Okay who picked cabbage? This is like Brussels Sprouts to me ... how many ways can you prepare cabbage? At first I thought maybe something exotic like chicken and cabbage dumplings with a hot-sweet sauce but then I realized the holidays (and yes, I can say holidays because we celebrate both Chanukah and Christmas in this household), are a mere two weeks away and I have a ton of stuff to do! So again, I opted for the easy way out and you won't believe how easy this is.

Have you ever heard of health salad? I'm not sure if it's an east coast thing a NY thing (read Jewish) or if health salad has pervaded the entire country but for those not in the know, let me explain. It's a whole bunch of vegetables, mixed together, with a sweet, tangy sauce usually served in lieu of coleslaw (no mayo, it lasts longer at picnics). There are probably as many different recipes for health salad as there are delicatessens yet it's one of those things, that while I enjoy it out, I've never made at home ... until now.

Now I've seen health salad made with big chunks of vegetables and I've seen it finely shredded, personally, I prefer the small cut or shred to the big chunks. Luckily, when I was at the market, I saw pre-shredded red cabbage along with a bag of shredded broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and more cabbage - which made easy work of this salad.

Most health salads I've seen also includes cucumbers but I find that cucumbers tend to go quickly and/or get soggy, so I didn't include them in my version. I also like things a bit spicy, so decided to include a bit of crushed red pepper in my dressing. Lastly, lately, I've had this ... fascination ... with fennel. Never having eaten it raw, I decided to incorporate a bit of that into the salad to see how it goes. Anyway, here's the recipe...

Oops, forgot the crushed red pepper in the previous shot - here it is

Ingredients

1/2 RED ONION sliced (I may add a little more next time, if the onion is mild
1/4C fennel, thinly sliced
1 bag of shredded red cabbage
1 bag of shredded veggies like the rainbow salad I bought (including carrots, cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage)
1 bell pepper, thinly sliced (I used yellow but you could use any color)
1/4t salt
1/4t fresh ground black pepper
3.5T cider vinegar
1.5T olive oil
1.5T sugar
large pinch of crushed red pepper (or to your taste)

Directions

Mix all the veggies together in a large bowl. Mix the remaining ingredients together with a whisk until blended, making a dressing. Toss the dressing with the veggies. Cover and chill for at least an hour.

Easy peasy man! Feel free to increase/decrease the dressing as you see fit.

For my Weight Watcher peeps, this came in at 1 points plus for a 4 oz serving. Feel free to count 1/2 a healthy oil when you eat this.