Red Cabbage and Apples

It’s been over two years since I wrote in this blog. Since that time, my siblings and I lost our mother, who was a great supporter and cheerleader for all of us and her grandchildren. It’s impossible to express what her death meant to all of us, and how inadequate to the task of honoring our parents’ legacy we all feel, but we soldier on. There have been other changes as well: our oldest is now living in Pittsburgh, and our youngest only recently moved a little farther away, to Indianapolis. My husband and I survived the COVID-19 pandemic so far, and have come to really appreciate our spacious, comfortable home after months of spending so much time in it.

And now that I’ve caught you up, as the weather turns cold and we are back inside once more, I’ve turned to the random collection of cookbooks in our kitchen and challenged myself to make a recipe from each one. The first cookbook is an unlikely choice; it’s a fundraiser cookbook for alumni of the now-closed Huron High School, where my mother taught over sixty years ago. (That’s her on the cover, third row, left.) One of the alumni presented the cookbook to my mother, who never liked to cook, and she gave it to me. 

Many of the recipes involve canned Campbell’s soup or frozen hash browns, but this recipe by Ella “Wilson” Inman for red cabbage and apples caught my eye, both because it called for no processed ingredients and because I can’t remember ever having eaten red cabbage (which I call purple cabbage).

We didn’t follow the recipe to the letter; my darling husband never does, but no new ingredients were added. We just changed the proportions a little. I’m happy to pronounce the results delicious. Seriously, we ate half a head of cabbage in fifteen minutes. I’m sure it’s also packed with nutrients. I had intended to serve it with roast chicken, but we had already stuffed ourselves with its purple goodness before the chicken was completely cooked. 

I highly recommend you try this, but be aware that purple cabbage is hard to find. I finally found it on my third trip to Walmart, where it was shelved not with the green cabbage, but with the cilantro. Whatever. Also do not hesitate to add more of any of the ingredients. We used four apples and a whole head of purple cabbage, plus dumped more brown sugar in as it cooked. I’m pretty sure this will be tasty no matter what you do to it. Enjoy.