Creamy Cabbage Salad

Cabbage is one of my fav vegetables because it is cheap, delicious and super good for you! It’s also hella low in calories (not that I believe in counting calories or anything like that), but since it is so low cal you can pair it with a nice creamy dressing and not feel guilty.  I haven’t had coleslaw in years because it’s the creepiest salad ever, usually it has so much mayonnaise on it that it sort of slips and slides around your plate (not appealing), but this salad is like coleslaw after a makeover.

Creamy Cabbage Salad

• 1/2 cabbage (I used green but red would probs be awesome also)
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 1/4 dijon mustard
• 1 TB miso paste
• 2 TB cashews
• sprouts (for garnish)

1. Wash and chop your cabbage into ribbon like slices
2. Mix the mustard, tahini and miso together.  Add to the cabbage and mix well.
3. Garnish with cashews and sprouts

In this recipe the tahini creates the creamy texture and flavour usually achieved with mayonnaise but minus the unholy slimyness (I’m aware that is not a proper word).

Bright Beet Smoothie!

Once upon a time, I used to make smoothies like every day, and it was great, but it was also a phase.  My smoothie phase ended a long time ago, because usually you find a type you like and then you fall into a smoothie rut.  I got bored of smoothies and moved on. Something has changed though, because today I made a truly great, truly excellent smoothie (an awesome smoothie creator does not need to be modest) with some unexpected ingredients.  It started the way literally all of my interesting food creations do- I needed to make something with veggies that were getting a bit beyond their best (squishy beets are gross= eww).  So I decided to blend my old beets (do not ask why) then I just started adding ingredients that might belong in a smoothie and the result was really fucking good. ALSO beets contain phytonutrients called betalains which provide antioxidants, and can act as an anti-inflammatory, all the more reason to enjoy.

• 2 small beets (peeled and chopped)
• 1 cup (240 ml) frozen berries
• a banana
• 1/3 cup apple sauce (80 ml)
• 2 TB (30 ml) almond or peanut butter
• 1 TB (15 ml) chia seeds
• 1 TB (15 ml) grated unsweetened coconut

Blend and enjoy!

Krunchy Kale

For a Christmas stocking stuffer I got a little bag of kale chips, (man those folks know what I like), the chips were super good, super food.  I could have eaten like 9 packs of these kale chips, but store bought kale chips are very expensive, so I decided to shamelessly rip off their idea! Therefore, I made coconut curry kale chips, and mine were even better than the store bought ones (winning), I then went on to make them again the very next day!

Kale chips are super easy to create making it one of the best ways to healthy snack!

• 1 bunch kale
• 1 TB coconut oil (melted)
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
• 1 hand full dehydrated coconut flakes
• 1 teaspoon hemp seeds
• 1 TB nutritional yeast

1. Preheat oven to 400
2. Remove the soft leafy parts of the kale from the stem and then tear into chip sized pieces.
3. Add the melted oil and other ingredients to the kale. Mix well
4. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes.  Try not the have the kale overlapping on the baking tray as they will get properly crispy if they are layered.

Sweet, salty pickled cabbage

The newest staple of my diet is pickled cabbage, I am in love with it!

It all started because during the month of November I have been wildly unemployed, leaving me with loads of free time to experiment in the kitchen.  Loads of my invented recipes have been complete fails, that I have unhappily forced myself to eat, as I am to stubborn to waste food but some of the things I have tried this week have been awesome and addicting, I’m looking at you pickled cabbage.  I always thought making anything that involved fermenting was difficult, and required too many weird ingredients.  Last year I made pickled beets that involved lots of vinegar, and apple cider vinegar, the result was REALLY salty and kinda weird, needless to say it was never made again.  However, all you need for this amazing pickled cabbage is cabbage, and salt, pretty damn simple. 

Here is what you do:

1. Cut or grate (I had more success with the grated batch) your cabbage, an older cabbage is better for pickling.
2. Add salt to your cabbage, I used a 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) for every 1/4 of the cabbage, but the best way to figure out how much salt you need is to taste test.  The cabbage should taste salty but not disgustingly salty.
3. Work the salt into the cabbage, a bit like the way you would work with dough but you want to be really forceful! Take out any built up anger you may have on the cabbage! You want to see the juice of the cabbage flowing. 
4. Once your cabbage is nice and broken down, get a metal or ceramic bowl/pot and really pack the cabbage down into the bowl using your knuckles.  Put a plate in the bowl and push it into the cabbage, place something heavy on the plate, I used a can of beans, and then cover with a towel or plastic wrap. 
5. Put the cabbage somewhere dry and warm for three days to ferment. The result is a salty and sweet, awesome cabbage; great for a topping or just for eating out the bowl (like I do as soon as it’s finished). 

Another fun thing about this is you can add other vegetables to mix up the flavours.  A common addition is carrot, but I know my next batch will have grated beet!