Purple cabbage and orange salad with purple cabbage water

We are from a mixed household, my husband is Chinese while I have European heritage.
Food has always played a very important part of Chinese culture and Chinese medicine. The idea of food as medicine while only a relatively new concept in the west is thousands of years old in China.

One concept that my mother in law has introduced me to is drinking the water that vegetables are boiled in. To me this makes complete sense as you gain the nutrients that would otherwise be lost with boiling. So I present my take on the concept with a red cabbage salad recipe with accompanying red cabbage water (I am adding orange juice to it as I don't really like the taste of vegetable water but my mother in law would drink it straight).

Warm purple cabbage and orange salad with purple cabbage juice

Ingredients

1/4 Red cabbage
1/2 red capsicum
Handful of raisins
Handful of shelled walnuts
half handful pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
4 oranges
1 tbs balsamic vinegar
orange or apple juice to taste
2 tablespoons of oil (I like macadamia oil)
pinch salt
pinch pepper

Dressing
1) Put 1Tbs balsalmic vinegar, 2 Tbs orange juice (approx juice of half an orange), 2Tbs oil, pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper in a small jar and shake.

Salad
1) Put raisins in pot with approx 3 cups water and put on high.
2) While raisins are getting up to temperature put in a bowl:
         1/2 capsicum finely sliced
         hanful roughly diced walnuts (about 1/4 of a cup for people who do not measure in handfuls)
          1 and 1/2 oranges peeled and diced
          Small Handful of pepitas
and then put to the side.
3) Thinly slice the purple cabbage and add to pot with raisins when it comes to the boil. return to the boil and blanch for opprox 1 min.
4) Drain the cabbage reserving the liquid
5) Add cabbage to bowl with rest of ingredients. Add dressing and mix.

Water
1) Add juice of 2 oranges to the purple water.
2) You will notice the water turn pink as the acid in the oranges reacts with the cabbage colour.
You can also cut up an extra orange and out pieces in the bottoms of your glasses for visual effect.
Best warm.

Paid maternity leave

Why Mr Abbotts paid maternity scheme is so terribly wrong.

I thought I would start my blog with something that has been on my mind for a while.
Paid maternity leave.
I would like to preface this by saying that as I am currently a stay at home mum of two (and will likely not have any further children) I will not directly benefit from this package and will when I re-enter the workplace have to pay for it, so if you may interpret this as sour grapes if you wish.

As a mum who was in a highly educated and paid profession prior to getting pregnant, I was the person that this scheme was aimed at and my former colleagues and friends will be the ones that see the most benefits, however I cannot support it for a few reasons.
1) The scheme reeks of sexism
Why is it a paid maternity leave? What is it about men that makes them incapable of looking after children? It should be made very clear that either parent can claim in this scheme. While there are more stay at home mums, stay at home Dads exist and do an excellent job. I have taken a couple of work contracts over the past couple of years while my son has been little. During that time my husband and I switched roles and he was the stay at home Dad. And guess what. He was very good at it. Full stop. And in some ways he was better than me (he always sent me to work with a packed lunch and the house was never cleaner).
2) It is not going to encourage professional women to have children.
The reason professional women have less children and have them later is not because they don't have enough money. They do and most can afford to take 6 months off to look after their child if they so wish. A career can be hard to manage with a child and many see that. Having children can significantly slow career trajectory. Being out of work for 6 months (which is what the scheme requires of women) can completely halt a career. If you factor in loss of promotions I suspect most professional women will be a lot worse off financially after taking the 6 months off.
Getting 50000 for taking 6 months off work will not factor into the decision to have a child for most professional women.
3) It could significantly deter employers from employing women
I know that it is illegal to select a candidate according to gender. But employers do not need to justify every hiring decision.
If you had a choice between two candidates; one who would likely continue to work for you for the next 10 years no trouble, or one who would likely take 2 or three 6 month breaks, over which time you would need to pay them their salary (which then would be returned to you at tax time), keep their job open and hire a temp (likely at a higher cost and they may be less qualified) over that time. Who would you choose?
4) It is horribly unfair to lower income earners.
As a taxpayer why should I pay 5 times more money to a woman on 100000 per year than I pay to someone on 20000 per year? What value am I getting for my money? Will they be a 5 times better mother? I just cannot justify why it can be seen as fair.

So what would help?
1) improvements to child care.
Child care is terribly expensive, and and spaces are limited. There need to be more places and higher subsidies.
2) A scheme that involves fathers.
If you are going to have some sort of paid parental leave scheme it should be freely accessible by both parents.