Sweet Summer Slaw

This year we are growing red cabbage in our garden, as requested by myself. I love to use red cabbage in salads, soups, stir-fry, you name it. It is always so inexpensive and yields so much cabbage! The only problem is, I can't finish it on my own before it starts to go bad. So now we have four mature cabbage plants in the backyard...time to be creative I guess.

Thankfully they did not all grow at the same rate, and there is a large window for harvesting. Last week I picked the first (and biggest) head of red cabbage. It was a beautiful bright purple once I peeled away the dark and dingy outer leaves. I decided to make a big cabbage salad. I feel like vegetables grown in your own yard deserve to be eaten raw at first to really enjoy their natural flavour, so that is what I did. This salad is colourful, sweet, and truly is the taste of summer.

Sweet Summer Slaw

4.5 cups of chopped red cabbage

purple overload!

0.5 cups of sliced onion

3 medium carrots, chopped julienne
3 corn on the cobs, yielding about 1 cup of kernels
handful of basil leaves, chopped finely
olive oil
cider vinegar
salt and pepper
garlic powder

Chop everything "julienne" style as best you can. Thinly sliced pieces allows you to get multiple veggies in one bite which means more uniform flavour. I tossed all the veggies together with the basil and added olive oil and cider vinegar in about a 1:2 ratio. Then added garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste. The salad is excellent on it's own just like this (and oh so colourful). The basil and corn are wonderful together and sweeten up the crunchy cabbage. I am in love with the corn and basil combination.

Now we have tonnes of tomatoes right now, and the only reason why there are not tomatoes in this salad is because my mom doesn't like them. However, once in my own bowl, I made some personal modifications to this salad that made it even better.

I added about 1 medium tomato, 1/2 can tuna, and a couple tablespoons of cottage cheese. These additions made the salad a complete meal and was incredibly satisfying.

Like I said earlier, we have a TON of tomatoes. I'm averaging about 4 to 6 tomatoes a day I think, so I'm sure getting my dose of antioxidant carotenoids. "Where are all the tomato recipes?" you ask? They are on their way. I have been eating a lot of raw tomatoes, but my lunch today, utilizing oven roasted tomatoes, was so out of this world, that it has pushed it's way to the front of my posting list and you should be reading all about it very soon.

Almond Bread Results...and a Big Red Cabbage Salad

Yesterday I tried to find a way to use the almond flour that cost me an arm and a leg. I found a recipe for gluten free bread on this website, www.elanaspantry.com. There are tons of baked goods on this website that are gluten free. Almond flour is often used in gluten free recipes so this was a good place to look. I varied a bit from the recipe since I didn't have arrowroot powder. I used whole-wheat flour instead. The repercussions of this were just a more dense bread I think. I also used maple syrup instead of agave, and white vinegar instead of apple cider vinegar.

It tasted delicious while still warm. It made about 14 thin slices. This bread is low-carb, high-protein and high in good fats. This makes it a very hearty bread that I am not too sure I could handle for use in sandwhiches.

Today I had some warmed up with natural peanut butter and it was still delicious.

I also made a big red cabbage salad yesterday. I really like red cabbage. You can buy a head and make 2-3 dishes out of it. Very economical. Inspired by the cabbage salads on www.101cookbooks.com I decided to make one. I chopped up half of the red cabbage into thin strips and bite sized pieces, added 2 carrots shredded with a peeler, 4 radishes sliced and chopped into thin strips, 1/2 a white onion chopped finely, 4 pieces of celery chopped up thinly, and some mushrooms sliced thinly. The thinner and smaller the veggies, the better it turns out.

The dressing is the fun part for this salad. Cabbage salad to me means Asian flavours. With my newly acquired sesame oil I winged a dressing based on some of the ones on 101cookbooks. I juiced 2 limes, added about a tbsp of olive oil and about a tsp of sesame oil. I added some finely chopped ginger, scallions and salt and pepper. It is best to whip it up in a bowl or give it a shake in a jar. I usually make dressings by eye and taste it, adjusting it to my liking. I recommend you do the same; overtime you get better at it. Side note: very little sesame oil is needed to give a good asian flavour, you want olive oil to be the main oil. If you don't get enough lime juice, substitute in some white vinegar and red wine vinegar (about a 2:1 ratio). You want to end up somewhere between a 1:1 and 2:1 ratio of acidic component to oil.

I only made enough dressing for about half of the salad that I made, but you get the idea.

A great crunchy addition (as if there isn't already enough crunch) is toasted peanuts. I recommend buying raw peanuts, chopping them up, and then toasting them on a dry pan on medium-high heat. They burn fairly easily so keep them moving. These will taste so much better than purchased roasted peanuts. Add some of these on top of this salad to add a nutty flavour.

Today I had some leftover salad without peanuts (they were all gone...). Still delicious.

I also had something else for lunch. Now I'm going to start off by recognizing that I eat weird foods sometimes and enjoy weird combination of foods. The other day, Jenna looked in our pantry and said, "Who's sardines are all those?" looking at a stack of about 6 cans of sardines. "Mine..." I replied wearily. To answer her next questions, yes I do eat them and yes I do like them. They are delicious and full of omega-3's! Eating them for lunch today made me think of this so I thought I would share my wacky lunch with you becuase this is the weirdest it has gotten on the sardine front, for me anyway.

Sardines canned in tomato sauce, on Ryvita rye crackers, topped with sliced pickles and hot peppers. Loved it, but I can't say that everyone will.