A Seasonal Recipe for Late August: Purple Salad

One of the best way to feed your family naturally and frugally is to eat seasonally. This means eating foods which are in season in your area, while they are in season. Local seasonal produce is fresher and it’s cheaper… both good things, right? As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, we have a big garden, and we participate in our local CSA, so we get a huge batch of fresh local produce each week during the growing season. We plan all of our meals for the week around this produce.  Sometimes it’s a challenge to find recipes to work it all in, but so far, we’ve done a pretty good job of using everything with little to no waste. 

This time of year, some of the things we have in abundance are cabbage, carrots and beets. The following recipe uses these three ingredients, along with raisins and sunflower seeds, to make a sweet, crunchy late-summer side dish. In our family, we call this recipe “Purple Salad” even though it is definitely more of a slaw than a proper salad. My family enjoys this alongside veggie burgers, sandwiches or wraps. It keeps in the fridge for a couple of days. 

“Purple Salad”

½  head of red cabbage, shredded

2 large carrots, shredded

2 large beets, shredded

½ cup sunflower seed kernels

¾ cup raisins

The Dressing:

½ cup olive oil

¼ cup lemon juice

2 Tbsp honey

Salt and pepper to taste

Put the first 5 ingredients into a large bowl. Combine the dressing ingredients in a jar and shake well until thoroughly mixed. Pour dressing over veggies and toss to combine. You can eat this straight away, but I prefer to chill it in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving. 

Enjoy!