Jennifer’s Cabbage with Apples (plus extra recipe for bread)

Jennifer – green wife of a green military guy 🙂

On her blog she writes about their journey while trying to become a zero waste household… .

In her last post she wrote that sometimes when her husband is out at sea she skips trips to the store and she lives on cereal and raw cabbage for days.

When I read it I knew I have to write this post. I’ve waited to post this recipe for a long time now and finally I feel like this is the perfect time to do so.

This is a dish that my mother used to make a lot. It goes great with potatoes (mashed or not), all kinds of meat and as a main dish with nothing else on a plate (maybe a piece of good bread to soak the juices after all).

It’s very simple and easy to make and after it’s made it can be store in the fridge for a few days.

This recipe makes about 2 servings.

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp. butter

2 apples (any kind), peeled and cut into small cubes (my favorite kind is granny smith and I use it in every recipe that calls for apples)

1 cabbage (whatever cabbage you have or like)

pinch of salt

This time I used Chinese cabbage because it’s the only cabbage I can sneak into my husbands’ diet, so for the most of the time I have it in our fridge. When it cooks it doesn’t smell like regular cabbage and its taste is much milder that the other ones.

If you use a different cabbage you need to cook it longer and add more apples. Chinese cabbage cooks really fast and that’s one of the reasons I use it for this dish… I can make it in 20 minutes 🙂

Directions:

Chop the cabbage. Cut apples into small cubes. Put those two together in a sauce pan, add butter. Cook covered on a low heat until apples are soft (but not mushy). Stir occasionally.

Add salt if you want, but just a pinch.

Add water if you see cabbage and apple mixture doesn’t have any and it starts to burn on the bottom, but that shouldn’t happen if you cook in on a low heat and stir it often.

If at the end the mixture has to much liquid in it you can use a tsp of corn starch or arrowroot to thicken in up.

I ate it with fresh baked bread and homemade butter

Bread recipe is adapted from Sonoma Garden.

Everyday Oat and Seed Bread

put into bread machine in this order:

1 1/4 cup water

1 1/2 Tbsp. sugar (white, brown,honey)

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 Tbsp. vegetable oil or butter

1/4 cup oatmeal

2 cups unbleached white flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp. vital gluten (or bread flour)

2 1/2 tsp. yeast

Set on dough setting. When it beeps during the second kneading (about 30 minutes before the end) put:

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1/4 flaxseed meal

When the dough is ready put it into a greased loaf pan and let rest for about 40 minutes. Brush top with milk. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes at 425 degrees.

So,

Jennifer, the next time you’re all by yourself gather some extra apples, because it looks like you’ve got plenty of cabbage already 🙂 and viola. no more raw cabbage for days and days…

… and from now on this dish is going to be “Jennifer’s Cabbage and Apples” in my book.

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17 thoughts on “Jennifer’s Cabbage with Apples (plus extra recipe for bread)

  1. nadinesellers

    Ewa, this sounds delicious, Chinese cabbage is not a cruciferae, no relative to the smelly round head, so you get this distant cousin’ s mineral and vitamin’s effect with no kitchen aroma to linger. we like bok choi, i should grow some along with my swiss chards. fast and easy to grow and blanch for tenderness.. a little cardboard box (like for celery) for the last growth spurt.

    i don’t peel the apples and i stir fry them with a couple slices of bacon cut in tiny pices and minced onion, till barely tender then add the cabbage, kale or turnip greens to it..no butter or salt needed..simmer a few minutes only to avoid mushy veges syndrome..
    could you tell me if your bread recipe would adapt to oven bread making? no machine here..ns

    Reply
    1. Polish Mom Photographer

      You know, I like cabbage no matter how “smelly” 🙂 I love cabbage rolls and Polish bigos but I don’t make them because I got really tired of my husband bitching for days how it “stinks in here!!!” when I used to make it.

      Oh… I forgot… My mom used to add a few slices of bakon or some kind of fatty meat as well. She didn’t use butter. We almost never eat bacon so I do not use it. This dish is just for me because it’s too much cabbage for my husband (even if it’s only the chinese) and I am not a meat eater myself so I always skip the meat part. I adapted this recipe to be more vegetarian 🙂
      And you’re right in this dish there is no salt needed but I know that for some people it migh be pretty bland if left out.

      I bake this bread in the oven but I make the dough in the bread machine. I bet you can make it the “old” way. Just disolve the yeast first in hot water and sugar as you would do normally with any kind of bread based on yeast. When it’s ready mix it with the rest of the ingredients (withouth the seeds) and let it rest for a few hours or until double in size. Than knead it again adding sunflower and flax seeds and put it into a loaf pan, let it rest for 40 minutes and bake in the oven.

      I hope that helped !

      Reply
  2. Jennifer Ward-Pelar

    Oh, you’re so darn cute!! I love it! I guess you know what my next meal will be! LOL!
    Thanks for the mention. I’m so flattered. I told my mom today, I never feel alone. It’s like my house is constantly filled with friends. And Ewa and Nadine talk to me almost every day. I feel as connected right now at this dining room table as I did when I was out there traveling! Which has been a big shock to my system, because I’m a travel bug and he isn’t it. It’s been torture to slow down.
    Ironic though, I thought by marrying military we’d get to travel all the time. Well, we travel, but not like I was thinking. 🙁
    It’s like as soon as I get somewhere, it’s time to leave and I have time to make one good friend before my heart gets torn out as we move again. I’d gotten to the point where I “tried” not to make any friends, but that’s impossible. I like people too damn much.
    And then my man works so much, it’s like the sea is his real wife! ha! So, I find myself alone A LOT. Never bored, just a little lonely. Until you guys came waltzing into my life. I’m so happy to have met you! My life feels so, so rich. 🙂

    Reply
    1. nadinesellers

      hello, jennifer, it is a surprise to me as well, to feel so close to people whose voice i have never heard..here comes a mini essay for last known nest. i told you that i feel nestled between you and ewa mom photographer.
      before i met my husband i also was a travel bug..and after returning to the US, the paperwork was so horrendous to emigrate again that it helped me to settle here..we did move in three different states so i became familiar with all sorts of climates and situations..here comes a post for verdigrass..see the inspiration pops up whenever i hear your voice and see your bright digital smile..
      at least you won’t lose us if you move, as long as we are connected to the grid, we’ re here with you. and in the event of a solar flare wiping our servers to kingdom gone..then we’ ll have to longhand it by snail mail.. you’ re worth a big stamp!

      Reply
      1. Jennifer Ward-Pelar

        Nadine, like peas and carrots and what was it….potatoes? 😀
        And Ewa has traveled and is also living in a new land from where she grew up. I always thought I’d marry a foreign man and end up in Brazil or South Africa. I am still shocked to look over and see an English-speaker with my nationality. I never saw it coming! Those American men….just something about them!

        Reply
        1. Polish Mom Photographer Post author

          Those American men… lol. When I met mine he was still in the army, but he left right after we met (after 16 years in). Long story.
          When I was in high school I went to a fortune-teller and he told me I’m gonna marry a German soldier. If you want to strech that story… My husband used to be a soldier (but he wasn’t when we got married) and his ancestors are from Germany (but just grand-grand parents).lol
          Just a funny story.
          I used to be a globetrotter, too… till I got married. Now we can’t afford it but that passion is still there and sometimes I cry deep inside for the freedom and for the adventure. On the other hand I have a totally different adventure… adventure of my life… motherhood (and wifehood as well!).

          Reply
          1. Jennifer Ward-Pelar

            He was army? How crazy! So, he probably relates A LOT to what we’re living! I went to a fortune teller in Brazil. She told me I wouldn’t end up with the boyfriend I had at the time. (I didn’t.) She said I would marry a Brazilian military man. (She got it half right.) She also told me I would pass the State Department Test to be in foreign service. (I failed.) Hmmm….she did about 50/50 but I think you had a better one than me! LOL.
            Sometimes I feel like I’ve given up the traveling and I’m so restless, but then I look at him, and I think—I’d rather have him. So I know exactly where you are coming from!!
            I like that. A new adventure! So positive and, it really is Ewa. A new adventure!

      2. Polish Mom Photographer Post author

        Since the last time I was here there is a few new comments and I got lost… My head hurst terribly and I can’t focus at all what means that my ability to read or write or whatever in ENglish goeas to hell. sorry about that…
        anyway…
        to both of you…
        when I first started this blog I had totally different idea for it… and it had different name as well and different url. Sometimes in the middle I saw when I’m going with it and I changed it… these days I feel like I should change it again. oh well, I’ll stick with it anyway.
        And when I started I didn’t even think about making friends through blog. It’s amazing how that has involved into and how much it changed me.
        As a Nadine said it’s great that wherever we move we will still be here ready to reach for and talk to. It is true that we have never met but it amazes my how it happend that we have found each other 🙂 I would have never happened if we weren’t blogging…

        Reply
        1. Jennifer Ward-Pelar

          Maybe we write too much!! It does get confusing with all the comments. I think eventually I’ll have to just give up and email you two. I have too much to say! I’m so glad we met too. Ewa, you have to meet Nadine and I on facebook!

          Reply

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