrow is our annual holiday potluck at Bulls Head Friends Meeting, so instead of making soup, I'm making my contribution to the potluck.

Our potlucks tend to be rather heavy on desserts and carbs and rather light on protein and vegetables, so I'm making a healthy veggie dish, Red Cabbage.

The cabbage I have is a big purple-red one and is one of the long-storing vegetables from my last CSA share this year. This is a simple, easy, and cheap dish to make.

I started by slicing a large onion into julienne strips, the I sauted the onion in a big of olive oil in my wok until it was a lovely golden brown and smelled like the good part of the county fair. While the onions were browning, I cut my red cabbage up into thin strips. My cabbage was bigger than my head, so I only used about 2/3's of it. The rest I'll save for something else. When the onions were caramelized, I put the cabbage into the wok and stir-fried them together. The big challenge was getting all that cabbage to stay in the pan - I ended up getting another paddle and gently tossing the veg with both hands. When it was still crunchy, but warmed through, I added 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar, a good squirt of soy sauce, and a dash of liquid smoke. I reduced the heat, covered the wok, and let it simmer/steam for about 10 minutes. When the cabbage was tender and crisp at the same time, I stirred in about 2 Tbs of sugar, turned off the heat and let it sit uncovered for about 5 minutes.

The cabbage will absorb the taste of the vinegar and sugar while it waits in the fridge until I take it to the potluck tomorrow. Right before we eat, I'll warm it up just enough to take the chill off before I put it on the table.

Miso Cabbage Soup

I'm happy to be home from my travels. Among the many joys that say 'home' are sleeping in my own bed and cooking in my own kitchen. Also, being back in the midst of the Friends in my Quaker community. My son, Ryan New, was visiting me this weekend. Last night, after we made s'mores on the wood stove, he helped me make this week's soup. He came to Meeting with me this morning and after an early morning discussion of William Taber's pamphlet 'Four Doors to Meeting for Worship', help dish up the soup that we sent home with Friends.

This week, I was working with an abundance of vegetables from the special Thanksgiving share from Hearty Roots CSA. It was full of lots of wonderful fall veggies, but most especially green cabbage... so cabbage is the star of the soup this week.

We started by heating some olive oil in the bottom of the soup pot and then adding 2 cloves of chopped garlic and a chopped onion. I washed a leek really well by cutting it up and immersing in it water and then drained it and added it to the pot. I rinsed some dried shitake mushrooms and put them in some hot water to soak while Ryan kept the pot stirred. Into the pot went some chopped carrots, celery, and a whole mess of cabbage. When the mushrooms were softened, I poured the soaking liquid (now mushroom-flavored water) into the pot, cut up the mushrooms and threw them in too. Next came a couple quarts of water and a squirt of Bragg Liquid Aminos. I let that simmer for a bit while Ryan & I watched Peter Sellers in Being There on Netflix.

When the carrots were tender, everything else was done too. I broke up some buckwheat soba and added that to the simmering broth. I only let the soba cook until pliable because this soup will need to cool and then be served at a later date, and I don't want the noodles to become complete mush by the time they are eaten. I dissolved a couple tablespoons of red miso into some warm water and poured that into the soup. I left the miso until the very end because it is a great source of beneficial pro-biotic bacteria, but only if you don't kill it with heat - so as soon as the miso was stirred through, I turned off the stove and let the soup cool.

We didn't have a big crowd in meeting this morning because quite a few Friends were traveling for the holidays. Others were dealing with their own Thanksgiving leftovers, but some were really happy to get this soup and a few others decided to take some after they smelled it.