An excuse for mayonnaise...

For me, the Fourth of July is all about mayonnaise. After patriotism and celebrating my personal freedom, of course. This coleslaw recipe is so easy and tastes amazing. Amazing!

Time Saver: You can buy pre-shredded cabbage but fresh is so much better and a snap to chop. Pre-shredded carrot is probably worth it. One of the few things I hate doing is trying to slice carrots into nice little pieces. They always end up super chunky.

Ingredients:
3-4 cups cabbage, sliced into strips (3 cups is standard, add more if the dressing seems too intense)
1 carrot, sliced or shredded
1/4 red onion, sliced thin
1/2 red bell pepper, sliced thin
2 green apples, sliced
Dressing:
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 T. lemon juice
1 t. vinegar (I use white balsalmic or red wine vinegar)
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Put the cabbage in a large bowl. Sprinkle with a pinch or two of salt, mix, then let sit half an hour. Some of the water comes out and you can soak it up with paper towels. I've skipped this step a few times and it hasn't been a huge issue.

2. Mix all of the dressing ingredients together, along with a pinch of salt and pepper.

3. Mix everything together. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed. Refrigerate until ready to serve. It tastes better after a few hours in the fridge.

See, painless and delicious. You will die for the dressing.

The perfect recipe

This is my one absolutely perfect recipe. After probably hours of research, it came out just right. Almost the whole recipe came from Dangerous Kitchen: http://www.felixcabosanlucas.com/news24.htm. All of the chopping in this recipe puts me into a peaceful trance. Just relax and the time passes by, and at the end you are rewarded with an excellent soup.

Time Saver: You can use pre-made chicken broth and a rotisserie chicken (or two). If you do, I suggest adding a little fat from the rotisserie chicken (maybe boil the skin in the broth for a few minutes with some frozen corn), because life is short and fat tastes good.


Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
1 cup frozen corn
4 cloves garlic, papers removed
1 onion rough chopped
4 quarts of water
8-10 dried guajillo chilies (in the mexican spices section)
boiling water
5 carrots, chopped
5 potatoes (I use gold), chopped
cilantro
Toppings: tortilla chips, cheese, avocado, cilantro, green onions, sour cream

Steps:
1. Place the chicken, garlic, onion, and corn in a large pot with 4 quarts of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer, and simmer about 1 hour.
2. Run a knife down each chili to open the skin. Remove the seeds and veins. Pour boiling water over the chilies, just enough to cover them. Let sit ~ 1 hour.
3. Start a pot of water boiling. Add carrots, potatoes, and onions. Boil until al dente, which means not mushy according to Felix. :-) I can't remember how long this takes, but I usually start pulling pieces out after they boil for about 10 minutes, and stab them with a fork. You want them not hard, but not falling apart either.
4. At this point the stock and chilies are usually done. Remove the chicken from the stock and strain the liquid. If you feel there is too much fat on top, strain some of it off with a spoon. Return to the big pot. Start adding pinches of salt until it tastes good. If it tastes watery, you need more salt. Add pepper to taste.
5. Shred the chicken meat.
6. Remove the chilies from the water (keep the water!), and puree with a blender or food processor. Add enough water for it to make a paste.
7. Add the chicken, chili paste, and veggies to the stock. Add a few handfuls of cilantro. Bring to a boil. Turn off the heat, let rest for a few minutes, and taste again to see if you need more salt and pepper.
8. Pour the soup into bowls and add toppings

Buen provecho!

Cooking for Sanity

The title of my blog "Cooking For Sanity" is a pretty flashy version of the truth. I'm not teetering on the edge of crazy, life in one hand over the void, and a spatula in the other anchoring me to solid ground. While writing this blog, I thought it might be the control that I crave. But control in cooking is an illusion (the cake that collapses into a depressed looking verison of itself, an over spinkled sprinkle of cayenne).

Maybe it's the creativity, the sense of satisfaction, or one of many other reasons that I'm sure at least dozens of food bloggers on this site have mentioned already. What I do know is that I have an overwhelming compulsion to cook. I work full time, take care of my baby and too many pets. Despite this, I cook daily, except for the occassional night off when I exhuastedly eat a bowl of cereal.

Miraculously, adding the burden of cooking to my complicated life makes me happier. I get a build up of energy in the morning, brainstorm about recipes at lunch, run to the grocery store for ideas to finesse what I've come up with, chopping, boiling, seasoning. And the final, relieving moment when I get to eat something fresh and tasty, not a restaurant dish that tricks you with a healthy headline but is sprayed with oil and salt and other things that make me feel sick for hours after. That moment is a serious high for me.

Although I get the feeling that my family and friends think I'm at least a little bit strange (but they imply it so, so gently), they have all been incredibly supportive and happily eat most of my creations. This blog is a way for me to post both recipes and photos in a place where friends and family can see them. A few have asked and I'm sure a few more don't care, but hopefully it will be fun. Even better, maybe it will help me cook a little less...riiiiight. :-)