Hello I'm Liz Zorab and this is Byther Farm and I've been harvesting.
So I've just collected all of the red cabbages growing in this row. I sowed these seeds
in early spring it's a variety called red acre and I absolutely love red
cabbage I love it immensely so what I've done is I've taken the heads I'm going
to prepare them all in a batch cook in the kitchen and get everything frozen
for the winter I've left the stems and some of the leaves on each of the plants
in the hope that they will grow further little heads and in fact looking at this
and this one here they are already they were already happening so little tiny
baby heads of cabbage lovely I'll just I'll cook those whole and get them in
the freezer really nice YUM I've had this row covered in netting since I
transplanted the seedlings to stop cabbage white butterfly and cabbage
moths from laying their eggs on the plants and that has worked really well
really pleased that it looks like the only holes in the leaves a slug damage
but I took the cover off about two weeks ago because when I came out here to see
whether they were nearly ready to be harvested
I noticed that sparrows were hopping in and out through an opening at that end
my concern was that once they got in there might be some who wouldn't find
their way back out again so took the netting off
and it's been a couple of weeks I did think maybe the butterflies would have
already got to the leaves but there's no great sign of butterfly you know
caterpillar damage as I said there's some slug damage and that's about it so
that's what really well I'm very pleased with that
so I will leave the stems her to try and regrow a bit I'm removing the leaves on
the far side there because they are in contact with the leeks leeks very nicely
now I might have to pull out a few weeds I can see growing these leaves I'm not
going to go to waste there's one or two two things will
happen to them some of them I'll give to the chickens and the others will go into
the compost heap in fact I'll put these in the compost
heap now and the rest can go to the chickens
I'm also harvesting a few onions to go into my braised red cabbage this is not
the way to harvest onions for storing because you want to lift those from
underneath gently and not pull them from the top but the onions in this bed have
done really well they are big big onions but I'm going to
use this in a couple of hours and this one's going to be chopped up and in the
oven and choosing one of the hottest days of the year
- braised red cabbage might not seem a smart system moves but I'm putting the
oven on anyway so I'm gonna fill this up and use it as much as I can
these cabbages are so heavy they're straining the basket basket I think I
might to kind of find a wheelbarrow to carry them the rest of the way I don't
want to forget these for the chickens are you ready for some cabbage here we
go there you go and here come the babies
it's really hot in here today anyway I'm gonna start by preparing all the onions
okay I'm going to peel and chop all of those and I'm going to put them a little
bit of water to sweat off now I'm actually cooking without oil at the
moment because I'm trying to reduce my calorie intake so wherever possible I'm
not using oil one of the things about chopping onions is that they make you
cry and particularly home grown strong onions that one of the tricks to
stopping yourself from crying is to cut your onion quite away in front of you
because the reason it makes you cry is the juices from the onion which are
something or other I can't remember what it is when they smash up into either mix
with the water in your eye to form I think it's hydrochloric acid which is
what stings and obviously your then your eye is trying to wash that acid out so
your eyes will turn but if you hold it and your onion away from you and lean
back a tiny bit you've got much less chance without splashing up into your
eyes and causing that problem
it's like famous last words saying that isn't huh who what another five minutes
not be crying like mad so cut about an inch her to an inch and a half of water
in there I just put the heat on so that's all the onions chopped they're in
some water just gonna pop a lid on and leave those to cook for a little while
so next thing for me to think about is the red cabbage there are a fair few of
these it's got to take a bit of time so this one I can see I can see a slug nice
and I can also see some caterpillar evidence that's in poop you know I think
I need a bigger knife that's better so the way I prepare them if I cut the
bottom off when I cut the heart out so it comes away as a triangular piece like
that and then I'm going to cut it so it's in quarters
and then I'm going to slice it this is the point where you need to be really
careful of your hands be careful where your fingers are that's also worth
making sure that you've got a really sharp knife because with a blunt knife
it's very easy to slip and make a very painful mistake
so straighten to the sink when I first left home I went to college and trained
to be a hotel manager and included in that training was going to be a chef and
nothing I learnt at college has really put me in good stead for this kind of
batch cooking of home meals I can make lots of very fancy 1980s style wave
meals without the cream and lots of wine none of which are terribly good for me
and it's a couple of bits here quite looking quite tough I think they can go
to the compost heap as well for ease and speed and just be able to show you what
I'm going to do I'm gonna do one lots up on the hob and so that's got a scoop
full of the onions in it and that is that one red cabbage and in there I'm
going to add a bottle of homemade wine now I will owe half a bottle homemade
wine this one is a mixed fruit wine but any wine will do and a red wine is
generally nicer so that's got the onions that have boiled a little bit it's got
chopped cabbage it has then been washed in some salted water
and the wine and next I'm gonna add some cinnamon that I use ground cinnamon
I do have cinnamon sticks so I'm gonna guess that's about two tablespoons on a
rough guess and some ginger now it's about 1 tablespoon I'm also going to add
some fennel seeds these ones are collected from the garden
because mr. Jay is not a huge fan of cloves
but fennel does a pretty good job of replacing the food some black pepper now
I'm quite heavy-handed with pepper because I really like it but it's not
everybody's taste and then on top of all of that I added a tiny bit of Chinese
five-spice so that's about what's near the end of the jar so I put the rest of
that jar into that probably made about two tablespoons of Chinese five-spice
stirred it all in so those spices go all the way through into the into the
cooking liquid the wine
and I've also added a handful and a half of sultanas
and when most of this has cooked down I'm gonna add some apple into it now
usually I would put fresh apple in at this stage I don't have any fresh Apple
at the moment but I have got loads and loads of jars of
apple sauce and also got frozen apples so I'll add those in once this has
softened a little bit so when I first put this cabbage in here it was it was
right to the top it's now down to about here and when it's cooked a little bit
more it will become even less so I'm going to bring it to the boil once it's
at a boiling point I'm gonna turn the heat right down to a very low simmer pop
the lid on it and let it cook really slowly so all those flavors infuse right
way through the cabbage which already tastes lovely so what I'm doing in the
oven all ideas put everything into a very large casserole dish pile
everything in and put it into an oven on a medium-high heat to start with then I
turn the heat right down you know and let it braise very slowly I haven't
added any salt to this because I washed the cabbage in salty water
so I will taste this before it goes into containers to go into the freezer and if
I need to add a bit more salt that's when I'll do it so that's how I do
braised cabbage is very simple it's really hard on such a hot day to be
thinking about winter food but this is a time I start lifting everything away
into the freezer into containers into jars and to make relishes and chutneys
and all that sort of thing ready for the year ahead