~~Tempting the Tastebuds~~

I love trying these new veggies and this one is I think going to be a favorite, Napa Cabbage, my husband kept calling it nappy cabbage, not a clue....

Anyway I kept thinking when I've seen it before it had something to do with that region of the U.S. called Napa Valley, but no it is a oriental veggie. It is known as celery cabbage and is a type of Chinese cabbage originating in the Bejiing area of China.

It is widely used in Asian foods and used in Japan, China, and Korea. It can be used in any recipe that calls for cabbage and has a mild flavor. In Korea they use it to make Kimchi.

It is a fall veggie like regular cabbage at least in our neck of the woods, and from what I've read grow very fast.

When we first used this we cut them end off and the leaves just fell away, this made it very easy to clean. The first thing we did with the 1 cabbage we had was make Cabbage Rolls, they are a standard thing that hubby and Ashley asked for. She was making dinner and she chose to make these. Now usually when you make these the cabbage leaves do not come off easily, but with this cabbage it was much easier to roll the meatballs into the leaves.

At the same meal I sauteed chopped up cabbage with bacon a southern treat I have loved for years. I didn't notice a difference in flavor from head cabbage and it was tasty.

Next we needed to try something new instead of old standards so we tried this recipe:

Sweet and Spicy Pork, Napa Cabbage, and spicy noodles

This recipe was good instead of pork we used some of our homegrown turkey, and we used wheat spaghetti noodles since this is what we had on hand. We also used homegrown cayenne peppers we grew this summer and dryed. I just ran them thru my smoothie blender and made hot pepper flakes with them. Other changes we used olive oil for the oils like "sesame seed oil" and a "cooking oil", arrowroot instead of cornstarch, and hot pepper sauce instead of chili sauce since this is what I had.

Now I think next time I will hunt down the dry Chinese noodles the recipe suggests and add more cabbage than called for. Otherwise it was very good the noodles just took away a little. It reminded me of LoMein actually without the MSG of course.

How do you like your Napa Cabbage?

Love,

Erika

Next: Horseradish....this is a hubby thing he wants to make his own sauce.