Cabbage mighty cabbage! The green with the longest shelf life ever!
I grabbed two heads of cabbage at the store before this whole shindig went down and look at us here, two weeks later, just getting around to using it because it lasts for-eh-ver. I should have gotten four heads! Ok, not really, because that’s hoarding (and you know by now that I am working very hard on not giving in to that).
Worth mentioning: we bought a new fridge for the garage last month that was all fridge, no freezer, and I am SO THANKFUL that we did that! We got the old one used off of craigslist and the shelves were off balanced and saggy and we couldn’t figure out if the temp was right because it was always frosting over and then thawing and making massive puddles of water that I had to clean multiple times a day because it got all our food soaking wet. We donated it to Kyle’s shop because all they need it for is storing their lunches for a few hours. Good riddance!
I massaged half a head of each cabbage with equal parts ranch dressing and French dressing to create a tangy southwestern ranch kind of slaw. I also added in cilantro, although we only had a few pieces left.
Before serving I added some pepitas and crushed chips on top (all we had in the pantry were these Forager green vegetable chips so whatever). I’m making it work, Tim Gunn!!
Also in the name of ingenuity, I used dino chicken nuggets because I didn’t have any plain chicken.
I call it, the southwestern dinosaur chop!
RAWR!
Five pints later, we are at long last completely out of ice cream in this house. Who knew we had so much!?! Not Kyle. Thank goodness.
Now I get to dig in to the holiday cookie stash that I’ve been rationing to Kyle…
I’m pretty sure there is a box of caramel delites in the freezer too, because my friend brought a box over for me at some point and I haven’t touched it, so I’ll have to get to the bottom of that. 😉
On to another dinner…this one Kyle deemed his new favorite.
Which means basically nothing since he says that at least once a month, but there you have it. This month’s BEST MEAL EVER is a fried quinoa with bacon, balsamic, brussels and pepitas.
To start, I sautéed an entire package of bacon, and then added a pound of shredded Brussels sprouts to fry up in the grease as well.
Wow, I just realized there have been quite a few alliterative “B” meals here on the blog lately. This meal had bacon, Brussels, and balsamic. And this meal had beans, barley, and broccoli. Another three B bowl!
After the Brussels were wilted, I added 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar and 3-4 cups of cooked quinoa.
I added the quinoa in batches, but you could add it all together.
And then to serve, topped it all in pepitas. Candied pecans or walnuts would be lovely too, but we have the most pepitas so that’s why I chose them. This pantry supply is really getting tested!
Now that we have a house I am so excited to buy an extra freezer for the garage and we are seriously contemplating an extra fridge as well. I would love to be able to have plenty of frozen veggies on hand and I need room for all my baking projects 🙂 Apparently, the condo we were renting had an oversized fridge and we got spoiled! My English friend just laughed at me when I asked if our new fridge in the new place looked small and responded, “You’re asking someone from Europe, where all the appliances are tiny!” Ha!
Ha! So funny. When we lived in NYC, our fridge was so small and there was basically no shelves or any kind of pantry or anything to hold food or even dishes! The first time I used the oven I set off the fire alarm because it hadn’t be used in 800 years. Now I am so spoiled with the space. We have a huge fridge/freezer in the house and now both a free standing freezer and fridge in the garage. 🙂