52 weeks of cooking – On Sale

Boats and budgets go together in my mind, I started my carrier working for a boat where I was told the budget needed to be around $5 per person, per day for food expenses. That’s all three meals adding up to equal $5 for one person, it’s tight, it felt even tighter when I worked for Class Afloat and they told me how much fruit I needed to provide under that same budget. It does benefit that I buy in bulk, but there are still several ways to get around it, one of the key things is to know your produce.

Where ever I went I tried to ask for local produce, figure out what grew there and I’d buy a lot of it because it was likely to be cheaper. I also had to factor in what produce would last the longest if we wanted to eat fresh vegetables the whole way across the ocean and not just canned and frozen ones. Inevitably I ended up with a lot of cabbage, it’s cheap, it can last a few weeks outside of the refrigerator and it can be crisp and refreshing when you are craving a salad in hot weather. One of my favorite ways to prepare it has a few ingredients that aren’t so budget friendly and tend to not last for weeks.

I typically make this coleslaw with just green cabbage, but you can could also add some red cabbage, shredded carrot or slivers of multi color bell peppers. The dressing and the handful of herbs is what really makes this salad pop, chopped cilantro, green onions and the zest and juice of lemons and limes. I make my dressing sharp to the point it makes my mouth pucker a little and I want to suck the dressing from the cabbage. I dress the cabbage at the last minute before I serve it so the cabbage can stay crisp, it doesn’t hold well over time. I recommend serving this along side Mexican or South American flavored foods when you are looking for a crisp salad to balance the rest of your plate.