PRODUCE REPORT

There’s a lot of eating in a cabbage and the most common, smooth drumhead ones are good buying now. If yours is a smaller household look out for the Fresh Grower’s mini red and green cabbages. About the size of a rockmelon, they are grown yearround and are even sweeter and tenderer than their larger cousins. Along with other nutrients, cabbage is an excellent source of vitamin C, making it very useful to have on the menu in winter. It is one of those vegetables that is even more nutritious raw, so make the most of that and finely shred some for coleslaws and zingy Asian and Mexican salads. Or quickly steam or stir-fry it to keep some crunch and avoid that overcooked taste and smell. Cabbage is lovely sauteed in butter as Kathy Paterson does, right. If you have cabbages overtaking your garden, do your digestive system a favour and turn one or two into sauerkraut with its beneficial probiotics. Prefer a fiery Korean flavour to the traditional German one? Use wombok or savoy cabbage and make kimchi instead. Recipes on bite.co.nz. Because it has less water than other leafy vegetables, cabbage will keep refrigerated for a good long time — from a few weeks to a couple of months. Do not wash it until you plan on using it and tightly wrap and store any remainder. Sweet shallots are also very good buying this week. Get in quick — the season finishes in July. Other good buys include broccoli, pumpkin and carrots. Lemons, satsuma mandarins, limes and kiwifruit are our fruit buys. Look out for baby rockit apples which are just the thing for junior appetites. Suzanne Dale