Home made coleslaw

I’ll confess straight up, I have always wanted to make my own coleslaw but never done it. There are so many things about it I love and it is not just the taste. For example, have you ever considered how much it can contribute to your 5 a day? Just look at the ingredients I use here or on any coleslaw tub and you’ll see plenty of veg, sometimes some fruit too and it always out weights the fat content because vinegars and other acid flavourings are used instead of fat.

You will also find it contains things like cabbage which nobody really eats much 🙂 so you really are adding to the balance of your diet. Now, when I say it is a particularly healthy side to add to your meal you might understand that I am not joking. That many vegetables cannot be bad for you can it and it adds something to plenty of meals which makes it a convenient solution in many situations.

So that is how much I like coleslaw but what pushed me to make some? Well, we just had a vegetable box delivered a few days ago and then realised how much veg we now have to get through in a relatively short period. I expect you might know how that feels, to watch perfectly good food go to waste or frantically figure out what, hopefully, tasty morsels you can make from it.

So I had a quick Google and came across how to make coleslaw. It looks easy enough and the coleslaw I tried when visiting Stowe gardens recently was to die for. I am quite a fan of coleslaw you see, maybe the only one 🙂 but I love the stuff. To the point that I think of things to have it with. It can kind of be the main ingredient for me with everything else being the side. My wife reminds me how weird I am but I’m happy 🙂

Cabbage

So this is my first attempt because we have cabbage to use up, coleslaw contains cabbage as its main ingredient and I don’t like cabbage but I do like coleslaw, a lot. So this might be a way for me to start appreciating cabbage.

Wow that is a lot of cabbage in a short space!!! Apparently it is a nice useful ingredient but then that’s probably what farmers say when they have lots of cabbage to get rid of.

Any way we will see.

My attempt follows my usual rules, laziness generally wins. I only do things that actually need to be done, rarely the stuff that is about showing off. I use ingredients I have lying around as I prefer not to buy too much for each dish. I would rather learn the skills of making do because it is more fun in the long term.

I also cook so I can personalise and make things I want to eat that I can not buy in the shops.

Ingredients

The list of ingredients was:

• raisins, I used mixed dried fruit
• apple
• cabbage
• carrot
• onion
• herbs, I used mint
• mayonnaise and/or olive oil
• lemon juice or white wine vinegar
• seasoning
• french mustard

Method

That list of ingredients is surprisingly long. It didn’t feel that difficult because I just used how to make coleslaw as a guide adjusted to my taste and what was available. It was just a case of finely chopping what I wanted and mixing it together in a bowl. I used whole pieces of veg and didn’t realise how it would all add up so I made a lot of coleslaw so that is my first lesson.

After only 5-10 minutes preparing this while my roasted veg were cooking for dinner it was all finished. It really was no effort at all and I got to munch on the ingredients as I made it. I now have plenty of coleslaw for the week and it is amazing. I added a little french mustard to make things a little more interesting and I really like what I made. I’m having it for lunch with some roasted gammon and seeded bread.

I can not wait 🙂