Embrace the season with homegrown coleslaw and pickled veggies
Hinterland Homesteading with Racheal Pascoe
What a fabulous time of year it is! I am harvesting little handfuls of things each day to have with dinner. It is so good to sit down to tea and impress everyone with the fact the snow peas, cabbage and squash are all from the garden. I actually say ‘these snow peas are very local’ and they all get it. Absolutely none of the sugar snap peas made it to the kitchen, they were all eaten in the garden by everyone! I don’t mind at all. This year though I planted quite a few sugar loaf cabbage seeds, grew them up to seedlings and planted them out and they all grew beautifully! So now I have an abundance of cabbage! Yikes.
Luckily my family just love fresh coleslaw. Have you thought about making your own? It is so much better than the store bought coleslaw.
Fresh Coleslaw
Buy a lovely fresh cabbage from the fruit shop (I like Fruity Life in Howard St, Nambour the best), or even better if you have grown one yourself in the garden. Cut it in half and then slice one half very finely and put into a bowl. Add a grated carrot and some finely diced red onion. Mix through a nice lot of mayonnaise and it is ready to serve. Now it will taste so good today, but tomorrow it will taste even better as the flavours meld together. You can also add some finely diced capsicum, snow peas etc. Coleslaw is really a cabbage salad, so you can get creative and make it how you want. It is a terrific side dish to have with any sort of meat. Coleslaw will last a few days in the fridge, but it is easy to make, so you can prepare fresh batches in a flash.
Another really tasty way to enjoy cabbage is by making sauerkraut. (That might be an entire column on its’ own!)
In a pickle
Another terrific way to store vegetables for later on is to pickle them. As with a lot of things we grow in the garden, when it is in season it all becomes ripe and ready to pick at the same time, so pickling is a fabulous solution for a lot of vegetables… onions, carrot, capsicum, cucumber, zucchini, asparagus, radish, squash, turnips, in fact just about any vegetable can be pickled!
We just love golden beetroot and it is delicious pickled to enjoy as we fancy. Quick pickling is so easy and you can get creative with the vinegars and spices you use. Experiment and see what flavours your family like. Consider garlic, red pepper flakes, ginger, peppercorns, fresh dill, thyme etc as flavouring agents for your brine. Fresh herbs, dried herbs, whole spices and ground spices are all great to use. Start out slowly, seeing what flavours you like.
Pickling is not a difficult process, it just takes a little bit of time to get organised and it is best done with super fresh vegetables. You will need clean, dry jars to store the vegetables in.
Once you have harvested your vegetables, wash/dry and then slice them or cut them all in pieces which about the same size and layer them in the jars. Put in your spices etc into each jar.
You don’t need to boil the brine. The idea is to dissolve the sugar and salt, this can be done in the liquid by simply stirring. Sugar is used to balance the tartness of the vinegar. A classic ratio is 100% vinegar, 50% water, 25% sugar and 12.5% salt. You can easily scale this recipe up to any amount you require.
Pour your pickling mix in and seal the jars. Store them in a cool, dark place. Pickled veggies will last 3-4 weeks in the fridge for you to enjoy and much longer if they are unopened. Let your vegetables soak in the brine for a few days before enjoying them. Okay, try to make it to 48 hours before opening and sampling!
You can blanch vegetables in boiling water for 2-3 minutes and then shock them in an ice bath to preserve their colour before putting them in the jars. This is nice if you are planning on giving jars of pickled goodies away as gifts.
Have the jar of pickled goodies on the table at dinner for people to enjoy! Happy pickling!
Racheal Pascoe
