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.

Japanese Cucumber salad

The other day I decided to have a Japanese themed night. In addition to sushi, I thought it'd be nice to have a nice light salad so I attempted to make sunomono. Now, my friend Vania had given me a recipe (handed to her from her nutritionist friend Tina) and of course I filed it away, didn't document it and lo and behold, couldn't find it when I needed it. I googled "sunomono recipe" and ended up using this: http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-sunomono but it wasn't what I was looking for.

Anyway, I still have to try Tina's recipe, but here it is (now documented electronically so I can find it when I need it!)

Japanese Cucumber Salad:
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 Tbsp sugar
- dissolve sugar over heat
- pour over cucumbers and chill
Don't forget to boil some vermicelli and wakame and if you're looking for a final kick, a slice of lemon and some prawns.

Warm Shrimp Salad

Went to Market at Shangri-La with Mela and enjoyed this amazing shrimp salad. She had mentioned she had it before and was totally hyping it up. Now normally, when something is hyped up I'm disappointed with it but this one was true. It was AMAZING. Now I just have to figure out how to make champagne vinaigrette!  Found this recipe... something to definitely try in the future.

http://how2heroes.com/videos/seafood/warm-shrimp-salad

Zesty Lemon Potato Salad

The other night while having a SYTYCD marathon, we did a potluck dinner at Janine's house. I brought grilled vegetables and a crab appetizer and Janine made chili salmon and a zesty mint limeade. I can't tell what was better: the show or the food!

The potato salad was just right for a hot summer's night and the dill and lemon just added that lift that a boring potato salad is always desperately in need of. The mint limeade was a little tart but a perfect non-alcoholic accompaniment to a summer's night dinner.

Here's the recipe for the zesty lemon potato salad (thanks Victoria!)

Ingredients:
600g of fingerling potatoes (sliced),
50g shredded rocket (arugula) leaves

Dressing:
2 tbsp chopped preserved lemon rind,
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard,
1/2 cup whole egg mayonnaise,
2 tbsp lemon juice,
sea salt and cracked pepper.

Place the potatoes in a saucepan of boiling water and cook until tender (usually about 8 minutes). Drain and rinse under running water. toss the potato with the rocket.

To make the dressing, place the preserved lemon rind, mustard, mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt and pepper in a bowl and whisk to combine. to serve pour the dressing over the potatoes and rocket and toss gently. serves 4.

Note: we dropped the arugula from the recipe (thank God) because I find the green a little too bitter for my liking.

Broccoli Salad Recipe

For the Love of Bacon! My sister gave me this recipe today after dining at her house and enjoying her broccoli salad. It has bacon so of course it's yummy-licious. She says she's had lots of requests for the recipe and I can taste why!

Fresh Broccoli Salad
Ingredients

* 2 heads fresh broccoli
* 1 red onion
* 1/2 pound bacon
* 3/4 cup raisins
* 3/4 cup sliced almonds/cashews
* 1 cup mayonnaise
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

Directions

1. Place bacon in a deep skillet and cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Cool and crumble.
2. Cut the broccoli into bite-size pieces and cut the onion into thin bite-size slices. Combine and mix with the bacon, raisins, almonds and cashews.
3. To prepare the dressing, mix the mayonnaise, sugar and vinegar together until smooth. Stir into the salad, let chill and serve.

Can't wait to try this out myself and will have 'Beano' on hand due to the raw broccoli. ha ha!

Update June 4, 2010:
Well, I tried making this and I followed it exactly as the recipe stated except I only used slivered almonds. The result? WAYYYY too sweet! I would totally cut back on the sugar next time. changing the rating from 9 out of 10 to 7 out of 10. Although when Jen makes it, it's definitely a 9.