Mix together the cabbage and carrots. Whisk together the rest of the ingredients in the dressing, then pour over the vegetables and toss until evenly coated.
Well, this recipe is not terrible pretty, but it sure is yummy. I feel as though the Netflix show ‘Ugly Delicious’ could take its title and attach it to this side. Cole slaw’s are not usually overly pretty and do not offer the same presentation possibilities as many other dishes, but are tasty and very versatile in their use. I mean, really, what other salad do you know that you can put together completely, dress, and have it not only taste great the next day, but often even better than it did the first!
And man, does this salad have lasting power. I will make it at the beginning of the week, and we often have it multiple times throughout the week, minimizing the evening meal prep, and it holds well when taking it to work as a side.
Prep on this salad is relatively easy, but is definitely easier with the use of a very sharp knife. I use my Japanese knife to cut the cabbage quite fine, since this is my preference. If a super sharp knife is not available to you, feel free to use a food processor to shred your cabbage, carrots, and onions. They will not be as fine, but will still be fresh and crunchy and will soak up the dressing.
A quick note on cabbage: I have used green cabbage, pretty standard, in this recipe. You can use Napa or savoy instead, but the salad will not last quite as long. My grandma used to grow cabbage that would form earlier than the green cabbage. It was sweeter and more tender than its later-blooming cousin, but either work well for cole slaws.
After your veggies have been shredded and mixed, whisk together the dressing ingredients. To get a better consistency to the mix, stir the garlic and onions in with the dressing ingredients, not with the veggies.
Finally, pour the dressing over the vegetables and toss vigorously, until everything has mixed well together. Serve the cole slaw on its own as a side, or as a topping (hint: it goes really well on tacos… future post? Highly likely.)
In a small food processor, place the garlic and shallot and pulse until quite fine. Add the parsley, red wine vinegar, lime juice, and spices, and pulse until fairly fine. Add the olive oil and purée until desired texture.
Keyword Chimichurri, Garlic, Parsley, Sauce
And now for the details…
I am a big fan of sauces in general, and one favourite in our household is chimichurri sauce. And how could it not be? It’s savoury and salty, with a bit of tang. I’m drooling right now just thinking about it. It makes for a great companion with steak or other grilled meats, which is its typical use in its country of origin, Argentina. But I have also really enjoyed chimichurri on halloumi cheese, or as a sauce in tacos.
I think the other reason I am so enthralled with this sauce is that the predominant ingredient is parsley. For me, parsley is an herb that often seems to fall by the wayside of its stronger-flavoured peers like basil, cilantro, or mint. In fact, for a long time, I thought parsley had little to no flavour and was just a garnish to add a green splash of colour to a recipe. But as recipes like chimichurri and tabbouleh entered my life, I started to see parsley take centre stage, and realized the fresh herbaceousness that parsley can bring to the table.
For my recipe, I am calling for Italian parsley, which is flat-leafed, and I find is “wetter” than it’s cousin, curly parsley. You could absolutely use curly parsley instead, but I prefer the texture I get out of Italian parsley.
We will start by loosely chopping the shallots and garlic, and adding them to the food processor. I am going fairly heavy-handed with the garlic in this recipe. If you are wanting a less garlicky experience, feel free to cut down the amount of garlic cloves you add. Pulse the shallots and garlic until they are fairly finely minced.
Next, loosely chop your parsley, removing any large stems, and add it to your food processor with the red wine vinegar, lime juice, and spices.
Pulse all the ingredients together until it has formed a bit of a paste, and the parsley is mostly broken down. Then add your olive oil and blitz the mixture until you have your desired texture.
Pour out into a small bowl and serve with your meal of choice!
Mince the garlic and dice the onion. Heat a cast iron pan over medium high heat, adding the olive oil. Add the garlic and onion and sauté until the onion has softened and the garlic is fragrant. Add the passata and stir until the mixed consistently and the passata is heated through.
Remove from the heat and sprinkle the basil overtop, reserving 1 Tbsp of basil for topping at the end. Arrange the vegetables on the sauce, alternating between the different vegetables (photo above was eggplant, tomato, yellow zucchini, green zucchini). Drizzle with pesto. Cover the pan wither either an oven-ready lid, or with tin foil. Place in the oven and bake for 40 minutes, then remove foil and bake for another 10-20 minutes, until vegetables have reached desired level of doneness.
Remove from the oven, top with olive oil, cheese and basil, then serve.
I am a bit of a Disney freak. I. Love. Disney. Cannot help myself. We have no kids, and yet I have seen pretty much every Disney cartoon or animated movie ever released. And am emotionally affected by said movies. (Up! Who wrote this screenplay? I am a sobbing mess every time I watch it… within 10 minutes)
And Ratatouille? Well. It was a Disney movie and about a rat who is obsessed with cooking perfectly blended ingredients. I could picture the harmony Remy refers to as he contemplates the flavour combinations that not only match, but bring the dish to life.
And after having watched that movie and having loved it… over a decade ago… I still had not made ratatouille. It was time.
Let’s get to cooking.
We will be cooking everything in a cast iron pan, which will allow an easy transition from stove to oven. If you do not have a cast iron pan, use an oven ready pan, which will work just as well. Not sure if your pan is oven ready? Typically it would have said so on the label, and may even note it on the bottom of the pan. But most pans that have no plastic or rubber pieces and are revited, rather than welded, should be able to withstand the heat of shifting into the oven.
Let’s start with the onions and garlic, which we will sauté in the olive oil until the onions have softened and the garlic is fragrant. Try to avoid cooking too long and caramelizing the onions or garlic.
While you are waiting for the onions and garlic to cook, slice the rest of the veggies into thin slices, consistent in size, and set them to the side.
Add the tomato passata to the pan, and stir until the garlic and onion have been thoroughly mixed in and the passata has heated until just bubbling. Add salt and pepper to the sauce to your taste. Remove from the heat and sprinkle the tomato sauce with the basil, reserving 1 Tbsp of the basil to the side for garnishing the ratatouille when it is done.
Next, we are going to add our veggies directly on top of the tomato sauce in our pan, keeping with a consistent pattern to increase both the visual appeal of the dish, but also allow us a nice bite of all four veggies in one once the dish is cooked and ready. I chose to go with the closest to ROYGBIV as I could with my colour distribution, going with tomato (R), zucchini (Y), zucchini (G), and eggplant (V), and I could see expanding this out to include the rest of the spectrum with, say, orange bell peppers (O), or even stretching this recipe with purple potatoes (I), but I stuck with some of the tried and true veggies in this recipe.
Extra veggies in the background? Yep. Just meant a second pan of ‘touille!
Next is our baking process. Before moving on, I drizzled some pesto over the ratatouille to emphasize the basil flavour. Cover the pan with tin foil or an oven ready lid, and place it in the oven for around 40 minutes. Depending on how thickly or thinly you have stacked your vegetables, you may need to monitor the cooking process at the 30 minute mark to check for doneness. The vegetables should be mostly done, but not completely done yet (the eggplant will have a bit of bounce left to it). At this point, remove the lid or tin foil and allow the ratatouille to cook for another 10-20 minutes, until the vegetables have caramelized slightly, and are completely done. Remove the pan from the oven, drizzle with the remaining olive oil, crumble with some of the Boursin on top, and sprinkle the reserved basil overtop, then serve! From our experience, it goes great with barbecued salmon or chimichurri flank steak tacos (you better believe those recipes are coming!), but this dish is so delicious, it could make up a meal of its own with some crusty bread, or pair with a whole selection of dishes!
Mash the bananas with a fork until mostly smooth. Mix the melted cocoa butter, bananas, eggs, milk, sugar, and vanilla.
Sift together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder, then stir in the flax and salt.
Stir together the dry and wet ingredients until the dry ingredients have just been moistened. Stir in the chocolate and pecans, then pour into a prepared 5"x9" loaf pan.
Bake for 75 minutes at 325ºF until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out clean.
Before getting into the full story, I should probably mention that this banana loaf was much more in the crumby cake side of texture as opposed to the more typical ultra moist banana bread. This is a texture I prefer, but if you like the super smooshy type of banana bread, this is not the loaf for you.
As far as where my inspiration came from, it was from, as usual, meandering around my grocery store. I randomly found some raw cocoa butter on sale. I stood in front of the shelf for quite awhile with the bag in my hand. What was I going to use it for? No idea. It’s supposed to be really good for you. But what are these purported health benefits of this fat compared to most others? And how would I use it? I think I melt it down as a fat replacement in meals? Surely I can figure something out. Hadn’t I heard of people putting it into smoothies at the very least? If I used it for cooking, would it make everything taste like chocolate? But most importantly it’s on sale… how could I say no?
Well, I took it home… and it sat sad and lonely in my pantry closet for months. So yeah, it was on sale, and I bought it, and then I almost forgot about the gorram thing.
So months went by and one day I had some uber ripe bananas that clearly needed a home in a baked good. Which I suppose is not saying a lot for me… once a banana has one brown spot on it, it’s too ripe for fresh eating, and is officially a baking banana. I do thoroughly enjoy me some banana baked goods, however, and a good banana bread is a pretty delicious snacking option. And then, I remembered *ba-ba-da-baaaaaa* cocoa butter! Now could be its big break!
Looking into the cocoa butter since I bought it, the health benefits that I’d thought I’d heard or read about seemed… weak. Does it provide a good fat source for folks functioning off a keto diet? It sure does… like pretty much any fat source out there. Is it quite high in phytosterols, which have claim to lowering LDL cholesterol? Yes it is… like many vegetable oils. But… I don’t follow a keto diet, and while I try to maintain an overall healthy and balanced diet, phytosterol intake is not something I am monitoring. Sure hope this stuff is delicious, cause that’s the main thing I am now focused on. Worse case, I suppose, I could slather it on my body instead and have an expensive, but delicious smelling moisturizer!
Let’s get to cooking.
My mistake when making this was to start with mashing the bananas. What I really should have started with was getting the melting process of the cocoa butter going. Cocoa butter is clearly a winner from a shelf stability perspective. It’s melting point is higher than coconut oil or butter, and it takes quite bit longer to melt down to a useable liquid than most other fat options I have used. One of my favourite parts, though: when a little bit of the melted butter smashed onto my hands while stirring, and I rubbed it into my skin instead of wiping it off. Seriously, great moisturizer if nothing else.
Before we get to the next step, preheat the oven to 325ºF.
Once you have the butter melted and the bananas mashed, mix the two together, than add in the eggs, milk, sugar, and vanilla. I used vanilla sugar in the recipe, which I have in my pantry by throwing a used vanilla pod into some sugar in a hermetic glass jar in the pantry. Regular sugar would do just just fine, just increase your vanilla addition to about 1.5 teaspoons.
In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, flax, and salt. You can buy flax pre-ground, but I buy the flax whole and grind it just before you use it. I have a separate coffee grinder that I keep specifically for grinding seeds and spices, which I used to grind the flax.
Next, mix the dry and wet ingredients until they are just combined. Next is to add the chocolate and pecans, and stir into the batter until fairly evenly mixed in.
Grease the loaf pan, and line it with parchment paper. Turn the batter out into the prepared pan, and place into the preheated oven. Bake for around 75 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the loaf comes out clean.
Remove the pan from the oven, let it cool, then cut and enjoy!
