Looks are not Enough

You may recall a post of mine not so very long ago when I discussed making food look appealing in order to help my kids enjoy it. Yeah, that doesn’t always work.

This past weekend, my sweet neighbor and new friend brought over some produce that her family wasn’t going to eat and she thought I could put it to some good use. She had bought red cabbage and rainbow carrots in hopes of the color enticing her little girl to eat some more veggies. Sounds like the purple color wasn’t enough at her house either.

The rainbow carrots were pretty simple to get my kids to eat. Where have these things been all my life? Have you ever cut open a purple carrot? These were yellow on the inside! I sliced one, told my daughter it looked like a flower on the inside and ta-da! It was a cooler way to eat carrots!

Red cabbage was not so easy… I decided to make some braised red cabbage and serve it with bratwurst. Both of my kids love brats so should have been an easy sell. I’m thinking “what little girl doesn’t want to eat something purple?” My little girl is thinking “that is new and I’m not touching it with a stick”.

I rather enjoyed the braised cabbage. The first time I had braised cabbage, my mom had made it and I was hooked right away. It is a really simple recipe but it takes about an hour to cook the cabbage down. During that hour, the cabbage comes to this perfect blend of sweet and tart and it just melts like butter without being mushy. The apples and onions all but disappear, just leaving their delicate sweetness behind. It really is tasty and so colorful! It looks great on a plate!

I think the way I made it is pretty standard for this relatively common dish but here’s what I had just in case:

1/2 head red cabbage, cut in thin strips

1 Braeburn apple, peeled, cored and cut in thin strips

1 yellow onion, cut in thin strips

1 tbsp butter

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp ground allspice

Salt and pepper

Melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes.

Add apple slices, cook 1 minute more, then add cabbage. Sprinkle cabbage with allspice, salt and pepper then pour in vinegar. Stir to coat cabbage then cover and reduce heat to low.

Simmer 1 hour. Add additional salt if needed. Serve warm.