Tonight's Dinner: July 29, 2014

Well known fact: I love pickles.  They are actually a stress reliever for me.  When I feel stressed I can eat a pickle and feel so much better.  I’ve been seeing a lot of homemade pickle recipes on Pinterest lately, which is probably what put this idea into my head.  I had randomly picked up some Persian Cucumbers at Ranch 99 and thought to make a cucumber salad.  After chopping up the small cucumbers, I decided to add some rice wine vinegar and shallots to make a lightly pickled cucumber.  I thought that I came up with the idea on my own, but later realized that it was because I had seen so many posts about homemade cucumbers.  It was so delicious that I almost ate the entire bowl by myself.  This did later cause some negative tummy side effects because of the high dose of vinegar, but it was so worth it.

I soaked the shallots separately to let them pickle and then added them to the cucumbers later, but next time I'll just soak them all together to save on clean up. 

30 min Pickled Cucumbers (Serving size: 2)

2 Persian cucumbers, chopped

1 shallot, thinly sliced

½ c rice wine vinegar

1 tsp Kosher salt

1 tsp sugar

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together and let stand in room temperature for 30 minutes before consumption. The longer they sit, the better. 

The pickled cucumbers were just a side to cabbage steaks and pepper steak sauce marinated tri-tip done on the charcoal grill (Lee Kum marinade from a jar).  Marinated grilled meat is pretty ordinary in our household, but the cabbage steaks were new and turned out surprisingly well.  One of my many cousins had told me that she likes to make them as a substitute for meat.  I don’t know about all of that, but I can definitely do it as an accoutrement for meat.  I drizzled the steaks lightly with EVOO and seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  I threw them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.  After the 30 min I poked at them to see if they were done and put them back in for 15 min.  I like my cabbage a little soft, but if you like yours firm, take it out at the 30 min mark.  What I really liked was that the center close to the stem was soft, but the outer edges were a little bit crispy.  The difference of texture were really pleasing to me. 

Cabbage Steaks

1 whole cabbage, cut 1/4in slices

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 tsp Kosher salt

1 tbsp black pepper

1 tbsp garlic powder.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Drizzle EVOO on the steaks.  Sprinkle sparingly with Kosher Salt, liberally with black pepper and garlic powder.  Bake in oven for 30 minutes.  Add additional timing after the first 30 minutes for desired texture.