Oven Roasted Cabbage

Cabbage: it's not just for St. Patrick's Day! Oven roasted cabbage is a surprisingly simple, tasty, and inexpensive winter side dish.  

There are only four ingredients.  Cabbage, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Shred the cabbage. I tried using a food processor but found it to be faster to use a knife.  

Bonus:  less equipment to clean up.

Place shredded cabbage in a large bowl and drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Stir to coat. It’s going to look like a lot, but it cooks way down. And you'll wish you had cooked two heads. Ok, maybe one will be plenty.

Layer it all on a baking pan and cook at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Stir occasionally to cook evenly.

There should be plenty of brown bits when it's done. The brown bits are the best part.

This stuff is good. Really good.

1 head shredded cabbage

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Toss all ingredients together and spread evenly on a baking sheet. Roast for 20-30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so to make sure everything is cooked evenly.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is an old, old recipe from my old, old Betty Crocker's Cooky Book ( ©1963)! I like it for a couple reasons - first, because it isn't attached to any one brand of chocolate chips, and second, because it makes about 3 dozen, using a 6 oz bag of chocolate chips.  Which just happens to be the size of the bags of the Scharffenberger chocolate chips, and is plenty of cookies for Ian and me.  You should double this recipe if you are using a regular (12-14 oz) bag of chips.

2/3 cup shortening (part butter or margarine) -- I use 1/2 cup plain Crisco, plus 2-2/3 tablespoons of butter.

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 six-oz package semi-sweet chocolate pieces (1 cup)

1/2 cup chopped nuts (I usually omit these - Ian doesn't like them and I don't care)

1. Preheat oven to 375ºF (quick mod).  (use 350º if you have a convection oven combo)
2. Mix shortening, sugars, egg, and vanilla thoroughly.
3. Stir dry ingredients together (add 1/4 cup more of flour for a more rounded, softer cooky) and blend in.
4. Mix the nuts (if using) and chocolate pieces in.
5. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of dough about 2" apart on an ungreased baking sheet.
6. Bake 8-10 minutes, or until delicately browned (cookies should still be soft)
7. Cool slightly before removing from baking sheets.
8. Makes 4 to 5 dozen 2" cookies (I only get 3 dozen, but I think they are bigger than this)

Thanks to Susannah Skyer Gupta for the lovely photo (above) she took of the cookies she made (with nuts) using this recipe.