We’ve recently started going in with a small group of folks (up to about 12) on buying vegetables in bulk from a local source.  The amount of produce we can bring home for $10 is kind of insane.  The trips are every other week, and what comes back determines some extent what we make for both ourselves and the Monday Night Gamers.

When this past week the major players were a beautiful head of cabbage and some seriously large carrots, we immediately thought of coleslaw.  A five pound cabbage and dozen carrots are obviously too much for the two of us, so we decided to make it for Monday’s healthy appetites.  Of the other produce, we scored some tomatoes which ended up an insalata caprese one day and a grilled caprese sandwich the next, some giant cucumbers, and three of the most perfect leeks I’ve ever seen, which got roasted with some potatoes.

INGREDIENTS

SLAW

2 lbs cabbage (about half a large head), shredded

1 lb carrots, shredded

1 medium yellow onion, shredded

DRESSING

1 cup mayo

¼ cup mustard

2 tsp apple cider vinegar

½ cup sugar

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp celery seed

1 tsp cayenne

We tag-teamed the effort, Gretchyn making the dressing while I took care of the vegetables.  She whisked together the mayo and mustard then the vinegar, sugar, pepper, and cayenne.  I used the food processor for shredding duty.  I had consider the box grater, but that looked pretty time-consuming.  I was a little worried about the processor liquefying the ingredients, but it came out fine, but I was careful about not over-processing.  I cut the cabbage in half, cored it, and then cut it into slabs narrow enough to fit into the processor’s hopper.  The carrots were the huge, thick kind, so after peeling them, I cut them down the middle so that they’d fit as well.  The onion fit in quartered.

Once everything was shredded and we were happy with the dressing, we tossed it all together in a large bowl, covered it, and put it in the fridge overnight.  We brought it out about an hour before serving.  I would have called it 8 servings, but there wasn’t much left afterward.

We served the slaw alongside a simple salsicce peperonata (grilled spicy Italian sausages, peppers, and onions), to which I added about 3 pounds of mandolin-sliced (the thickest setting) potatoes.  It was easy and delicious.

The wine needed to be able to stand up to the spice of both the sausage and slaw, so I chose 2008 Seghesio Family Vineyards Zinfandel Sonoma County, one of our favorite values, which has enough sweet fruit to make a nice contrast to the heat.  It worked out well enough to need to open a second bottle, which is always a good sign.