For Thanksgiving, and the day after, too

Last August, I discovered that by accident I’d grown six cabbage plants in the spots where I’d thought I’d planted cauliflower. Well, oops, but they turned out to be a great garden plant and delicious to eat.

I don’t usually like to buy cabbage at the store because, really, who can use up an entire cabbage head? One nice thing we discovered about our unexpected plants is that, after you cut off the larger head that comes up initially, several small heads grow up on the stalk.

I’ve been going out and lopping them off to make lovely small-portion cabbage dishes.

Of course, we all know that cabbage is really good for us. It fights cancer, has an entire day’s worth of vitamin K, which helps blood clot properly (especially useful at Thanksgiving, if you, like me, have poor knife skills), and it has 50 percent of the daily recommended dose of vitamin C as well.

And since we’ve been talking about Thanksgiving for the past few weeks, it’s nice to know that cabbage is good for your digestion, because it’s so full of fiber. That uncomfortable bloated feeling that so many people get at the Thanksgiving table can come from eating foods with, say, a lot of white flour, sugar and salt. Those kinds of foods can be a little sluggish as they move through your system, and can make you feel sluggish as well.

(Of course, you don’t want to eat too much cabbage, at Thanksgiving or at any time. An overactive digestive system can be just as challenging as one that’s underactive.)

This year, I’m planning to make cole slaw to go with our Thanksgiving dinner. Those of  you who don’t have tiny little heads of cabbage growing in your yard can happily buy one of those giant cabbage heads at the grocery store and know that you won’t be wasting them (if you can, get curly leafed savoy cabbage, which is a little more festive).

One store-bought cabbage head will feed an army of family and friends next Thursday night, and the leftover slaw will be excellent on a turkey sandwich, with a little bit of cranberry sauce.

This is one of those recipes that doesn’t have actual proportions, but it’s very easy and shouldn’t cause even a novice cook any trouble.

One tip: Be stingy with the mayonnaise (a little bit goes a long way) but be generous with the lemon juice.

So, take a head of cabbage and peel off any outer leaves that are brown or have bug holes in them (ick).

You can cut away the hard core at the base if you want, but sometimes that core is actually kind of crunchy and sweet (if you’re not sure how you feel about this, cut off a piece and taste it, then decide for yourself).

Using a big knife, shred the cabbage. Put it in a large bowl. Squeeze the juice of about one-and-a-half lemons over the leaves (don’t use bottled juice for this recipe; the lemon flavor is so strong, you want it to be as delicious as possible). Peel and core either two crisp apples or three tender pears (or a combination of apples and pears) and slice them into the slaw.

Toss them all together; the lemon juice should keep the fruit from turning brown.

I happen to have a lot of dill seed that I gathered from my garden this fall, and I always add it to my coleslaw. It’s crunchy (which is appropriate for this dish, which is already really crunchy anyway) and it adds dill flavor that’s a little more subtle and smokey than what you get with fresh dill. If you have any dill seed, add about a tablespoon.

If you don’t, chop up about a cup and a half of fresh dill and add it in.

Start with about one large tablespoon of mayonnaise and toss all the ingredients together. If you want a  creamier cole slaw, add some more mayo, but keep in mind that this is the least healthy ingredient in this recipe, and that it will also mask some of the nice subtle flavors of the other ingredients.

Add coarse salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

If you have space in your refrigerator, this is a dish that gets tastier if it’s allowed to sit for a while before you eat it.

Which is why it’s such a perfect addition to a day-after-Thanksgiving sandwich.