My New Year’s resolution this year is to cut down on stuff. This is partly motivated by an upcoming apartment move, but also seems like a good idea in general (except when Mark catches you sneaking his things into the box destined for Goodwill). One of the small ways I am trying to declutter is to not hold onto magazines. Pre-resolution, I’d hold onto cooking magazines and old issues of The New Yorker for years – yes, years – thinking I’d need a recipe or really be in the mood for that 2008 article on the economics of cashew nut farming in developing countries that I skipped the first time around.
I mention all this because it serves, in a way, as the inspiration for this dinner. A few weeks back I clipped a red cabbage salad recipe from an issue of Bon Appetit magazine before it made its way into the trash. Last week we had half a head of red cabbage a few days away from desperately needing to join the magazine in the trash. I tweaked this recipe using other ingredients we already had and served it with tilapia. We got rid of the magazine and we got rid of the cabbage. Here is the original recipe and here is the version I made:
Red Cabbage Salad with Bacon & Pecans
- Half a head of red cabbage, finely sliced (I used our mandolin)
- ¼ cup dried cranberries
- 3 T balsamic vinegar
- 4 slices bacon
- 1 shallot, finely diced
- 1 T olive oil
- ½ cup pecans, toasted and roughly chopped
Put your sliced cabbage in a large bowl (aka, the bowl you'll serve it out of). Finely dice the shallot and set it aside. Roughly chop the pecans.
Saute the bacon until crispy. Add the shallots and cook for just a few minutes more with the bacon. Remove from heat and stir in the cranberry/vinegar mix.
This will be the salad dressing. Its sweet and tangy qualities work really well with the cabbage. Add the chopped pecans to the cabbage, then the dressing and season with salt and pepper. Mix well:
This went really well with some tilapia that I quickly crusted with panko and sauteed:
