Napa Cabbage Salad & Blondie Bars

Brad's Granny* makes this salad that I can never get enough of.  There will be an entire counter full of yummy foods and this is what I end of going back for seconds of.

She's been making it for some time and I've been loving it and I started to rave about it to all of his siblings.  Turns out they'd all been skipping it for other dishes but my constant gushing was enough to make them try it and now all of us girls love this salad.  We'd go to family dinner at Granny's just hoping she's make this salad.  Well it turns out Jolayne is the smart one of the bunch and she finally called Granny and got the recipe.  It would be a shame to not share it with you.

Keep in mind I was in a little bit of a hurry so there are less photos than usual.

Take a large Napa cabbage and chop into nice thin strips, like so

Then you're going to add a large red pepper, diced nice and small and a bunch of green onions, also chopped up (chop them on an angle, they'll look so much better).  The recipe calls for two bunches but that really seemed like a lot to me so I only used one.  Give everything a toss and you have this.

Next to a saucepan add 1/4 cup butter (the recipe calls for margarine but I prefer to use butter), 1 cup slivered almonds and 1 pkg raman noodles, crunched up.

You're going to cook this on a warm heat, not hot because you don't want to burn your butter.  The goal is to make everything nice and toasty, doesn't this look yummy?

 When it's browned pour it over your cabbage mix and give it a toss.

Now it's time to combine your sauce.  The recipe gives the ingredients and then says to use half on the salad and save the other half for another day, that seemed silly to me so instead I cut the recipe in half and used all of it.

Combine the seasoning from the noodles, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, 1 minced garlic clove, 1 tsp soy sauce and half of 1/3 of a cup of sugar (I couldn't be bothered to convert that into something easier to measure, I just eyeballed it).  Put all these in some sort of jar and give it a good shake.  Toss onto your salad, mix really well and let sit at least half an hour before you serve.

I took this to a ward potluck dinner where there were lots of people in attendance.  Everyone was asked to bring a salad and a dessert so you can imagine there was tons of food.  At the end of the evening I went to retrieve my bowl, there were lots of bowls half full of remaining salad yet mine was completely gone, and this makes a lot of salad.  It's that good.


While I was busy making the salad Brad worked on our Dessert.

 

Ages ago I'd grabbed this recipe for Blondie Bars from Cookie and Cups.  I had yet to make them but this was the perfect excuse.   I won't go into details because her blog is awesome except to say that when they came out of the oven they looked like this.  Lovely except do you see how we're running over the side?  Apparently my baking sheet didn't have a large enough rim.  Next time I'll bake some of the batter in a small dish to prevent this from happening again.  I think it would also help them cook just a little more evenly.

These were awesome bars that we'll definitely make again.  They were also a big hit and while many people took dessert home these were all gone.  Lucky for us the entire pan wouldn't fit in my container so we have some left to snack on today.


Napa Cabbage Salad

Salad Ingredients:
1 large Napa Cabbage
1 large Red Pepper
2 bunches Green Onion (I used 1 instead)

¼ cup Margarine (I used butter)
1 cup Slivered Almonds
1 pkg Raman Noodles, with seasoning

Dressing Ingredients: (I cut all of these in half)
1 cup Vegetable Oil (I used Olive oil)
½ cup Red Wine Vinegar
2 Garlic Cloves, minced
2 tsp Soy Sauce
1/3 cup Splenda (or Sugar)

Directions:

Slice cabbage very thinly.  Chop pepper and onions into small pieces.  Place vegetables in a large bowl

Crush noodles.  Melt margarine in a warm (not hot) skillet.  Add noodles and almonds and sauté ‘til toasted – stirring constantly. Be careful not to burn.  Add noodles and almonds to vegetables.

In a bottle with a lid, combine the dressing ingredients.  Shake to mix.

Pour ½ of dressing (or less) over salad at least 30 minutes before serving.  Refrigerate remaining dressing for another batch (or for use on another salad).


Go here for the Blondie Bar recipe


*I've decided I want to be a Granny.  Granny's are cool, they make the best buns, they sew, they make cookies.  I've decided I'll be a Granny, not a Grandma.