Good Thing

It's a good thing I don't live closer to Farmers Market. My vegetable bin isn't big enough to hold everything that catches my eye. The pictured here are the cucumbers, avocados, cilantro, and peaches. The cucumbers and avocados are going into a chilled soup. the cilantro will get together with some toasted pecans, and garlic and become a delicious pesto. Who needs meat when you have vegetables.

Leftovers Galore

Faced with the propagation of plastic containers in my refrigerator, it was time for creative cooking. Here's what I had:

chicken, grilled and sliced

sliced sweet peppers, cucumbers, oinions

cooked brown rice

black beans

tortillas

You probably don't have to go much further to guess that I threw it all together into an enchilada-like casserole.

I opened a can of diced tomatoes and heated them together with dried ancho chilies (diced), cumin, and coriander.

I heated the tortillas on the gas burner.

I topped the tortilla with some shredded cheese, grilled chicken, black beans, rice and the sliced peppers and onions.

Leftovers all wrapped up, topped with the sauce and some more cheese.

Since most of the ingredients were warmed before being wrapped, the enchiladas did take long to bake in the oven... maybe 20 minutes. The end result was a good dinner with leftovers for lunch. Leftover leftovers...that's funny.

Sweet and Spicy Cabbage Salad

Spicy, sweet, crunchy, fresh. Perfect for summer. I found this recipe on Joy the Baker's blog and it has become one of my favorite summer salads. Next time I'm going for a whole teaspoon of red pepper flakes instead of a half.

Sweet and Spicy Cabbage Salad

Recipe from joythebaker.com adapted from Bon Appetit

2 lbs shredded cabbage

3 medium carrots, grated

1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced

1/3 cup chopped scallions

1 3/4 teaspoons fine grain salt

1/4 cup honey vinegar or apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup sugar

2 tbls peeled and grated ginger

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes.

Toss together cabbage, carrots, bell pepper, scallions and salt in a large bowl. Let stand until cabbage is slightly wilted, about 5 minutes.

Bring vinegar, sugar, grated ginger and red pepper flakes to a boil in a small saucepan, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Pour over cabbage mixture. Toss to coat.