It's Summer So It's Slaw

I'm not so much a fan of most mayo-based cole slaws because it's so easy to go way overboard with the mayo. I like just enough mayo to hold things together a bit. I don't like my cabbage doin' the backstroke in mayonnaise while I'm trying to eat it.



With all due respect and acknowledging that we all have our own foodie quirks, no, I wouldn't eat this- I just can't get past all that mayo.
Image via Kitchen Scrapbook

Not a big mayo gal. Potato salad rarely- just the way my mom makes it (the kind with the vinegar, not mayo- I'll share it with you some time). Chicken salad only if the cook is extremely judicious with the mayo. Egg salad and macaroni salad- under no circumstances. Cole slaw- again, gotta go with mom's on this. Except that I have been trying out some new cole slaw recipes this summer. Red cabbage slaw- excellent. And this nice little recipe I tried recently from Taste of the South Magazine. I picked up a copy of their special edition for the summer, Southern Favorites, and that's where I got this recipe for Bell Pepper Slaw.



Image via Taste of the South





The magazine has a nice photo of the slaw in a jar and the directions actually say to mix it in a big glass jar. Well, my big glass jar is a plastic juice jug so I did this in a bowl.















Before we start, let me make a comment about the photos in today's post. I decided to blog this after I started making the slaw and since one camera was on the third floor and the other had a dead battery, I went with Hipstamatic on the iPhone. It was an experiment. Y'all are into that, right?


So, let's get this slaw under way. You need:


1 (10-ounce) bag angel-hair slaw mix
1 large red bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
1 large green bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
1 large orange bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
1 large yellow bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
1 large purple bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
1 cup grape tomatoes, sliced
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup white-wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons dried oregano

The magazine instructions say to put the slaw, peppers, and tomatoes in a glass lidded jar and shake to mix. OK- well. I put them in my old faithful big white mixing bowl.



I could not find purple bell pepper so I used a quarter head of red cabbage.

Don't forget the tomatoes, though if I made this again, maybe I would. Depends on my mood.

Lots of colors for your plate with this slaw!

I did use a quart canning jar to mix up the dressing. Shake it up good and hard, then pour it over the veggies.

There you go- one colorful slaw.

What would I do differently? Well, this recipe makes up a great big batch of slaw- just so you know. Maybe leave one of the peppers out (I know, I know) or use half of each kind if you don't need to feed the entire army. The three of us ate slaw for a couple of days. I tried to slice the bells as thinly as possible and sometimes that turned out better than others but I think I would chop them up a bit. The long slices were somewhat cumbersome to get on the fork and into my mouth- maybe that's just me. And I'm sort of on the fence about the grape tomatoes- they are nice but this slaw would be fine without. Finally, the dressing seemed to need ..... something. Definitely use fresh basil and if not, add some good ol' slaw stand by- celery seed.

Oh don't get me wrong, it's a nice recipe and it made it onto the Keeper list.

Just look how colorful and visually pleasing it is on the plate, even with some of that garish Hipstomatic filter knocked back.

And my husband's grilled chicken ain't nothin' to sniff at either. So try this recipe- let me know what you think.

Gosh- can you believe we're winding down the to the end of our summer? Pretty soon I will start to see little groups of Monarch butterflies gathering in the yard slurping greedily at the feeder, stocking up, or short little trains of them flittering past on their way to Mexico. I wanna go too!

Thanks for alighting here beside me today- y'all know I appreciate each visitor to the jungle. See next time for a glass of milk. Oh, no wait, for milk glass.