Pickled Red Cabbage Recipe

Nicola's Pickled Red cabbage

 

Ingredients

 

1 kg of red cabbage into strips

 1/2 cup salt

 2 red chili fruit

 1 medium onion

 4 cups vinegar approx.

 1/2 cup water (optional)

 1 tsp. coarsely ground or whole black pepper

 1 pinch. Ground cloves

 2 tsp. Freshly grated root ginger

 1 Bay leaf

  

 

Remove the outer leaves and quarter the cabbage, remove the tough white core from the quartered pieces, cut the cabbage into thin strips of 4 to 5mm, you can make it thicker if you wish, and place the first cut quarter in a large bowl and sprinkle all over with table salt. Do this with the remaining pieces of cabbage.  Then turning the cabbage mix the cabbage and salt in a bowl and let it stand overnight with either cling film or an old tea towel over the bowl. The salt draws out the moisture from the cut cabbage helping it to stay crunchy once pickled.

Rinse the cabbage in cold water until just about all the salt has been rinsed off.

I add chili peppers and a sliced onion to my mixture but this is optional.

If you are adding a chili, you need to wash the chili pepper and remove the seeds. Cut it into thin strips and mix with the cabbage. I now begin to add the cabbage and chili to the glass jars adding sliced onion in layers throughout the jar.

In a pan I bring to the boil the malt vinegar, (or pickling vinegar) water, black pepper, whole cloves and the grated root ginger to the boil. Let the mixture to cool for 5 minutes before pouring the seasoned vinegar in to the jars of packed red cabbage. During the cleaning and sterilizing of the glass jars, I keep them warm so the glass does not crack when adding the vinegar solution to the jars.

Seal the jars and place in a dark cool area or store cupboard to mature for a few weeks. Once open store in a refrigerator.

Pickled cabbage goes very well with BBQ Grilled foods and summer salads.

Cauliflower & apple soup

Well my recipe's tend to lighten the blog a bit and add something a little bit different.
I try to choose easy recipes that are useful to know about and are generally good for you and of course a little off the wall, as they say. So, here is one I made just the other day.

I make Cauliflower and walnut soup quite a bit in the autumn, but that can make a grayish soup, plus some people don't like walnuts it tastes nice to me but you feast with your eyes first, so this one is made with apple rather than the walnuts.

As part of the brassica family, more commonly known as cruciferous vegetables, cauliflower contains antioxidants and phytonutrients that can protect against cancer, fiber that helps with satiety, weight loss and a healthy digestive tract, choline that is essential for learning and memory as well as many other important nutrients. Just one serving of cauliflower contains 77 percent of the recommended daily value of vitamin C. It's also a good source of vitamin K, protein, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, magnesium, phosphorus, fiber, vitamin B6, folate, pantothenic acid, potassium, and manganese.

Ingredients

• 50g butter
• 4 onion, thinly sliced
• 1½ kg cauliflower (about 2 large cauliflowers), broken up into very small florets
• 8 eating apple - 6 cored, peeled and chopped, 2 unpeeled and cut into matchsticks
• 2 vegetable stock cubes, or gluten-free alternative, crumbled
• 1½ l milk
• 8 tbsp single cream
• olive oil, for drizzling
• a few thyme sprigs, leaves picked

Method

1.      Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the onions and fry gently until softened. Add the cauliflower and diced apple and fry for 5 more mins. Add the stock cubes and milk and bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 5 mins, or until the cauliflower and apples are tender.

2.      Use a hand blender or liquidiser to purée the soup until smooth and season (the soup can now be chilled for up to 48 hours or frozen, just reheat to serve). Divide into bowls and swirl 1 tbsp cream in each along with a drizzle of oil. Top with the apple matchsticks and thyme.

“Everybody is so different, but I haven’t changed”

 

I have just been filling in a questionnaire on LGBT stuff and "coming out" and I sat and thought about how I feel about being Transgender male to female... I came to the conclusion I have not changed but everybody else has. I know it’s a strange contradiction to make considering my recent coming out news, but I have always been Nicola despite being known by a male name and forced to do male things.

Inside I was female and loved doing girly things but society had me hide away, now I have taken the brave step of telling just about everybody and their dog that I'm really a female and have been since well forever and a day.

That made me look inward and think about myself, I feel everybody is so different but I haven't changed... I'm still me Nicola the change for me is everybody else now knows I'm a female trapped in a male body and treats me well err different. Which is very great please don't get me wrong, but different to me as with the news they have to change, I'm still ticking along. I guess it’s a coping mechanism of some kind?

If people can’t cope with the news and behave badly towards me, well I simply don't need them in my life, it’s like a switch being thrown. If on the other hand they offer me, some emotional support and friendship well welcome on board the Nicola express.

 

Being rid of the pressure of having to conform to male stereotyping plus taking the female hormones daily I feel released of lots of things that were binding me. I know I said I haven't changed well I have lots and lots but for me it's so far all for the better. With my hair all done and make up, I look years younger my clothes actually fit rather than hang on my body. My weight has dropped (3.5 stone at the last count), the lines on my face "worry lines" all gone I smile much more when I walk its now with my head up.

At night, I sleep better and awake each morning with a happy smile, so changes yes they continue to happen, my wife Julie told me my male "sent" has now faded, my body is using the hormones correctly and adjusting my body to that of a female. I think my wife is worried I will no longer want to service or fix the car or the lawn mower etc. when they need it.




I'm sure she thinks she will have to take on some of the roles seen as male in or relationship but that will not be the case, I’m happy to function as before but perhaps in a cute pair of jeggings and a nice top… I still have the DIY skills I had, I still have the same hobbies and interests and love of technology, as I have not changed as I said before. If you are a happily married in a heterosexual marriage, you do not stop loving the person you are married to just because you swapped a pair boxers for some cute fitting undies. Being trans-female is not a curse it’s not an issue unless you make it one.

Being a couple in love and seeing the person you love for who they are, is far more important than applying labels to people.  I didn’t have much, if any option not to transition as I had reached the end of a long journey trying to be who I wasn’t. I was told by medical specialists in the GIC I attend, that Pandora’s box had exploded with such force it was never going to be possible to put a lid on everything, tucking it all back in and think nothing has happened. As I keep pointing out in the blog pages it’s not a choice but biological pre-birth issue, all I could ever do is deal with it in the best possible way available to me and others like me. To say I have struggled every day and every second of every day is a underestimate in my mind as its taken me to the point of self-destruction and now I’m getting the correct help so I can live and function as I should have since birth. I’m thankful to everybody around me, family friends and everybody at work who has come out and supported me on the journey, I can never thank you all enough for your support understanding and help. However, I can say thanks you for changing your view of me and thank you for changing how you have accepted me as a person who is transgender and becoming a woman I should have always been.

Lemons...

Lemons...
Great in Gin and Tonic, squeezed on fish and perhaps preserved whole in a jar for later in the year.
But what about making some Marmalade? Great on toast or used in cooking as a marinade for fish... it keeps well and is a great store cupboard item to liven up meal times, so I hunted down a recipe that sounded easy to make and be good to eat, so my weekend is now set I'm making home made Marmalade while the lemons in the shops are cheap, I don't have a lemon tree but if I did I would be collecting my own when they were ripe.

Lemon Marmalade

Ingredients

Storage: up to 2 years
Makes: 5 x 450g jars

• 1kg Lemons
• 75ml leftover lemon juice
• 2kg demerara sugar

Method

• Wash the lemons then half them and juice them and keep the squeezed halves.
• Slice the squeezed lemons into medium to thick pieces and place into a bowl along with the lemon juice and 2.5L water. Leave the mixture to soak for 24 hours.

TIP: This helps release the pectin that helps the marmalade set.

 

• Pour the mixture into a jam making pan and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook covered for 2 hours until the peel is soft and the marmalade has reduced.
• Add in the sugar and lemon juice and mix well to dissolve the sugar.
• Boil for about 20 minutes until setting point has been achieved then remove from the heat.
• Leave the marmalade to cool down for ten minutes then stir slowly to diffuse any foam from the top.
• Pour the marmalade into warm sterilized  jars and store in a cool dark place.