Asian Coleslaw Recipe

It's always nice when you work with colleagues who have healthy habits and good recipes. Trang has given me two more to try. The first is an Asian coleslaw and the other is a chewy chocolate chip cookie.

Here's the slaw recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/asian-coleslaw/detail.aspx?scale=5&ismetric=0

I'm always on the hunt for a good dressing that integrates peanut butter. She substitutes the three tablespoons of vegetable oil with one vegetable oil and two tablespoons of water to cut down on the fat. She says it's makes it a little runnier, but still tasty.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar 3 tablespoons vegetable oil 2 tablespoons and 1-1/2 teaspoons creamy peanut butter 1 tablespoon and 1-1/2 teaspoons soy sauce 1 tablespoon and 1-1/2 teaspoons brown sugar 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger root

2-1/4 teaspoons minced garlic 2-1/2 cups thinly sliced green cabbage 1 cup thinly sliced red cabbage 1 cup shredded napa cabbage 1 red bell peppers, thinly sliced 1 carrots, julienned 3 green onions, chopped 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Directions:

You have scaled this recipe's ingredients to yield a new amount (5). The directions below still refer to the original recipe yield (10).

1.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the rice vinegar, oil, peanut butter, soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, and garlic.

2.

In a large bowl, mix the green cabbage, red cabbage, napa cabbage, red bell peppers, carrots, green onions, and cilantro. Toss with the peanut butter mixture just before serving. Update December 23, 2012: I meant to write my review of this when I made it a few weeks ago. OHMIGOD it's delicious! I am a stickler for keeping to an original recipe so it took me a couple days to collect all the ingredients, but the dressing was ridiculously good. I always find myself in stores looking for a good peanut butter satay sauce and nothing ever lives up. But this? Totally hits the spot for the sweet and salty combination. It would be great with satays and salads.

Peanut Butter Reeses Pieces Cookies

Stole another recipe for my friend Victoria who bakes the most amazing desserts. Surprisingly, she's never owned a Kitchenaid until recently. Don't know how she survived without one!

Anyway, I've had these cookies before - yum, yum, yum. I tried to make them once but never successfully bought a bag of peanut butter cups that survived to make it into cookies. Ah well. Maybe this time...?

I'll post a photo when I finally attempt this!

Peanut Butter Reeses Pieces Cookies

Combine:

½ cup white sugar

½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar

½ cup softened margarine or butter

And beat until light and fluffy

Add:

½ cup smooth peanut butter (measure PB after using half cup measure for flour and it won’t stick)

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

Blend for several minutes.

Add dry ingredients:

1 ¼ cup flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch salt, more if PB is unsalted and fold in

Batter will be fairly loose. Chill some hours of overnight. Put bags of PB cups in the fridge too

Pre-heat oven to 350F. Makes 4-7 dozen depending on how skimpy you scoop the PB cookies. Be sure to get at least two bags of mini PB cups

Bring dough out at the same time you start the oven preheating. Unwrap the PB cups and put back in the fridge.

Roll 1” balls of cookie dough and place in muffin tins – use the paper liners because these are greasy! You don’t need a lot of batter per cookie – they rise a lot. Press finger into the top of the ball to spread the dough a little. Bake for 6-7 minutes, or until it starts to brown on the edges.

Remove pans from the oven. The cookies will have puffed up, firmly place a peanut butter cup in the middle of each cookie “pillow”. Cookie edges should be even with or above the candy, as much as possible. Place back in the oven for a minute or two to melt the chocolate.

Remove and cool on racks for some time until the chocolate has set back up again. This will take at least an hour. Do not rush this part.