Southwest Cabbage Salad

Do you ever get in a food rut on purpose because you found a food that you love so much that you just want to eat it all the time?  Well I'm sharing my food rut that I have had for the past 3 months.  Yes you heard correctly.  I have had some version of this salad every week or maybe multiple times a week for the past 3 months.  I will share in full disclosure that originally I started this recipe as a street taco for some fun appetizers for a class I was teaching and then it turned into a fun dinner for the kids.  Then because I was working out and not trying to be so carb focused for every meal it evolved into a salad that I loved so much that I eat it multiple times a week and am now sharing it with you.  A couple times over the summer I omitted the meat, mixed in the dressing to the salad to take to a couple potlucks for a new "southwest coleslaw".  Yep, obsessed I am!  But for good reason, it's fast, easy, full of veggies and totally customizable!  

I know not everyone likes cilantro and I used to be that person too, but tastebuds change and mine evolved into the cabbage loving, cilantro digging, black bean eating person that I am today!  If you are not that person, omit what you don't like, add in what you do like and make it your own.  

By the way if you are the person that likes to meal prep this is a great recipe to use as you just keep the meat, salad, and dressings separate until meal time, heat up the meat, mix salad with dressing and warmed up meat and you have your meal that tastes crunchy and fresh in less than 1 minute! 

See look how colorful it is!

First thing you need to do is get out a medium skillet and cook the meat over medium to high heat. Cook the ground beef for 4-5 minutes, season with salt, cayenne pepper, chili powder, and garlic powder, and continue cooking for another 4-5 minutes or until browned and no pink throughout.  Drain the grease and set the ground beef aside.

You can use chicken breast, ground chicken or even ground turkey in this recipe depending on your tastes.  I have done chicken breast sliced thin with the recipe, just make sure you use a 1 Tbsp. of olive oil when cooking it.   All the meats are delicious it's just that I had the ground beef this time.



After the meat is cooked or even while the meat is cooking, cut up the peppers.  You can use yellow, red, green or orange.  I personally like the sweet peppers better lately and had some delicious peppers from my sisters garden.  I first cut the top and bottom off the peppers, take out the seeds and slice the peppers very thin. 

Next I take the peppers and add them to the already pre chopped coleslaw mix, that is store bought, in a large bowl or tupperware container if you are making this for later use.  Yes you can chop your own cabbage and more power to you.  I personally like the fact that the package has purple cabbage, and shredded carrots in it that is less than $2 a bag.  My philosophy in cooking is that if there is a product that will make your life easier and make you cook more than use it, hence my love of bagged "coleslaw mix".  I don't use ALL convenience items but when I find a good one I roll with it!    

After I mix the peppers with the coleslaw/ cabbage mix, I add in my rinsed black beans and cilantro leaves.  

Again if you are meal prepping, just keep the coleslaw veggie bean mixture separated without the dressing the salad.  This will leave everything fresh and crunchy for you to eat at a later use.

If you are making this recipe and eating it right away then once you have the salad put together, divide it onto 4 plates, top with ground beef or meat of choice and drizzle 2 tbsp. of Hidden Valley Southwest Chipotle dressing.  Mix it all together and devour at once!

Hope you all enjoy this salad as much as I do and it you decide to get crazy and switch it up, this is a delicious as a taco as well!

Southwest Cabbage Salad

serves 4

1 lb. Ground Beef

1/2 tsp. Kosher salt

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp. chili powder

1/2 tsp. garlic powder 

1 (16oz.) bag Hy-Vee Coleslaw Mix or 8 c. Shredded Cabbage

1 c. thinly sliced red peppers

1 c. thinly sliced yellow peppers

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 c. Hidden Valley Southwest Chipotle Ranch Dressing

1/4 c. fresh cilantro leaves (garnish)

Directions

In a medium skillet over medium to high heat cook the ground beef for 4-5 minutes, season with salt, cayenne pepper, chili powder, and garlic powder, and continue cooking for another 4-5 minutes or until browned and no pink throughout.  Drain the grease and set the ground beef aside.  In a large bowl or tupperware container add the coleslaw mix, peppers, and black beans and mix until all incorporated.  

To assemble the salads,  divide the salad mixture onto 4 plates equally, top each salad with 1/4 of the meat mixture, drizzle 2 Tbsp. of Hidden Valley Southwest Chipotle Ranch Dressing on top and garnish with cilantro leaves. 

Everything Fall and Crockpot Applesauce

I just love everything about fall!  The weather, the food, the activities.  Last Monday the kids had off for Columbus Day from school and we decided to go to the Center Grove Orchard in Cambridge, Iowa, which is about 30 minutes from Des Moines.  I always look forward to the "no school day" in October so that we can take full advantage of discount weekday pricing at the pumpkin patches/ apple orchards.  Yeah I know I'm cheap but with a family of 6, it's totally worth it.  Plus this year I found a coupon online for even further discount pricing.  MOM WIN!

Since we typically only make it to one apple orchard/ pumpkin patch each year, we tend to switch up each year since they all have different things to offer.  This year since we were able to go during the week, it wasn't as busy so we were able to take in all that the orchard had to offer.

Of course the corn pool is always a favorite.  We had to get the annual picture of the kids in the corn pool!

Cyril running at me to "splash" me with corn!

No waiting for the tractors was a nice surprise!

Paxton loved the new slide!

After we took the tractor ride to ride their train, and go through the corn maze we headed back to eat, jump on their jumping pillow, play on the spider ropes, feed the goats, and race ducks.  

After 4 hours of being at the orchard playing we decided to stop at my sister house and pick apples in her backyard at her apple tree.  We've never really taken advantage of her wonderful apple tree in the past years but this was the third time we had been there this year.  I guess I am baking more and with Finley eating a lot of purees I just felt like this is the year to take advantage of it more than usual.  Apple picking is so much fun when you get to use the apple picker and since the kids are finally big enough to use it, it's always more fun to pick your own apples.  

Even Finley got an apple to suck on!  No teeth yet, so it was more of a toy, but I guess edible toys are the best toys.

Now that we had a lot of apples we can move onto the crockpot applesauce recipe.  First I washed the sink and then washed all the apples to get the grime off them.  I just fill the sink with water, add 1 c. of vinegar, add in the apples and then let it soak for about 45 minutes.

After all the apples were washed I set up my work station.  I ended up putting an additional step in that I typically haven't done in the past but I decided to dredge the cut apples in lemon/ water mixture.  I now realize after doing it that this is a not need step, but wanted to let you know since the red bowl is in most of the pictures and not in the final recipe. 

First step is to peel all the apples.  Now if you are fortunate enough to have an apple peeler this is a fun step that takes no time at all.  Since I do not have one of those, I peel all the apples with a pairing knife.

Cut the apples into fourths, and cut out the core and seeds.

After all the apples were cut I threw them in my crockpot

adding in the water, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon juice and mixed.

Cook it on high for 4 hours

and viola cooked apples!

We don't know the types of apple tree that my sister has but we know it's a baking apple so all I had to do with the apples was stir it with a spoon or whisk and it was pureed enough for our family.

Oh man I wish you could smell this picture because the smell of fresh hot applesauce is just AMAZING!  The kids and I ended up having a bowl for an after school snack before dividing it and freezing a lot of it for later use.

** Recipe note:  I used about 20-25 small apples, but if you buy some at the store use about half as much (10-12) as the recipe calls for since they tend to be a larger than one's you get from an orchard or tree.

I hope you all try this recipe as it's way better than any applesauce you can buy in the store.  Don't let the peeling the apples discourage you either as it only took me 30 minutes to peel them all.

Enjoy!

Crockpot Applesauce
Makes about 7 cups

20 small or about 10 medium/ large apples, peeled and cored
3/4 c. water
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 Tbsp. lemon juice

Peel all apples, cut the core out of the middle and cut into quarters.  Throw all the apples in a medium to large crockpot.  Add in the water, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon juice and mix around.  Cook on low for 4 hours.  Stir or mash and serve or cool for later use.