Southwest Cole Slaw

Salad

• 1 small head of green cabbage, chopped fine, salted
• 1 small head of red cabbage, chopped fine, salted
• 10 carrots, in ¼ in strips
• 8 tomatillos, chopped
• 1 yellow onion, sliced fine and chopped

Dressing: Drop everything in a blender or magic bullet and blend

• 6 limes
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp of fresh ginger, minced
• 1½ cup rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 tsp sriracha sauce

The cabbage should be chopped first and left in a colander, salted to bring out the liquid so the slaw does not turn watery. Wring the cabbage out after it has sat for 30-45 minutes. Then add the carrots, onions, and tomatillos. Mix. Add dressing and shake to distribute dressing over the entire slaw. Do not serve for at least 30 minutes so the flavors begin to marry.

This is a very light, fresh cole slaw. Despite the Sriracha and the ginger, it is not that hot. It just has a bit of zing. The tomatillos add a tartness that is fabulous and there is the layer of lime that is right there, adding that citrusy note but it not bitter. I chopped everything very small to make it work well on sandwiches or even dropped into a bowl of chili or soup. There is just enough dressing to coat the veggies and soak in a bit, but not enough to leave a layer of liquid in the bottom of the bowl, so it does not saturate the bread and when you sauté it with some pasta or rice, it does not add a lot of oil.

This is a big batch. It made 4 quarts of cole slaw and I gave half to my best friend who went with me to Harvest Share. However, the thing with cole slaw that does not have a creamy dressing, that has no buttermilk, yogurt, mayo, or sour cream, is that it will last for several days…which means it is there for several meals and there is nothing more versatile.

Eat cole slaw on its own.

Use cole slaw on a sandwich. instead of lettuce.

It’s delicious wth some pulled pork and chili beans on a burrito.

Sauté lightly with some pierogies or pasta.

 

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Bacon, Egg, Pear, Parm Sandwich with Caramelized Onions & Apricot Cabbage Slaw

I don’t know what got into me today, but I was about to make a roast pork and slaw sandwich and I thought about all the pears I need to eat and ended up making the most delicious sandwich ever.  It began with the Apricot Cabbage Slaw I was going to make for the sandwich.

I got ambitious and decided to make slow caramelized onions. To do that, I thinly sliced 1/2 an onion on a mandoline. I heated a cast iron skillet to medium high (7 of 10), added 1 TBSP of saved bacon drippings (but you could use olive oil or butter) and melted it. I added the onions and cooked quickly, stirring frequently for about 5 minutes until browned, then I lowered the heat to medium-low (3 of 10) and let cook slowly while I prepared the Apricot Cabbage Slaw. Be patient, the longer the onions cook, the more tender sweet they are, almost like a jam.

Turn the broiler on before the onions are done to heat up.

When the onions were done, I removed them and set them in a small bowl. Any leftover onions can be used in a sauce or another sandwich.

I then cooked two slices of bacon in the same pan, rendering the fat and saving it for another day. I removed the bacon and set it aside.

While the bacon was cooking I broiled 2 slices of bread on one side for about 2 to 3 minutes. Just to get some strength from drying, it did not get toasted. Between broiling on one side and then on the other, it was time to cook the egg.

I wiped the fry pan clean of any bacon, and put a dab of butter in the middle of medium hot pan and cooked one sunnyside up egg, adding some salt and pepper.

While the egg was cooking, I broiled the other side of the bread.  On one piece, I shaved parmesan cheese. On the other piece, I layered thin slices of pear to caramelize sightly. I put them back under the broiler for a few more minutes until the parm was melted.

Assembly

On the side with the melted part, I stack the two slices of bacon, cut into 4 pieces. I added the sunny side up egg. On the side with the pears, I stacked caramelized onions, and the Apricot Cabbage Slaw. Then I put the two pieces together with a bit of hard push to break the egg yolk so it spread through the sandwich and sliced it in half.

Believe me, this is worth spending 40 minutes to make. The pear and caramelized onions are dream. And of course, bacon, eggs, and parmesan are delicious. A good sweet/sour slaw is a perfect balance to the sweetness and the creamy egg marries everything together. This is the most delicious sandwich I have ever concocted. This made one sandwich, but I have some caramelized onions and slaw left over. I had thought to make a vinaigrette with the onions, but now I think I will be making this sandwich for supper.

Apricot Pear Sandwich Slaw

Chop about 1 cup of red cabbage and lightly salt, setting it aside while you make the dressing.

Chop up 5 dried apricots into small pieces. Heat a clean, empty saucepan (no oil, no butter) to med. Add about 5 anise seeds and warm until aromatic. Toss in the dried apricots and an equal amount of water, about 1/4 cup. Cook until the apricots fall apart and are tender, adding more water if necessary. When the water is all soaked into the apricots, add 2 TBSPs of rice vinegar and stir quickly. Toss into cabbage, season with salt and pepper to taste.

With just four ingredients, this achieves a subtle and complex flavor, blending the aromatic pungency of the anise with the sweet tartness of apricots, the bite of the vinegar and the fresh crunch of cabbage. It’s delightful on its own but I made it as a sandwich slaw to use with slice pork roast on bread.

However, before I started to make this, I got a wild idea to make a different kind of sandwich and ended up using it in an amazing sandwich made with Bacon, Eggs, Onions, Pears and Parm. This is plenty for 4 to 6 sandwiches, or a couple small side salads.

Red Cabbage, Apples, Radishes and Feta Salad

 

This was a quick and easy salad to top some lettuce rather than using a salad dressing. I laid a bed of romaine lettuce. In another bowl, I added about 1/2 cup of shredded red cabbage, 1 apple cored and sliced, 2 radishes sliced thin and 1 celery stalk chopped. I also added about 1 TBSP of chopped red onion. I sprinkled a bit of feta cheese, ! tsp of walnut oil and balsamic vinegar on it and mixed. I tossed this on top of the lettuce and ate mixed together.

The vegetables had lots of crunch with the onions and radishes adding some bite while the apple added sweetness. The tang of the feta was a nice contrast with the balsamic. Together the flavors balanced each other beautifully

 

Lentil Soup & Apple – Cabbage Slaw

For the salad, I shredded a small head of red cabbage using a mandoline for a fine cut. I chopped up 2 apples and 1.2 of a yellow onion and added them to the cabbage. For the dressing, I squeezed 3 lemons in a bowl with 1.4 cup olive oil and 1 tsp caraway seed, salt and pepper. I mixed these together and dressed the veggies and let marinate overnight before serving. Makes a luscious, tart vegan salad.

For the soup, in a a big stew pot, I heated 1 tbsp of olive oil and sauteed 1 chopped onion and 4 cloves of garlic until browned. I added 1/4 tsp of fresh grated nutmeg and 2 bay leaves, 2 quarts of water and two ham hocks and brought it to a boil before turning the heat down to simmer for 1.5 hours. Removing the ham hocks, I added 1 pound of dry lentils (washed) and let cook until tender. I removed the meat from the bones and added the ham back into the soup. I added salt and pepper to taste. It made about 12 servings.

Center Cut Pork Chop with Savory Cherry Sauce, Fennel & Red Cabbage Slaw and Watermelon Salad

This was actually tossed together in minutes. I made the savory cherry sauce a few days earlier. The watermelon salad was all done ahead and I simply added the feta at the last minute. Likewise, the fennel-cabbage slaw was made ahead.

I heated a cast-iron skillet to medium high, tossed the pork chop on and let it cook undisturbed for about 4 minutes, then turned it and let if finish cooking, about another 4 minutes. The secret to good, juicy pork chops (or any meat, really) is to resist the temptation to press on it with the spatula and to let it just cook without a lot of flipping. My mom said meat lost 1/4 of its juiciness every time it was turned and I believe it.

• Watermelon Salad
• Cabbage Fennel Slaw
• Cherry Sauce

 

Modavia Fresh Tomato Soup and Fennel Cabbage Slaw

I am calling this Modavia Fresh Tomato Soup because I made it while watching a show during Modavia Fashion Week. It was super easy to make. I tossed a tablespoon of oil in a saucepan with some a half an onion and a clove of garlic, chopped. After the onion softened, I added three tomatoes cut in big chunks and 1 cup of water. When they broke down, I added 1 cup of fresh basil, chopped, and put a lid on for 15 minutes. I tossed it in my Magic Bullet and pureed. It made one bowl of soup.

The Fennel Slaw recipe is from Jeff Mauro’s Sandwich King show on Food Networkm except he included parsley which I left out. I don’t much like parsley.

• 1 1/2 cups red cabbage, sliced thin
• 1 medium bulb fennel, trimmed and thinly sliced, save fronds for garnish
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from about 1 lemon)
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

 

 

Chicken Queso, Braised Red Cabbage & Cucumber Salad

I made the cucumber salad first because I wanted the dill weed to have plenty of time to permeate all of the yogurt and impart its springlike flavor to the entire salad. This is a super simple salad. Slice the cucumbers a thinly as possible. Spread the slices out in a pie plate and salt it. This will get some of the water out of the cucumber so the salad does not get soggy and watery. Transfer to a bowl, add the sliced onion, yogurt and dill. Cover and chill in the fridge for a few hours before serving.

• 1 cucumber sliced thin
• salt
• 3 TBSP thinly sliced onion
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1 TBSP dill weed

The Braised Cabbage Slaw is another make-ahead salad that just tastes better and better. Shred the cabbage thinly. Slice up about 1/3 of an onion. Dice one apple and you’re ready to start cooking.  Put olive oil in a skillet and add onions and soften them. Add the cabbage and apples. Let them start to cook and in a bowl, add the apple cider vinegar, sugar, mustard and caraway seed. Mix together. Toss on the cabbage and cover. Cook for about 5 minutes until just tender, but still with some crisp. Enough liquid will come out of the cabbage to give you all the braising liquid you need. I know it will seem that you cannot possibly dress all the cabbage with so little dressing, but cabbage is so rich with liquid that you want to be light with the dressing and let the cabbage juices carry your dressing. The apricot I quartered on the side really loved the caraway vinegar dressing that was left on the plate after I ate the slaw.

• 1/3 head of red cabbage, shredded thinly
• 1/3 of an onion.
• 1 apple
• 1 TBSP of olive oil
• 2 TBSP apple cider vinegar
• 2 tsp sugar (brown sugar if you have it)
• 2 tsp mustard
• 2 tsp caraway seed

At supper time, I made a chicken queso using chicken reserved from the chicken I stewed for soup. I put some green salsa in a saute pan and used it instead of oil or water to braise the chicken. When the chicken was nearly hot through, I added the cheese. On a griddle I was toasting the tortilla. I put the tortilla on the plate, added the chicken queso and tossed in a few sprigs of cilantro.

• 4 oz stewed chicken
• 1.5 ounces of cheddar and pepper jack cheese. (3/4 ounce of each)
• 2 TBSP green salsa.
• Cilantro

Chicken Lettuce Wraps

I chopped up the last of the chicken from last week’s soup into squares. It came to about a cup of chicken. I sliced 8 grapes in half. I diced 1 TBSP of onion and 2/3 cup of red cabbage and 3 small radishes. Mixing these together in a bowl, I then made the sauce from 1 TBSP of mayo, 1 TBSP of Peach Mango Salsa and 1/2 tsp of balsamic vinegar with some salt and pepper to taste.

I washed 3 outer leaves of romaine lettuce and then to make it flexible enough to work as a wrap and not just make a mess, I heated it for 12 seconds in the microwave. It cools quickly and retains most of its texture but is just pliable enough not to crack and fall apart when you pick up your food and eat it.