Weekend BBQs

This past weekend my friend hosted a BBQ at her house, and I jumped at the chance to make some new recipes! My personal favorite was the spicy peanut slaw, but everyone loved the corn salad- a recommendation from LR, the super-dietitian!

Here are the recipes

(Sorry for the crappy corn salad picture, that must have been taken after I had a beer or two... my critical assessment of photograph quality was amiss...)

Macque Choux ("Mock-Shoe")

Recipe from Eating Well, August 2008

Adjusted for how I made it, quantities doubled from original recipe

Serves 20 at about 1/2 cup each

95 calories/serving

2T EVOO

1/2 of a large vidalia onion

1 Red bell pepper, diced

1T chopped jarred garlic

20oz Frozen sweet corn (recipe called for fresh corn, but my local market did not have any great looking ears... thus the corn was a bit more mushy than I would have liked)

1/3c water

2 Medium tomatoes, chopped

5 scallions, green parts sliced thinly

1tsp fresh chopped thyme

1tsp cayenne pepper

Salt to taste

Heat oil in pan, add onion and cook until onion softens (~2min)

Add bell pepper and garlic and cook another 2 min more

Add corn and water and cook until tender crisp (mine was never...) about 5 min more

Remove from heat, and stir in tomato scallions, thyme and cayenne.

Confetti Cabbage Salad with Spicy Peanut Dressing

Cook's Illustrated

Again, estimated serving 20

68 calories/serving

32 oz shredded cabbage and carrots (Bagged variety. The chefs at CI would be very disappointed- there are explicit directions to slice fresh cabbage and add salt to wilt it for up to four hours...)

4T smooth peanut butter

2T Walnut oil

1T Canola oil

1T Toasted sesame oil (recipe called for all peanut oil- but I didn't have any... this seemed to work well enough

4T rice vinegar

2T soy sauce

2t honey

1t chopped garlic (jarred)

1.5in piece of ginger, peeled and chopped

1 Jalapeno chili

6 scallions, green and white parts sliced thinly

Salt to taste

Lime juice (1/2 lime)

1/2 lime for decoration

Dump bags of cabbage into bowl

Puree the remainder of ingredients in a food processor

Add dressing to cabbage, stir

Add lime juice, and lime

(so easy, right?!)

Enjoy!