Les choux?

Mmmmm cabbage. Hm.

A very pretty cabbage purple-tinted cabbage yes. But it has been sitting in our fridge for a week while we've been eating other, much tastier, vegetables. It's a vegetable with a bad rep. Cheap, plentiful and generally poorly cooked. I'm not a fan.

But as it's Veg Box Wednesday tomorrow it needs eating so I sat down with the books last night to find some recipes.

Being a more traditional vegetable, I thought I'd visit a more traditional book first.

How about Forced (meaning stuffed) Cabbage from Florence White's Good Things in England? First published in 1932 this book is described as 'a practical cookery book for everyday use, containing traditional and regional recipes suited to modern tastes'. On page 155 you will find instructions on How to Roast a Young Swan...

After this I moved my search forward to the likes of Valentine Warner (small crush) who is very good at simple seasonal recipes, Richard Corrigan (no crush) who is the man for big, hearty, comforting food and the River Cafe Cookbook, indeed some peoples Italian bible. Thinking Cavolo Nero here. Which, when put into Google, comes up with the site Discover Kale. Surely that needs an exclamation mark. Discover Kale! Yeah!

The main recipes appear to be make it into coleslaw, stuff the leaves, pickle it or serve it as an accompaniment. So I went with...

Minestrone! Courtesy of Mr J Oliver c.1999.

Cook onion, garlic, chopped rosemary, celery, leek and carrot in olive oil until tender. Add good tinned tomatoes and vegetable stock until just covered. Simmer for 10 mins or so then add not as much pasta as you'd think and the chopped cabbage. Simmer for another 10 mins and add as much fresh basil as you can reasonably afford. Season to taste with salt & pepper. Serve with some kind of grated cheese. But not Tex Mex cheese. That's just not right.

I love soup.