What to do with cabbage hearts (other waste saving ideas welcome)

[Gerty1002]

I've just got my act together with making fortnightly meal plans after realising how much rotten food I was throwing away. Now I want to take it a step further and reduce the amount of perfectly edible things that usually go in the bin e.g. cabbage hearts and thick broccoli stems.

Broccoli stems I have sorted as 9mo DS likes to munch on them! They also get thrown into soups.

So what can I do with cabbage hearts? I've taken most of the leaves off, but left the heart, I think out of habit more than anything - does anyone use all of the cabbage?

What a thrilling life I lead .

By hearts, do you mean the hard, non leafy bit? 'Fraid mine feed the compost heap.

But I usually slice the cabbage from whole (or from quarters), so I always get a mix of inner and outer leaves anyway.

Broccoli stems, on the other hand, are lovely sliced. I roughly peel them too, since the skin comes off if you grab it against a knife.

Mostly these go into soups, but in summer when it's too hot to have soup very often I use a vegetable peeler lengthways to make wafer-thin sheets of broccoli stalk and cabbage heart and these raw tossed in with lettuce etc make a very nice constituent of a salad - must be done just minutes before eating though as they will go brown if done too far in advance.

Also you can just grate them and add them to mince when you make bolognaise or chilli con carne to add a little extra hidden vegetable matter.

Yes the non leafy bit, also a few of the very inner leaves.

Love the grating idea, thanks!