Category Archives: Cabbage

Dinner Tonight: Oven Baked Fish Tacos

Today…was a day. All of my Monday meetings were pushed up a day along with all of my Tuesday meetings which meant time at my desk was scarce and I didn’t actually get to serious work until after 5:00. You’d think that leaving the office at 7:00 would mean no traffic. You’d think.

MEH!

Ok, now that I vented, there were three highlights of the day.

First — key lime pie. I made this last night for a meeting today and used some of my precious allotted calories on a slice. Heaven. I was almost transported to Key West for a millisecond.

Second, I got my new laptop speakers in the mail today. These have a great design — they clip on the back of your laptop screen and plug in through the USB port. Super space saving, there are no extra plugs, and they sound great! I’m now enjoying the soulful sounds of Joss Stone from our new media center while I’m typing this blog post. Maybe I’ll torture Sean with some Garth Brooks soon (guilty pleasure from my high school days! Go ahead. Mock away.)

Finally, we had fish tacos for dinner tonight. One of my absolute favorites and it allowed me to use up some leftovers I had from the salads we had on Saturday.

I make fish tacos A LOT. I decided to try an new way of cooking the fish. Normally I saute it with onions and peppers, but tonight I decided it would be quicker and easier to just put it all on a baking sheet and shove it in the oven. Since I used flounder which has thin fillets, it cooked up in 6 minutes! Dinner was ready in 15 minutes … and I was a much happier girl.

Oven Baked Fish Tacos
Makes 6 tacos — served 2 hungry adults

Oven Baked Fish Tacos

The best part of tacos is that you get to design your own!

1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. chili powder
2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. salt
1 lb. flounder or tilapia fillets (these fish are nice and thin and will bake up super fast!)
1/2 avocado, sliced
1 recipe simple slaw (or leftover greens of your choice mixed with a simple vinaigrette)
Sour cream
Your favorite salsa
Cilantro, rinsed and pull the leaves off the stems
6 corn tortillas, warmed

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. Whisk together the olive oil, chili powder, cumin, and salt.

Spread a baking sheet with parchment paper or spray with non-stick spray or rub a thin layer of olive oil over the sheet. Place the fish on the baking sheet and use a pastry brush or spoon to spread the paste you just made over both sides of the fish.

Place the fish in the heated oven for about 6 minutes or until the fish is cooked through and flaky.

Serve on the tortillas with the slaw and avocado. Add sour cream, salsa, and cilantro to your taste.

Posted in Cabbage, Cuisine, Fish, Healthy, Main Dish, Meat, Mexican, Quick & Easy, Recipe, Vegetables | Leave a comment

Dinner Tonight: Asian Chicken Salad

What a great weekend. On Friday, I decided to bake some cupcakes — my friends on Facebook helped me choose between lime and coconut or lemon with raspberry icing. Lime and coconut won the Facebook vote. I was leaning that way anyway because I’m getting excited for our trip to St. Martin in March where I expect to drink lots and lots of limey, coconut-y rum drinks! I spent the rest of the night watching Pretty in Pink and Project Runway. Love lazy Fridays!

Coconut Lime Cupcake

This is my dessert tonight!


On Saturday, we went to a belated holiday party where we took part in a Yankee swap — I lucked up and ended up with a great scarf from Ecolissa. Sean got the new hot game among our friends, Quelf. It’s a pretty silly party game. He broke it out at the party. I sat out and still had a great time just watching. It was HILARIOUS!

Today, we met up with Ana & Jesse for dim sum. They just got back from Brazil where they got engaged! It was great to see them for some congratulatory dumplings. It was Jesse’s first time going to dim sum. I hope he liked it so we can do it more often.

We spent the rest of the weekend working on a project that we’ve been wanting to accomplish for a long time. We are creating a media library using an external media storage drive. Turns out it takes a long time to rip CDs into MP3s — after many hours, we’re still probably not even near half way done. But, it’s a good project to continue through the winter. I’m excited to finally have easy access to all of our music — and to be able to box up our CDs and move them to the basement so they aren’t taking up space.

Before we headed to the party on Saturday, I wanted to fill up on something that was filling and healthy. Like everyone else in the universe, I’m trying to eat healthier after the holidays. I didn’t want to get to the party and eat a bunch of junk. We had half a head of cabbage in the fridge, so I used that as inspiration to make this salad. It’s super fresh, flavorful, and filling. The salad base gets an extra punch from the cilantro and green onions mixed in.

This recipe makes a ton, so we had these for dinner last night and tonight. Plus we have leftover salad mix which we’ll use later in the week for something else (stay tuned!)

Asian Chicken Salad
Makes 6 HUGE Salads

Asian Chicken Salad

GIANT, delicious salad.

Salad
1/2 medium head of cabbage, thinly shredded
1 head romaine lettuce, thinly shredded
2 large carrots, cut julienne
5 green onions/scallions, chopped
1 medium bunch of cilantro, remove the bottom couple of inches of the stem and then roughly chop the bunch
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, poached, cooled, and shredded
1 14oz. package of fettuccine style rice noodles, cooked and cooled (found these at Whole Foods — you could really use any noodles you like.)
3/4 cup of sliced almonds, toasted

Toss all of these ingredients together. If you are going to split this up over multiple meals, hold out the almonds and use them to garnish before each meal.

Dressing
6 tbsp. rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp. honey
3 tbsp. olive oil
3 tsp. soy sauce
3 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
3 tsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. granulated garlic/garlic powder
1 tsp. sesame oil

Whisk all of these ingredients in a bowl. Or put all of them in a plastic container with a tight fitting lid and shake, shake, shake until everything is well combined (this makes for easy storage for leftovers!)

Posted in Asian, Cabbage, Carrots, Chicken, Cuisine, Healthy, Lettuce, Main Dish, Meat, Pasta, Quick & Easy, Recipe, Starch, Vegetables | 1 Comment

Fish Taco Wraps with Simple Slaw

Sean and I headed to Albany this weekend for a pre-Thanksgiving celebration while his sister was in town from Reno. We spent Saturday at the New York State Harvest Fest where we sampled lots of NY State wine and foods. Then we had dinner with the family — roast pork, cabbage, latkes, and homemade applesauce.

On the drive home on Sunday morning we discussed our dinner plans. We decided to make fish taco wraps to use up a lot of the stuff we had in the fridge and freezer. Far from a gourmet meal, I bought frozen fish sticks at Whole Foods a few weeks ago (way better than the fish sticks you remember as a kid!) and used those.

Whole Foods Fish Sticks

Way better than Gortons!

Fish Taco Wrap

Fish sticks, chimichurri sauce, simple slaw, and avocado. Yum!

I also had a quarter of a head of cabbage and a zillion carrots and red onions, so I whipped up this simple slaw to go with the tacos. I love a little cabbage on my tacos — and it’s fairly traditional when you get tacos from authentic taquerias. I also love slaw on sandwiches for an extra crunch and tang.

A note: I use a special vegetable peeler to shred my carrots. It’s a pretty awesome tool. But you can also just julienne the carrot with a knife — or just buy a package of pre-shredded carrots (I won’t tell!)

Oh yeah, I also baked a whole bunch of cupcakes for work — food porn below.

Simple Slaw
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. honey
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 medium head of cabbage, thinly shredded
1 large carrot, shredded
1/2 medium red onion, thinly sliced

In a small bowl, combine vinegar, salt, pepper, cumin, garlic powder, and honey with a small whisk. Slowly whisk in canola oil.

In a large bowl, toss together the cabbage carrots, and red onion. Pour the vinaigrette over the shredded vegetables and toss well to combine.

Simple Slaw

Simple Slaw for Tacos

Cupcakes

Cupcakes -- yellow with chocolate icing by popular demand.

Posted in Cabbage, Carrots, Cuisine, Healthy, Mexican, Recipe, Side Dish, Tools & Equipment, Vegetables, Vegetarian | Leave a comment

Asian-y Noodles with Grilled Chicken

I thought of this recipe on the way home today. Sean and I didn’t have very much in the fridge, but I knew we had some cabbage and some chicken that we needed to use up. I always have tons of flavorful pantry items (spices, vinegars, sauces, etc.) so it was easy to throw together. It turned out great. The noodles themselves were great served at room temperature — perfect for a warm evening like tonight.

You can serve this as a main dish with chicken (as written here) or shrimp; you might also serve as a delicious vegetarian dish by forgoing the meat all together.

Asian-y Noodles with Grilled Chicken

For Dressing:
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 tsp. toasted sesame oil
4 tbsp. honey
2 tbsp. rice wine vinegar
Juice of a lime
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. siracha sauce
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1 tbsp. toasted sesame seeds

For Salad:
1/2 lb. fettucini
1/2 small head green cabbage, thinly shredded
1/2 small head red cabbage, thinly shredded
1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
2 green onions, sliced
2 tbsp. chives, chopped
1 medium carrot, julienned
1 large chicken breast
Toasted almonds

Put ingredients for the dressing into a small bowl; whisk to combine.

Asian Dressing

Boil the fettucini noodles for about 10 minutes until al dente. Drain and rinse with cold water until the noodles are cool to the touch. Drain well. Toss together with the cabbage, onions, chives, and carrots until all ingredients are mixed together well. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss to combine.

Cabbage and Vegetables

Season the chicken breast with salt and pepper (or, you could also marinate in teriyaki, hoisin, or any other asian-type sauce.) Grill until temperature reaches 165 degrees and slice.

To serve, place some salad in a large bowl. Top with sliced grilled chicken. Garnish with sliced almonds and sesame seeds.

Posted in Appetizer, Asian, Cabbage, Carrots, Chicken, Comfort Food, Cuisine, Fish, Healthy, Main Dish, Meat, Recipe, Side Dish, Vegetables, Vegetarian | 4 Comments

Corned Beef and Cabbage Calzones

Last year, we had a St. Patrick’s Day bash at our condo. My favorite part about throwing parties is creating a menu. There’s nothing more traditional in this part of the country than corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day. I wanted to include it on the menu, but I had to think of a way to make it portable and easy to eat at a party.

The solution: I created this recipe that stuffs the usual corned beef and cabbage dinner ingredients into a calzone — with a delcious tangy, mustard dressing. Everyone seemed to really enjoy these calzones.

They are a bit of work, but if you’re only going to make them once a year or for a party, they are well worth it. And you can actually do a lot of the prep work ahead of time*.

Corned Beef and Cabbage Calzones

2 lbs. of your favorite pizza dough (I’m partial to this recipe — or you can get it at your grocery store.)
1/2 head cabbage, shredded
3 large carrots, medium dice
3 medium red bliss potatoes, medium dice
2 lbs. corned beef, cooked and medium dice
1 medium onion, minced
3 tbsp. olive oil
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup grainy mustard with horseradish
1 tsp. garlic powder
Salt & pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

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All of my veggies chopped and ready to go.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a rapid boil. Add shredded cabbage. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until cabbage is cooked but still al dente. Drain and rinse with cold water until cabbage is cooled. Dry in a salad spinner or between paper towels. Set aside.

Put the carrots and potatoes in a medium pot. Cover with water (about an inch over the vegetables) and bring to a boil. Cook until fork tender. Make sure that when you dice the carrots and the potatoes, you keep them even in shape so that they cook at the same time. Drain and set aside.

In a large pan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until the onions are soft, but not browned — about 10 minutes. Add the diced corned beef (should be roughly the same size as the carrots and potato) and cook another 2-3 minutes.

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Add cider vinegar, mustard, garlic powder, salt and pepper (to taste). Stir and toss in the cabbage and coat with the dressing. Add the carrots and the potatoes and stir to coat with the dressing. Turn off the heat and set aside.

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Divide your dough into 10 equal portions**. Roll into balls and allow to rest about 10 minutes.

To assemble the calzones, flatten a pizza dough ball into about a 6-inch round (the dough should be about 1/4 inch thick). Fill with a healthy 1/2 cup of the corned beef filling. Fold the dough over to create a half-moon shape. Crimp the edges of the dough to close the calzone. Repeat for the rest of the dough balls.

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Transfer to a baking sheet (or better yet, a pizza stone you have warming up in the pre-heated oven.) Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the calzones are GBD (golden brown and delcious!)

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Enjoy with a Guiness, Harp, or Magners!

* You could create the filling ahead of time and store it in the fridge until you’re ready to stuff your calzones — will probably last a couple of days in the fridge.

** Play around with this recipe. For a party, you could make mini-calzones to feed more people! You’d just need to divide your dough into smaller portions and put less of the corned beef mixture into each calzone.

Posted in Appetizer, Bar Food, Beef, Cabbage, Carrots, Cuisine, Irish, Main Dish, Meat, Potatoes, Recipe, Vegetables | 1 Comment