Red cabbage salad with mango and ginger pudding

Apparently lettuce has been in short supply here in the UK and a few other vegetables. This led to some panic buying of lettuce and things—crazy huh?

The most popular lettuce with many people is Iceberg. To me it’s nothing but water and I never buy it. There are so many other great choices for lettuce and nutritionally much better too. How about using other vegetables to make a salad—just think out of the box and experiment. Sometimes you may get it wrong but you’ll have fun finding out.

I’ve got two really simple recipes for you today—a red cabbage/pepper salad and a mango/ginger pudding (I’m not really sure what to call it) that you can have with the salad or separately.

Red Cabbage and Pepper Salad

You can make this salad very quickly—actually you could make it in advance as it won’t go limp. It takes me no more than 10 minutes to make.

• ¼ Thinly shredded red cabbage

• 1 Red long or bell pepper cut into thin strips

• Handful of sunflower seeds or whatever seeds/nuts you want to use

• Handful of raisins—don’t like raisins, then use cranberries

• ½ a lime—lemon is fine

• Good splash of olive oil

• Large pinch of sea salt

• Small handful of chopped coriander

• Small thumb of fresh grated ginger

Put everything into a bowl, mix well and serve—easy!

Mango and Ginger Pudding

This is a really underrated dish. You can buy a version of this in Indian shops in a tin, but it’s full of sugar and not as nice as making your own fresh one, and there is no ginger in it! It’s the combination of ripe fresh mango pulp and ginger that makes this so yummy.

I usually make the mango/ginger at lunch time and have it with the meal. It works really well with spicy food. Alternatively you could eat it after the meal as a dessert. I sometimes will have it for breakfast or in the evening.

Ripe mango/s cut into large stripsPiece of fresh peeled ginger—how much you use depends on you. If you use too much it will taste odd—even if you like lots of ginger. As a rule I use a thumb of fresh ginger per mango for my tastes.

Add both into a blender or a tall container if you’re using a stick blender. You don’t need a super duper blender—any decent blender will work fine. Remember use a ripe mango for maximum flavour. Blend until you get a lovely smooth consistency—it should not take long at all.

I hope you enjoy making them :)