Roasted Red Pepper & Red Cabbage Salad Recipe

Last night for dinner I (yet again) made a roasted red pepper & red cabbage salad. It's fairly quick and easy and brings back some fond memories of a friend I had years ago who first made it for me.

When I sent a picture of the salad to a family member last night she told me she thought that would go over well in her household and asked me how to make it. This morning when posting a great friend of mine from high school seemed to feel the same way.

I began to post the recipe on Facebook and then realized it was long enough that I may as well blog it.

On to the recipe!


What you will need:
1 head of red cabbage
at least 1 red pepper (it's up to you how many you will want)
Olive Oil
1 container of honey (agave is also acceptable but beware it will be very runny on this)
1 bottle of red wine vinegar (if you don't have red wine vinegar I've made this using Caesar dressing & honey and not been unhappy)
1 cookie sheet (if you don't have one a meatloaf or bread pan should be fine)


Prepping the red cabbage:
It's up to you if you choose to prep your cabbage first, last, or while you work on the red peppers.

Take your red cabbage.
Pull off the outer leaves that look yucky from the store.
Take your chefs knife and begin slicing it however thin or thick you like.
Once you have as much as you want.
Cut the sliced pieces the other direction as well so the slices are more manageable for you to eat.
I probably do that around 4 or 5 times depending on the original size of the cabbage.
Rinse the cabbage in the sink.


To roast your red pepper:
If using only one red pepper like I did last night, I just rub it down with some olive oil, when using multiples I drizzle the olive oil over all of them insuring that enough of the skins are coated with oil.
Once you've coated your red pepper(s) place it/them on a cookie sheet (last night I used a small bread pan and all was still just fine) in the oven at 350 and wait for the skin to pucker.
Once the skin has puckered. (At this point your pepper should no longer be remotely "solid" - it should be squishy. You can usually be pretty sure when your pepper is squishy when you look in and see it's sunken in a bit.)
Remove the pepper from the oven.
Turn off the oven (bc I forgot to last night) and let the pepper cool a little bit.
It doesn't need to get cold just manageable enough for you to hold in your hand.
Take your pepper over to the sink and the first thing I do is pull out the stem. WATCH OUT FOR HOT OIL!!!! It tends to pour right out at this point and I've gotten a hand of hot oil a couple of times.
Gently peel away the skin of the pepper. If you're too rough you can take chunks of pepper with it. This can also happen if the skin is not puckered enough all over the body of the pepper.
Once you've skinned the pepper. Lay it out on a cutting board and slice as thin or thick as you like lengthwise.

Preparing the salad:
Place your red cabbage in a bowl or on a plate.
Arrange your red pepper on top (peppers can be hot or cold - that's your call).
Drizzle with however much red wine vinegar you like.
Drizzle with honey.

Et voila! Salad noms!

Om Nom Nom Studios Eight-Layer Heart-Attack Pizzagna

My dear sweet hubbycakes has had a few bad days in a row. What almost always cheers me up is a good meal. On tonight's menu we have stuffed pizza.

Now let's take a look what went into this particular stuffed pizza.

For one thing I started it around 10:30AM and he would not be home until after 4PM. Why on earth would I start this early? Dough. This was an impromptu idea, usually I let most dough's sit for no less than twenty-four hours. Doughs can be like wines. They have personalities and are capable of having complex flavours but need time to develop those flavours. But in all honesty your pizza won't be a total wash if you don't let the dough sit for a day or two. I let mine sit until about 2PM.

This particular dough was made with two types of flour and also has butter, Parmesan cheese, and garlic inside of it.

2PM was my chosen assembly time and it took me about an hour to do so.


Thin "coating" of pizza dough. Gotta be sure to bring it up the sides to insure that all the filling has something to hold it in.

An uninterrupted layer of sausage. This was put down in one solid sheet and THEN added to where I felt it was needed.

A layer of mozzarella cheese.

A layer of pepperoni.

Another layer of mozzarella cheese.

A layer of sauce.

A layer of black olives.

Yet another layer of mozzarella cheese.

A layer of bacon.

Another layer of dough that was topped off with more sauce. This was all put into the oven at 350 degrees for no less than forty-five minutes (honestly I wasn't really timing but I knew I wasn't taking it out sooner than that.)

Nothing about my end result was neat.


While I assembled this I really couldn't help but think about that episode of Sit Down, Shut Up called "Tackin';" where after a teacher has a heart attack and describes it as a blissful experience the students of the school begin fattening up and attempting to induce heart attacks to get high.

Celebrate Good Times!

Today is a day for celebration in my house. My husbands contract with the military officially ran out today! ! !



Tonight I am making one of his favourite meals, my Fettuccine Alfredo. I don't know about everyone else out there but after I eat I almost always want dessert, so I am making dreamsicle cupcakes using the basic info provided to me by a good friend and Facebook fan, Darling Misty B.


I was told I would need:
1 box cake mix
12 oz POP of choice (which translates to 1 1/2 cups)
Cool Whip

The idea here is to recreate the magical pairing of vanilla and orange to get that oh so familiar, childhood taste of dreamsicle in cupcake form. The store did have French vanilla cake mix but I am terribly allergic to French vanilla so we got white cake instead.

The back of the box has two recipe options, with or without egg-whites. The egg-white option called for more water 1 1/4 cups) and less oil. In lieu of a twelve pack of "pop" (as my Michigander friend put it) we bought a two-liter bottle. I measured out the "pop" ahead of time and put it in a glass to the side while I checked the directions of the back of the box.

At this point all you really need to do is follow the directions on the back of the box (combine cake, oil, water ["pop"], and egg-whites. Put into cupcake pan. Cook.)

The box says to cook for ten to fifteen minutes, I put them in for thirteen minutes but my test stick came out with stuff on it so I put them back in for another four. Those four extra minutes finished cooking them beautifully.

The cupcakes were so incredibly light when I took them out of the pan that it was a shame I did not have cool whip to use instead of icing (Which I have quite a bit of. We keep cake mix around because my husband enjoys making himself impromptu cake.)







The end result was a happy hubby.

I didn't think it tasted too dreamsicle-ish (maybe it was because I couldn't have the french vanilla cake mix). Hubby said he could taste the orange in it - I did not.

I won't give up tho, just gives me tons of ideas for later.