186: Cabbage and Squash

As I sliced up my cabbage for the tuna salad, an idea stuck. I had a quarter of an acorn squash left over from risotto in my fridge- a vaguely fall flavor to be paired with another vaguely fall flavor. I was inspired by my balsamic braised cabbage dish a while back, but determined to nudge it to a more savory place. I'm not sure I succeeded, but I was happy to use up these ingredients, and I have a few ideas if I wanted to try this again.

Ingredients:

1/2 small head red cabbage, quartered, cored and sliced latitudinally into thin strips

1/4 acorn squash, peeled, seeded and sliced into 1/4" in cubes

1/2 onion, sliced thin

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 sprigs of rosemary

~ salt, pepper, apple cider vinegar

Began with the onions, squash and a little salt and oil in a pan. Sweat those for a few minutes, then added my cabbage and rosemary. Cooked this down until the cabbage and squash were nicely soft. Added pepper and a little cider vinegar to help brighten it up.

I didn't like it the night of- tasted too sweet for my mood and heavy on the vinegar- or maybe I was too stuffed up. But the next day it had mellowed out nicely. May still try a lighter touch or a different brightening agent if I were to try again. Or maybe there's something inherently too cloying about cooked down red cabbage- I had a similar problem with the balsamic dish I'd mentioned earlier but blamed it on the vinegar, but now I'm not so sure. Trials for another day.