Camacho Watcho

Who knew that this huge red cabbage would lead to such a food obsession for me? It’s not that I’ve never eaten red cabbage before, but the recipes that some readers shared are just so good that I have now been obsessed and have eaten red cabbage about twice a day for the past week.

I first made the Warm Red Cabbage Salad recipe that Emily suggested (recipe is below with my changes). I loved it the first night, served with a roasted Callister Farms chicken (I am continually impressed with how good their chicken is), but the following days the salad just kept getting better. With time to rest in the fridge, the flavors mellowed and blended together – the rosemary became a background pleasure and the balsamic vinegar came out a bit more. For leftovers, I simply heated the salad until warm (not hot) then topped with roasted pumpkin seeds (original recipe called for sunflower seeds) coated in brown sugar and salt, golden raisins and feta. I’ve made this twice now and I can’t get enough of it.

Although the salad made a very large portion, it didn’t even use half of the huge red cabbage from my CSA, so I turned to Susie’s recipe suggestion: Braised Red Cabbage from Wolfgang Puck (via The Food Network website). Another fantastic dish of beautiful red cabbage and apples braised in red wine and orange juice with a cinnamon stick (I was out of nutmeg, so I left it out and it was still fantastic). I served this with a pork shoulder that I made in my crock pot with onion, apples and garlic. Again, as I continued to eat leftovers throughout the week, the flavors continued to blend and it just got better and better. I also heated the pork with the cabbage to infuse some of the flavors into the meat, and that was also quite good. I have more plans for the cabbage leftovers to serve on top of a brat instead of sauerkraut. Note: the original recipe makes an insane amount of braised cabbage. I halved the recipe and it was still a lot of food.

I still have half a head of cabbage in my fridge and I have a feeling the recipe that Mimi linked to for Spicy Soba Noodles with Chicken and Cabbage will be made in the very near future.

A big thanks to my readers who suggested such fabulous recipes!

Warm Red Cabbage Salad
adapted from The Complete Tassajara Cookbook

1/2 cup pepitas
1 teaspoon natural cane sugar (or brown sugar)
fine grain sea salt

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 red onion, diced
3 medium cloves garlic, minced

1 pound head of red cabbage, quartered and cut into thin ribbons

1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, minced
2 ounces golden raisins (or other plump, chopped dried fruit)
1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

Roast the pepitas in a dry skillet over medium heat until golden brown. Sprinkle on the sugar, and a couple pinches of salt. Stir until the sugar melts and coats the seeds (your pan will need to be hot enough). Transfer the seeds immediately to a plate so they don’t stick to the pan. Set aside. (You can use roasted salted pepitas for this. If you do, just heat in the dry pan until warm, then continue with the sugar only.)

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and saute the onion for a few minutes with a couple pinches of salt. Stir in the garlic, and the cabbage, and a few more pinches of salt. Stir and cook until the cabbage softens up just a touch. Then stir in the rosemary, most of the raisins, and the vinegar. The cabbage will continue to get more and more tender even after you remove it from the heat, so keep that in mind, and do your best to avoid overcooking it – where it collapses entirely. Fold in half of the feta cheese, most of the pepitas, then taste. Season with more salt if needed. *Serve garnished with the remaining raisins, feta and pepitas.

*I like to make mine ahead of time and refrigerate without the toppings to allow the flavors to blend and mellow. Remove from refrigerator and reheat in microwave until warm (not hot). Transfer to serving bowl and garnish with raisins, feta and pepitas.

Serves 6