Braised Sweet Red Cabbage

I love it when I have leftover vegetables and I get to play around and make a new dish. I had made some BBQ chicken in the crockpot to eat on with my school closing schedule and my husband’s erratic police schedule. I had some leftover red cabbage in the crisping drawer in the fridge that I needed to use. So I thought about making a side out of the cabbage to go with the BBQ. 

The BBQ sauce is sweet, so I wanted to do a tangy sweet cabbage. Originally, I wanted to use it and make a slaw. I looked up some inspirational recipes online and settled for Red Cabbage Slaw by the Food Network Kitchens. When I tasted the dressing to go on the slaw, I didn’t like it. The vinegar was too heavy for my taste. But, I had this otherwise beautiful dressing and I chose to braise the cabbage with it instead, and rendering the vinegar to a more mild state.

As the cabbage cooked, I snuck pieces from the pan and tasted a tart sweetness, inspiring me to add some fennel seed and craisins. The end result ended up being a warm cabbage, similar to pickled German cabbage, with a touch more sugar and crispy texture.



Ingredients
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup apple cider vinegar
2 Tablespoons Sugar
½ head Red Cabbage, chopped to 1/2 inch thick pieces
1 Tablespoon fennel seed
½ cup Craisins
Salt to taste

Method

1. To make the sauce, whisk together the oil, vinegar, and sugar until the sugar is dissolved and oil and vinegar no longer separate.

2. Heat 2 Tablespoons of sauce in a skillet on medium high heat.

3. Add the cabbage, then carefully pour the rest of the sauce over the cabbage. Cover and cook on medium heat for about 7-8 minutes.

4. Add the fennel, Craisins, and salt and continue cooking until cabbage reaches the desired tenderness and the sauce has evaporated into the cabbage. 

Harvest Mashed Potatoes

I have become addicted to buying produce at the Pole Green Produce Market down the street from me. One of the reasons is that they have had the tastiest fingerling potatoes. I have been roasting them, boiling them, and sautéing them. They have been side dishes and main dishes. Tonight it was a side dish that became the main dish.



I am a huge fan of Pinterest. Back in April, I pinned a recipe from Southern Living, called Harvest Mashed Potatoes. I had been dying to make these and wanted to wait until the fall, because tasty mashed potatoes belong in cooler weather. Summer mashed potatoes just does not do well with me. 

Being a Friday night, my husband and I were too tired to do anything crazy and cumbersome. There was a pork loin defrosted and a jar to Stubb’s to marinade with. I scavenged Pinterest and remembered my harvest potato recipe. We made a few adjustments to the original recipe to use ingredients we had left over and were quite pleased with the outcome. The dish was so tasty that we ate more of the potatoes than the pork loin.



When I first read the recipe, I was skeptical about using horseradish. Butter, milk, potatoes, cinnamon… and horseradish? After tasting the earnest goodness of the cinnamon and the potatoes, I discovered that the horseradish was needed to break up the overwhelming monotony of the sweetness. The spicy pinch gave the dish a little extra kick that allowed the cinnamon to shine even more as it overcame the complexity.

I highly recommend making this dish in either the recipe I created below or the Southern Living recipe linked above. It embodies the full aromatic flavors of fall and makes me feel like the leaves are turning.

Harvest Mashed Potatoes Recipe
Serves 6

Ingredients
18 fingerling potoates, or 2 pounds
2 medium sweet potatoes
¼ cup butter
½ cup half and half
¼ cup sour cream
¼ heaping cup of Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Method

1. Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into 1 inch pieces. Wash the fingerlings and quarter. Boil them in salted water for 15 to 20 minutes or under tender. Drain them and place in a large bowl.

2. Add the butter, half and half, sour cream, cheese, horseradish, salt, pepper, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. Blend the ingredients with a hand mixer until smooth. 

Smoky Potatoes

I haven’t posted anything in so long because we moved! Moving is an exercise that sucks all time and motivation from the soul by squeezing it to death with uncertainty and problems. Really, our move went just fine, but I had to find my way around town and learn to cook in a kitchen made for one person and not seven.

One awesome thing about moving away from the middle of nowhere is that we now have cable. I can watch the Food Network (among other channels of course)! It has been inspiring the past few weeks to be cooking along with episodes of Chopped reruns and Iron Chef playing in the background.

Our recipe today was actually influenced by Chopped. In one episode, they were using the stems of herbs as an ingredient that they had to use. My husband decided to include our cilantro stems in our potato recipe today!

Also influencing our recipe is the farmer’s market that is just down the street. We are getting some great produce, and I am excited to try and incorporate these healthier, organic items into my daily lifestyle. 

When I returned from the market today, I had these awesome baby potatoes. My husband and I scrounged around for some ideas to be served as a side with a Cilantro Chipotle Hamburger, and Smoky Potatoes is what we came up with.

Smoky Potatoes
Serves 4

Ingredients

lb baby potatoes, quartered

1 onion, chopped into petals

2 Tbsp Olive Oil

2 Tbsp Smoked Paprika

2 Tbsp Red Chili Flakes

1 tsp Cumin

Left over cilantro stems (optional)

Method

1.  Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Place the potatoes and onions on a flat baking pan in a single layer. Drizzle the olive oil over the mixture.

3. Combine the smoked paprika, chili flakes, and cumin in a small bowl.

4. Sprinkle the spice mixture over the pan, and toss the mixtures so that the potatoes and onions are coated with spice.

5. Bake the potatoes and onions for 40-45 minutes, or until browned on the outside and the potatoes are soft. 

Garlic Thyme Sweet Potato Rounds

My husband made a spicy pork burger with provolone and grilled red peppers and onions. I was in charge of the side. I knew we were going to have a very filling and fattening main course that was going to have a balance of sweet and savory. The first thing that crossed my mind was salted sweet potatoes. 

I also wanted something a little healthier. When I created these, I brushed on just a touch of olive oil to limit the calories. The oven temperature can also be played around with on these. I chose to roast the potatoes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit. They got a touch crispy along the outside so they kept their shape. To keep them softer, I would bake at 350 degrees. For crispier “chip” like potatoes, I would set it to 400 degrees. Just be careful with this setting and check to make sure that they do not burn. If they start burning, tent them with foil.

Yields 4 Servings

Ingredients

4 small sweet potatoes, skinned and cut into ½” thick rounds
1 Tbsp of olive oil
4 tsp minced garlic
1 ½ tsp dried thyme
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
Ground black pepper to taste
Salt to taste

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees (or see note above)
2. Line a baking sheet with aluminum
3. Place sweet potato rounds on the lined baking sheet
4. Brush the sweet potato rounds with olive oil
5. Sprinkle the rest of the ingredients onto the sweet potato rounds
6. Bake the rounds in the heated oven for 40 minutes. Let them cool for five minutes before serving. 

Carrots with Walnuts in Vanilla Maple Glaze

My husband really loves turducken. For you non-meat-obsessed people, a turducken is a turkey that is stuffed with duck and chicken. Please translate turducken into the following: A hen inside of a duck that is inside of a turkey or Turkey-duck-hen.

Normally a turducken would be eaten at our household sometime around the winter holidays. However, we recently had word that we are going to need to move. With no official plans made, we decided to start cleaning out the freezer. All 16 pounds of poultry needs to go. So it is the first weekend of June, and we are making a meal that would be similar to a Thanksgiving Fiesta. 

I was in charge of the sides for this meal, and I had no idea what types of warm weather sides I would make for a turkey-type dinner. I decided to go with mashed red skinned potatoes (post coming soon), cheesy garlic butter biscuits, and carrots. Originally I was thinking about using sweet potatoes, but then that would mean two types of potatoes. The next best orange food would be carrots, and that was how I decided. Then my husband and I scavenged around the kitchen and found some ingredients we could use to make carrots taste somewhat like a sweet potato casserole. Vanilla, maple, and walnuts seemed like a pretty great idea.

Tasting these carrots were exceptional. They exploded in sweet flavor that was unexpected. I love mashed sweet potatoes and there are so many different types of casseroles for them. Carrots are not used as much, and to me it was just as good as it was unique. Plus, it was easy and quick. I may even make these during the weekday. That would be the true test.

This recipe yields 4 servings.

Ingredients

• 1 pound of small carrots, or long carrots cut into one inch pieces
• 2 cups water
• 1 vanilla bean pod
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup (not the fake stuff!)
• ¼ cup walnut halves
• Salt to taste
• Ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Place carrots into a large saucepan with water. Split the vanilla bean pod in half lengthwise with a paring knife. Scrape the seeds out of the pod using the tip of the knife and let them fall into the water with the carrots. Place the pod remains in the water and simmer the carrots on medium low heat until most of the water has cooked off.

2. Place the carrots in a bowl and add the butter immediately. Allow the butter to melt and stir it around. As you stir, add the maple syrup, walnuts, salt, and pepper.