Thread: Calling all cooks...May Recipe Challenge is HERE!

Hopefully spring has sprung in your neck of the woods! Though I do realize for some of our international members it's a different climate all together...Australia, for example will soon be having their winter. But, how about for this month's challenge we get ourselves OUTSIDE and pick the freshest, hopefully organic, ingredients we can find and make something fabulously delicious with it?

So, for the May food challenge...go to your farmer's market, or if your lucky enough, go to your own garden, and make a dish. It can be anything...you just need to incorporate your favorite, farm-fresh produce into the mix.

Once you have created your dish, post the recipe and photo of it here on this thread.

Let's have fun!!

Yesterday after work I stopped by the Farmer's Market and picked up some purple cabbage and organic carrots for this dish I'm going to share for the May challenge. It is to-die-for(!!) I kid you not. Even if you don't like cabbage, I still encourage you to make this because it will make you LOVE cabbage. The braising of the cabbage and the vegetables together creates such a delicious and rustic flavor. There's also a caramelization going on that just made my taste buds very happy!



Ingredients:
1 Medium head green cabbage (about 2 pounds)--I used purple cabbage
1 large yellow onion (about 8 ounces)--slice into rings
1 large carrot, cut into 1/4 inch rounds
1/4 cup chicken stock, homemade or store-bought, or water
2 tablespoons of lard or beef tallow or coconut oil (if solid at room temp, may need to melt this)
Coarse salt and freshly ground black peper
fleur de sel or coarse sea salt

Directions:
1-Heat the oven to 325. Spread some of the fat of your choice onto a large gratin dish or a baking dish (9 by 13 inch works well).

2-Trimming the cabbage: Peel off and discard any bruised or ragged outer leaves from the cabbage. The cabbage should weigh close to 2 pounds (if you don’t have a kitchen scale, consult the grocery store receipt). If the cabbage weighs more than 2 pounds, it won’t fit in the baking dish and won’t braise as beautifully. To remedy this, cut away a wedge of the cabbage to trim it down to size. Save the leftover wedge for salad or coleslaw. Then cut the cabbage into 8 wedges. Arrange the wedges in the baking dish, they may overlap some, but do your best to make a single layer.

3-The Braise:Scatter in the onion and carrot. Drizzle over the fat/oil and stock or water. Season with salt, pepper. Cover tightly with foil, and slide into the middle of the oven to braise until the vegetables are completely tender, about 2 hours in total. Turn the cabbage wedges with tongs after one hour. Don’t worry if the wedges want to fall apart as you turn them: just do your best to keep them intact. If the dish is drying out at all, add a few tablespoons of water.

4-The finish: Once the cabbage is completely tender, remove the foil, increase the oven heat to 400, and roast until the vegetables begin to brown, another 15 minutes or so. Serve warm or at room temperature, sprinkled with fleur de sel or other coarse salt.

Well mine is not really a recipe just what I do with vegetables

Less than a week left for our May monthly recipe challenge, gang!

C'mon...I know there are more recipes to share out here
@Desert Sky @threeovens @TraciInTexas @ddnene @Kelly


and all our other members!

Hola! I added this to the Salad Forum:



I like to try unfamiliar ingredients, but sometimes have no idea what to do with them. Oftentimes, if the ingredient is primarily used in Latin America, I still don’t know what to do with it because the recipes are written in Spanish. My husband is Latino, but he doesn’t usually know what anything is. **Sigh** However, things are improving. I am finding more recipes posted every day.

This is a recipe using the chayote. It is technically a squash. I’ve heard it compared to a cucumber in both taste and texture. I agree with the texture, but not the taste part. It is more like the rind of a melon, if you ask me. It does not have much flavor. It is easy to work with. When I cut it open, I found the “seeds” to be only one that was a little larger, but looked like a lima bean or fava bean.
For this recipe, a mango is used to make the vinaigrette. Half of it that is. The other half is cubed and tossed into the slaw. It’s a very pretty and tasty salad that I think most people will like. It is not too sweet, nor sour.

Chayote Slaw with Mango Vinaigrette
Ingredients
Salad:
6 cups chayote, cut into matchsticks (about 3 small)
1 cup carrots, cut into matchsticks (about 2)
1 cup celery, strings removed and cut into matchsticks(1 stalk)
1 shallot, thinly sliced
1/2 mango, peeled and cubed
Vinaigrette:
1/2 mango, peeled and cut into chunks
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup lime juice
Optional Garnish:
1/4 cup chopped cilantro or parsley
Instructions
Place all the salad ingredients into a large bowl.
Prepare the vinaigrette by placing all the ingredients into a blender and processing. It’ll make a nice consistency sauce.
Pour over the salad and toss to coat the vegetables. Garnish with cilantro or parsley if desired.
Serves 4.