Red Cabbage Braised in Vinegar

I got this recipe from my new cookbook, Molto Italiano (thanks Jan!). It says it's supposed to be sweet and sour, but of course I didn't have all the ingredients so there wasn't so much.... well, you'll see.

1 medium head (about 2 pounds) red cabbage, tough outer leaves removed, cut into quarters, cored, and sliced into 1/2-inch wide strips
1/4 cup evoo
1 medium red onion, thinly sliced.
1 Tbls Caraway seeds
2 Tbls sugar
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
salt and pepper.

Heat a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat, add olive oil and heat until smoking. Add onion and caraway seeds and cook, stirring, until onion is soft (3-5 minutes). Add cabbage, sugar, adn vinegar, and stir well. Cover and cook until cabbage is quite tender, about 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve warm or cold, with sandwiches.


RESULTS: I left out the onion. This recipe caught my eye because, although cabbage isn't something I normally pick up at the store, I did this week but when I got home I didn't know what to do with it. It turned out subtly sweet, subtly sour, but I bet the onion would add some heat and flavor. Beware overcooking it, or the sugar will burn to your pan. I speak from experience.

I sprinkled it with parsley from the garden. I had it with a grilled mozzarella sandwich with tomatoes (from the garden) and basil (also garden), and some other tomatoes that didn't make it onto the sandwich.

Green Cleaning

Back in March I mentioned that I was interested in trying out more natural, less toxic cleaning products. Mostly, this is motivated through love of a dog that loves to lick every surface she can find (I think she just likes the way things feel on her tongue), but I figured it couldn't be bad for the humans of the household, either. I found a website called www.realmama.org that posted an article about alternatives to commercial cleaners, mostly using borax, hot water and vinegar, so it has the added appeal of freeing up valuable storage space used by all the various cleaning products with specific purposes. Will let you know how it goes. I'm still looking for an alternative to cleaner for the kitchen floor, which is naturally a favorite of Harper's (aka, my sous chef).

Alright, it's time for a recap.

The week before last was my big week-long conference that I've been planning all year. I don't really want to talk about it. :) It went fine, but I'll be so glad when all the paperwork is over. I swear, red tape is the worst.

On to fun things that I've done. Friday I went to the Monroe County Fair, which was one of the smallest county fairs I've ever seen. They did, however, have funnel cake and elephant ears, the pros and cons of which had been the talk of the town all week amongst my friends. I've been looking forward to the funnel cake, and I got about two bites into it and was done. I don't know why they don't sell those things in bite-sized servings for the same price, they'd make a killing. Anyway, the elephant ears, which I don't think I've ever gotten because I always get funnel cake, tasted rather like warm, floppy cinnamon toast crunch.

We went to watch the demolition derby. So much fun. First, the crowd voted for favorite decorated car (mine was the Maroon Baboon car, which had a giant stuffed animal on the roof). Then, they went in heats, bashing each other up. The top three cars from each heat advanced to the final round. It was pretty cool, several engines caught on fire. Good stuff. The funniest thing was that Suz, one of the classiest dames I know, knows everything about demolition derbies. She's from a town in Idaho called Salmon, and there's only one big event all year and that's the derby. She's also quite the elephant ear connoisseur.

We left the derby early because the next morning, yesterday, we got up and went to Deam Wilderness for a hike out to the lake. Nine miles round trip, and I am beat. It was such a perfect summer day for a hike, though. The only regrettable thing is that I have never seen so many ticks in my life. I got five ticks off of me, four in my clothes and one already latched on to my leg. These were the big dog ticks, we don't have so many deer ticks out here so there wasn't a worry of Lyme Disease, but it's so gross! It took Chris and me three matches and some bourbon (we don't have rubbing alcohol) to get that sucker to let go of my leg. Moral of this story: wear a hat to go into the woods. Anyway, it was really fun. Poor Harper's not going to get any long walks for a while, though.

Nancy sent this out a couple weeks ago, but my spam filter sucked it up. The Fergusons in the audience have probably all seen it already....




I promise I'll do a real post soon!

Reservations

This is pretty much how my day went:

I saw a mamma deer and her two fawns, complete with spots, on the way to work this morning. Mom definitely didn't like me. Deer never seem more threatening than when they're staring at you with their ears lowered and eyes narrowed. Scary.

I'm in the middle of a week at my annual workshop, trying to get the catering and meeting room setup people to do what I paid them for, while at the same time trying to field the oddball requests from the participants, things that I'm sure to them make sense, but would represent several hours of work for me to produce. Sigh!

Cucumber pesto wrap

Recently, I've discovered a new favorite sandwich, taking advantage of the following three factors: 1) my desire not to turn my old oven on when it's super hot outside, 2) a glut of cucumbers that I was going to make refrigerator pickles out of but the sweet and sour squash is hogging the Tupperware, and 3) the presence of homemade pesto. Viola! The cucumber pesto wrap! I'll think of a catchier name later. I like it with mayo and pesto spread on the wrap, then thinly sliced cucumbers. No cheese, because you won't really taste it, and there's cheese in the pesto. You can use tomatoes, but keep in mind the juicier things that go in there, the more it'll drip all over your hands.