I’m also adding a recipe from purelyplanted.com for Gut-Nourishing Salad with Creamy Peanut Dressing which I know we will need both pre-and post-Thanksgiving’s crazy meals. Use your cabbage, daikon and greens from this week’s box to make that salad.
~Conne
I confess there’s still Napa cabbage from weeks past in our basement refrigerator. Instead of trying to cook a whole one at once, I’ve taken to just peeling off leaves as needed for a recipe. So the recipe below will probably only use 4 or 5 leaves. The rest of that cabbage will go back in the refrigerator and be joined by this week’s cousin. But that means we’ll have beautiful cabbage to enjoy through the rest of 2023. No complaints here.
~Conne
I love the Napa and radish salad recipe from Beautiful Briny Sea that’s appended below. Absolutely perfect for the contents of this box AND what a nice change of pace from the way many of us have been preparing all the Napa cabbage we’ve been receiving recently.
This is adapted from one created by Grant Park-based Beautiful Briny Sea, maker of the Campfire Sea Salt used in the recipe. If you don’t happen to have Campfire Sea Salt in your pantry, it’s a mix of smoked sea salt, cumin and ancho chili. You could substitute a bit of smoked paprika, salt and cumin, and ground ancho chili if you have it, and make a fine substitute.
If you’re looking at a behemoth bok choy and wondering what to do with it, turn to Riverview’s collection of recipes – https://grassfedcow.com/ingredient/bok-choy/ – for about two dozen ideas. But … I offer you a new one. I had dinner at Bully Boy Sunday night and my friends enjoyed their salmon teriyaki which is served with baby bok choy drizzled with their teriyaki sauce. It was delicious and it just happens we’re publishing that recipe in the AJC in about two weeks, so I am here to share the basics on that sauce so you can reproduce something like it at home. The bok choy was steamed until completely, meltingly tender, and served with the sauce (and the salmon and some steamed green beans). Use a few of the green onions from your box to make this. This sauce is definitely sweet so you just need a little. But it will keep in your refrigerator for a long time, so use it on other vegetables and proteins.
I also ran into this recipe from Gourmet many years ago, Napa Cabbage Slaw with Radishes and Celery. We seem to be past having radishes in our box, but maybe you still have some of that celery from a few weeks ago. Anything crunchy would work. Cucumbers instead of radishes? And the dressing will work just as well on that bag of lettuce as it will in the slaw. The notes with that recipe are from Smitten Kitchen.
The dressing is a simple blend of buttermilk, apple cider vinegar, a touch of mayo, shallots, sugar, salt and pepper but the flavor is anything but. This is my new go-to creamy dressing. I am sure it would equally delicious with some crumbled blue cheese mixed in, if you’re into that kind of thing.
The dressing would be really great on an iceberg wedge or romaine hearts salad, or any kind of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink mega mixed bowl. Like your lunch tomorrow.
Recipe from Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything: Completely Revised Twentieth Anniversary Edition”
And then there’s this recipe adapted from one by Laurie Moore of Moore Farm and Friends. You might know Laurie, she’s in the booth just a few tables away from Riverview at Freedom Farmers Market. As she says, “If you’re already firing up the grill, this is a great way to get some great flavor on the veggies, too.”
Vegetable pancakes seem to be a thing these days, and I love this recipe from Mark Bittman that will use up any vegetable you have on hand. You can use some of that lettuce if you chop it and maybe saute a little before mixing into the batter. Spinach? Sure. Grated kohlrabi. Absolutely. Chopped cabbage, probably anything from this week’s box except maybe the tomatoes which might turn watery.We eat these either with a little soy sauce or a little hot honey. That’s my new addiction and I’m not even a fan of hot sauces. But hot and sweet like the hot honeys people are producing these days? Love it.
Recently I’ve been playing around with her Okonomiyai (cabbage pancakes). I used the bok choy from a few weeks ago in that recipe. Traditionally it would be made with green cabbage, but you know, the bok choy worked perfectly. And I realized this recipe could be adapted to any green or vegetable like sweet potatoes or daikon or mustard greens or kale. You make an eggy, loose pancake batter, then you fill it with whatever vegetables you like. I enjoyed these for dinner but they were just as delicious for breakfast the next day. Here’s the basic recipe.
Her note: Adapted from a recipe on Food52, these pancakes are simple to throw together and make delicious use of an abundance of cabbage. I use 4 times the amount of cabbage called for in the original recipe (8 cups as opposed to 2), and I omit the shrimp, though I imagine the addition of shrimp would be very tasty. I like these with a soy dipping sauce (as opposed to a mayonnaise-based one). The one below is one I’ve been using for years, but feel free to use your own.
This recipe from SeriousEats.com is good when it’s fresh, but it’s really nice when it’s wilted as well. A great do-ahead. If you’re going to make it ahead, combine the cabbage and onion and add just a little salt. Let the vegetables sit maybe two hours in a colander and then give them a good squeeze. Now you’ve removed a lot of the moisture and the dressing won’t get watered down as the salad rests.