Did I Mention Picnic-Obsessed? Pork and Apple Koftas

Now that we’ve given up on packing healthy picnic dinners for swim meets – and now that swim season is very nearly over anyway – we’re onto packing healthy picnic dinners for evening concerts at the zoo. On Wednesday evenings during the summer the zoo hosts concerts with a variety of local musicians, although mostly we just look at it as an excuse to have yet another picnic dinner and walk around looking at the animals after the worst of the day’s heat has passed. We invariably run into people we know (last week, a friend and 2 cousins from different sides of the family). These events have also gotten more fun since they opened up a beer tent, but you didn’t hear that from me….

The view from my front window

Let me take a minute here and do a shameless plug for the zoo; it's one of the many things in the metro Detroit area that really doesn't get credit for being as extremely awesome as it is. Since I have kids and we like to go on vacations, we've been to a fair number of zoos in the last decade. I would compare ours favorably to just about all of them. They've added some great events and updated the animal enclosures and generally made it a very nice place to spend a day; and by adding this concert series on weeknights, they've given all the busy working parents a way to hang out there without the crazy weekend crowds. I also live across the street from the zoo, so it's been nice to have somewhere to walk without having to deal with cars and traffic and such; I walked there with Anna every single week the winter after she was born (winter is a great time to go - the animals are very active and the docents will tell you all sorts of juicy stories. At one point I knew waaaay too much about the polar bear love triangle). 

This particular recipe is a variation on what we refer to as “Anna Kabobs” and most cookbooks would call “shish kafta.” I’d love to attribute this to whoever created it, but I can’t find the link David sent me and the printed page doesn’t have any source information on it. It’s even less effort than our usual lamb version, and it cooks up just fine in a skillet if, for some mysterious reason, you actually don’t have the time or inclination to light your grill, cook your dinner, and pack it up to eat somewhere else. If you’re lucky enough to be picnicking somewhere that has a grill, make these up in advance and you will be a Picnic Superhero.

Pork and Apple Koftas

1 lb ground pork

2 cloves of garlic, crushed, or 1 teaspoon jarred garlic paste

¼ cup applesauce (the individual serving-sized cups are perfect for this)

1 bag cabbage and carrot coleslaw (or chop your own)

3 (or more) tablespoons mayonnaise

Splash of lime juice

Mix the pork, garlic, and applesauce together, then shape around skewers (this recipe should give you 12). If skewers feel too fussy (or you’ve forgotten to soak them)(or you’re making these in a skillet), shape the meat as you would if there was a skewer involved. Or into a meatball. Really, it’s a picnic – anything in an easy-to-pick-up-without-utensils shape is fine.

Start your grill or heat your skillet and brush it with a little olive oil. Cook the meat for 8-10 minutes, turning several times, until well-browned and cooked all the way through.

In the meantime, mix the coleslaw with the mayo and lime juice, adjusting to taste.

Serving suggestion: get some of the garlic dip they serve at Middle Eastern restaurants (our local fruit market carries it in the refrigerator case) and serve it with the koftas. The coleslaw really does make a difference here, so don’t be tempted to skip it – it goes very well with this dish.

Chop Chop: a Main-Dish Cabbage Salad for Picnics

For 3 months of every year our entire lives revolve around the city swim team, which includes daily practice and 1-2 meets per week once school lets out. We’re champion picnic-packers, so I think it’s just a little sad that we finally bowed to the ceaseless badgering and started letting the kids buy food at the concession stand during meets. There’s a “healthy snacks” table but really they’re all about chili cheese dogs and Gatorade and Ring Pops for dinner. (I just keep reminding myself of the mantra of toddler parents: It’s what they eat in the course of a week that counts….)

Possibly I’ve mentioned previously how very much we love our picnic basket? After experimenting with a few different types, we settled on a rolling suitcase sort of thing, complete with a telescoping handle. A second case attaches to the front of the insulated cooler part, and contains plates, silverware, wine glasses, cloth napkins, a cheese board, salt and pepper shakers, and so on. It’s nice not having to scramble around looking for paper plates before we leave or figure out how to serve something with no spoons, and the amount of garbage generated at any given picnic is minimal; also we feel very glamorous and well-prepared for any picnic eventuality.

This picnic cooler sees some pretty intense usage over the course of the summer including – until very recently – at swim meets, where we would pack more-or-less the same dinner we’d be eating at home. As a result we have a pretty extensive repertoire of picnic-friendly foods, main dish salads, and such (including one that I love so much, I blogged it twice)(oops). This particular recipe has appeared on our dinner plates no less than 5 times in the last month, as it’s an excellent base for just about anything you have hanging around in the fridge or pantry as well as being a great side dish as-is. I’m posting it in honor of the last swim meet of the regular season, which is tonight (and which will *not* feature this salad; see above re: concession stand and chili cheese dogs).

A note about the cabbage: Fer cryin’ out loud, just buy a head of cabbage and cut it up. It’s not that much work, and the pre-shredded stuff in packages always tastes like the cabbage equivalent of iceberg lettuce. This has never lasted more than 24 hours in our house, but I expect that it would keep reasonably well for the better part of a week.

As are so many other favorite recipes, this is from Mark Bittman; in this case, “Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating,” which is also a very good and accessible read on healthy eating that isn’t preachy.

Chopped Cabbage Salad

1 small head cabbage, cored and chopped (not necessarily shredded, just chop it like lettuce)

2 stalks celery, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

½ red onion, minced

1/3 cup olive oil

2-3 tablespoons vinegar or lemon juice (white wine vinegar or similar is very good here)

Salt and pepper

If you have time, put the cabbage in a colander, toss with a couple of teaspoons of salt, and let it sit for an hour or so, pressing once or twice to get the liquid out. If you haven’t planned that far in advance, feel free to skip this step.

Combine all the vegetables in a bowl, grind some pepper over the top, and toss with the olive oil and vinegar. Check the seasonings and adjust to suit your own taste (if you salted the cabbage previously, it’s almost certainly salty enough).

Other things we’ve put on this salad: avocado; leftover chicken; canned chickpeas; feta cheese; peas; any other leftover veggies in the fridge, including bell peppers, radishes, and tomatoes. We’ve also thrown it into pita bread with shawarma. You could try different kinds of oils and vinegars to change the taste, though we’ve been very happy with it as is.