Cabbage, apple & sweet potato salad

Today’s recipe is simple and easy but still very delicious! It’s a great side dish but if I’m alone, I’ll eat it also as a main with some delicious crunchy bread and possibly few pieces of Parmesan cheese. 🙂 I’m a big fan of simple food as you may have noticed from my posts so far, everything is easy to make and it does’t ask for too many ingredients. That’s how I like to eat and I believe that you don’t need 20 ingredients to make something taste good. It is also much easier for digestion if we eat more simple so that’s also one of the reasons for this way of eating.
Cabbage is one of those simple, we could say even ordinary foods but when combined with some other beautiful flavors, it can give us a nourishing, healthy and delicious meal. Cabbage is actually one of the natural super-foods and is an excellent source of vitamin C and vitamin K and it also provides fiber, vitamins A, and B6, folate, potassium, manganese, calcium, iron and magnesium.

There are many variations of cabbage, the most common being green, red and savoy cabbage. The one that is the most common in Dalmatian part of Croatia, from where I come from, is so called Collards, which is similar to kale in terms of origin and nutrition, it is known as a super food for its high vitamin and mineral content and potential anti-cancer properties. We eat it in a very simple way, boiled and seasoned with extra virgin olive oil and usually with some boiled potatoes as well.
For this recipe I used savoy cabbage but you can use green cabbage or kale if you prefer. Another very healthy ingredient is sweet potato, one of my favorite vegetables ever! Did you know that sweet potato is only distantly related to the potato and does not belong to the same nightshade family. I love them so much and eat very often, again simple is the best, I normally just cut them in pieces, drizzle with olive oil, salt and rosemary and bake until soft. So, so good! 🙂

Sweet potatoes are high in vitamin B6, a good source of vitamins C and D, a good source of mag­nesium, potassium, iron and they are high in carotenoids like beta carotene. Sweet potatoes are naturally sweet-tasting but their natural sugars are slowly released into the bloodstream, helping to ensure a balanced and regular source of energy, without the blood sugar spikes linked to fatigue and weight gain.
The third important ingredient of this salad is apple! I don’t need to write about the benefits of apples as we all know that they are so healthy and here they compliment nicely all the flavors and give a bit more freshness to this ‘full of vitamins’ salad.

I hope you’ll enjoy this salad as much as I do! By the way, I know that in few days it’s Halloween but we don’t really celebrate it in this part of Europe. We do however celebrate Day of the dead and All Saints Day and in those days we remember all the people who have passed away, visit the cemeteries and light candles.  I know that in English speaking part of the world, Halloween is important holiday and I’ll try to post something sweet before the weekend… But definitely not one of those creepy looking food that make my stomach turn just looking at them ha ha! 😀