This past weekend, it was Thanksgiving here in Canada. I will be the first to admit that I’m not a “turkey with all the trimmings” sort of girl. My partner and I slow-cooked chorizo sausages and made tacos to mark the occasion. It’s not that I find any one holiday dish to be particularly offensive. I just find traditional holiday fare to be a little, well, overwhelming. It’s a lot at once. For example, I could practically live off of mashed potatoes, but on a plate with stuffing, turkey, ham (sometimes), and every other root vegetable known to man, it’s easy to lose track of those heavenly taters. When it comes to heavy holiday meals, sometimes your palette just needs a break, and today’s Shaved Fennel Honeycrisp Salad is that break. 

Cabbage is one of my favorite ingredients, which I realize might be a bit surprising. I feel like cabbage gets a bad rap. People tend to love it shaved raw in salads or towering atop pork tonkatsu but it’s far from crave-able. Most people associate cooked cabbage with limp, odorous soup or as a component of the forever polarizing boiled dinner.  But a head of cabbage is always a good thing to have on hand. It has a good shelf life, a single head can be stretched across multiple meals, it’s crisp and crunchy raw, and buttery when cooked. If you’re not so sure about that last part, allow me to show you the light via this Warm Red Cabbage Salad. This dish will dispel the smelly cooked cabbage myth and replace it will a food memory you’ll want to hold on to. So let’s get started!