Slaw-ful or phwoar slaw?

Hands up all the cabbage fans. Go on, reveal yourselves.  Hmmm, not so many of you.  Perhaps you went to boarding school and/or grew up in the '50s and '60s when your mother started cooking the cabbage at  3.00 for dinner at 6.00pm..  

the basic raw material growing in my garden

Ok then, hands up the 'slaw fans.  A few more, but still not so many.  

Do you know the word coleslaw is an  Anglicisation of the Dutch word koolsla?  which is, in turn short for koolsalade, meaning cool salad.  Acutally that's not true, it means cabbage salad, but a cabbage salad should be a cool salad - really cool - groovy even....

I am willing to bet those of you who don't like coleslaw have been put off by the travesty of mass produced tasteless sogginess - I'm looking at you Colonel Sanders and your seedy cohorts in the bulk food industries, Mr-supermarket-made-mix and Ms-deli-counter-sweetly-over-dressed-harlot of a coleslaw. 

For the evils of coleslaw are these:
1.  pieces of vegetable that are too chunky or have hard stems
2.  anaemia, or 50 shades of pale: white cabbage, or at best pale green and not much else
3.  a saturation of sweet, but oddly flavourless, mayonnaise 

But a well made coleslaw can be a thing of deliciousness and beauty.  All it takes is knife skills or a mandolin or food processor with a slicer attachment) and a little imagination - just a tiny bit.

It is an unwritten rule of the universe that when you buy a "mixed punnet" of brassicas, inevitably it comprises two cauliflower, two broccoli and two cabbages.  It is another well know rule of the universe that it is exceptionally difficult to give a cabbage away (see first paragraph of this blog!), so I am exercising my knife skills and imagination as I refuse to waste produce I grow.

Here's a damn good cool salad made of cabbage and other stuff - vary the quantities according to what you have available.  Really thinly slice the vegetables, and only add the dressing shortly before you are ready to serve and eat - and enjoy.  If you are the sort of person who enjoys adding sultanas or other fruity bits to your salads - and you just know I'm not - you should feel free.


Cabbage, carrot, red onion, and lots of fresh coriander, dressed with half and half plain yoghurt and mayonnaise, a kick of Dijon mustard, a splash of white wine vinegar, salt and ground black pepper, then topped with chopped toasted peanuts and fried shallots.  How good is that?  Phwoar, it's good - that's what I call a cool salad.

Phwoar slaw

Seven day juice fast - done

It is the dawn of my 'break fast' day  and I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself.  And with you.  Yes, you - especially to the Golden Door friends who have encouraged me.  Making the public commitment and blogging about the challenge has kept me very honest.  

Since my last blog update at the end of day four, things get easier.  I was worried about day five and cooking all day at the Omaka Classic Fighters airshow, but the long day goes surprisingly well - from a juice fast point of view anyway, as there is nothing easy about the day itself.  I put out 92  tasting plates, most of them in about two and a half hours.  I am so busy I don't get a toilet break until early afternoon: there is no time to dwell on food other than what I am cooking and plating.  Which is by all accounts, delicious.  No time for photos either!  If I ever needed an excessively large gin and tonic it is at the end of that day.   Alas, a green vegetable juice has to suffice. 

I eat the odd handful of berries or piece of fruit over the past three days - those things it makes no sense to juice - passionfruit or a fig, but that has been it.  I can see how people stay on this for much longer.  Actually no I can't.  Five days probably wouldn't be enough, but a week felt right, though now I feel I could do 10 days - but I won't.

How do I feel? How much weight did I lose I hear your clamorous voices ask.  I feel pretty darn good and the h-g, when prompted,  thinks I look lighter and my complexion looks brighter.  As of this morning I lost 2.5 kilos on the juice fast, so it isn't exactly The Biggest Loser, but it's 2.5 kilos I needed to lose.

For the next few days the wisdom is to ease back into solid foods and slowly add light protein, as well as to continue juicing, so today will be a combination of juice, salad and soup for me.  I am looking forward to crunching into one of the delicious apples off our tree.

Would I recommend a juice fast?  Yes, if you want a system clean out and a kick start to weight loss.  

Would I do it again?  Possibly - but not for fun and recreation!  I like cooking and eating too much.