Grilled Cabbage

  Another post about food! I never blog about food, but here I am, apparently very inspired by the fresh tastes of summer. This summer Josh and I decided to go in with our friends, the Bogues, and buy a "harvest share subscription" from a local farm. There is a non-profit in our community called The Cobblestone Project, whose dream is to, "work towards 'A Community Without Need.'" One of the ways they are pursuing this goal is through an initiative called "the Farm". At the Farm they grow a wide range of produce, both to sell and to give away. This year they sold share subscriptions to help fund the costs of growing the produce they give to local shelters and individual families.

  That long explanation is just to say that, as of two weeks ago, I now head to the Bentonville farmer's market every Saturday morning to pick up our lug of produce for the week. I have really enjoyed the challenge of using what we receive in the lug, which so far has consisted of lettuce, spring onions, broccoli, new potatoes, & cabbage. When we got our head of cabbage this week, I was a little mystified as to what to do with it. Cabbage always feels like a fall/winter vegetable to me. It makes me think of hearty soups or an accompaniment to sausages. I know coleslaw is summery, but I didn't really feel like slathering the cabbage in all that oil & dressing.

Photo by: Taste of Home

So, to help me brainstorm I turned to good ol' allrecipes.com and found an idea that had never occurred to me before: grilling cabbage. The recipe that you'll find at that link was my inspiration, but here's what I did:

• Sliced the cabbage into wedges and arranged on a large piece of foil
• Placed a small pat of margarine on each wedge, then seasoned them all with a few shakes of Tony Chachere's creole seasoning.
• Sealed the foil and placed on a preheated grill (I left them on about 20-25 minutes because they were fairly thin wedges, and just flipped the foil packet once).

I think I can safely say that this is my favorite way I have ever eaten cabbage. I prepared half of a head, and Josh and I ate all of it with our dinner tonight. I plan on using this method every time we get cabbage in our lug this summer, and it will encourage me to buy it more often in the future. I'm sure it would be just as tasty with any other seasonings (Cavender's, salt & pepper, etc.), and a big benefit to grilling it outside is that our house wasn't permeated with the strong scent of cooking cabbage. I hope you give it a try - it's excellent!