Cabbage Gets a Spring Makeover

“Arrright, Cabbage! Your days in this bin are numbered!”

“Nooo, Mr. Carrot. Listen to me, Mr. Celery, just ’cause I ain’t a member of the Mirepoix Gang don’t mean I ain’t got no place here!”

(Yeah, I know. I really should get out more.)

Anyway, I didn’t start out loving cabbage. When I was growing up I had a grand aunt who adored cooked cabbage and crowed over it excessively. What she loved of course would be cabbage prepared in our native Southern way of boiling it to freakin’ death.

It looked disgusting. It tasted vile. And the squidgy texture was right out of a Halloween scary house where you wander around blindfolded and let them put your hands into bowls of icky stuff as they tell you what dissected body parts you’re handling.

I had no problem with slaw, so I got plenty of “good cabbage” when I was a kid. But when it came to the cooked stuff, I had to put my tiny foot down.

Even when, as an adult, I decided I liked cooked cabbage okay, I was still a little squeamish about it. Sometimes it was good, but at others, I’d have flashbacks to the bad old days and wonder if I needed some sort of trauma therapy.

Lately even the raw stuff is haunting me and my fridge. Our bi-weekly CSA boxes this winter have delivered to us way too many heads of cabbage—huge ones, I might add. It’s gotten to the point where no one wants to see me show up for a potluck because they know I’ll come bearing yet another cabbage salad.

Next time I might go for a little more char…

So while roasting other vegetables this morning I decided to try roasting some cabbage too. I cut it into inch-thick slices, brushed it with olive oil and sprinkled on a little sea salt. When it came out of the oven, I used the same bowl and brush to pour out a little orange-muscat vinaigrette, and I brushed the roasted slices with that and then sprinkled a little black pepper over top. And mercy me, I hit upon a great way both to enjoy the bounty of cabbage and to empty out my overcrowded vegetable bins. It was delicious hot. And chilled. And room temp, my personal fav.

Roasted cabbage is incredibly versatile. You can put anything on it that strikes your fancy. Next time I’ll brush on some bacon drippings and follow that with a drizzle of maple syrup (the real stuff, not brown-colored corn syrup with maple-ish flavoring). I’m betting it will be even better.

No siree, I don’t think I’m going to be plagued by a surplus of cabbage anymore.