Cole Slaw With Ginger Dressing

My favorite cold meal on a hot, humid day is a fresh cole slaw slathered with a tangy orange ginger dressing. I don't measure but try to keep the proportions, and load it up with ginger and garlic. The next key ingredient is frozen orange juice concentrate. But half-way through the mixing I discovered that I was using grapefruit juice. Talk about a gnarly taste, I had to break down and add some turbinado (a raw cane sugar product). After some doctoring with rice wine, onion powder and salt it turned out pretty good. After marinading the green and red cabbage for an hour I started eating it topped with sunflower seeds. A very nutritious, tasty, and CHEAP vegan meal. When I'm energetic, I add shredded carrots and whatever else may be on sale.

If you ever eat in a good Japanese style restaurant and order the salad with ginger dressing it is usually made with an orange juice base. But I've had a hard time finding a recipe that replicates my favorite. So I've got a Word document with over a hundred recipes that I'm trying. Back in Pennsylvania I would buy the dressing from my favorite restaurant, but out here in the boondock of Rolla, Missouri the options are slimmer.

Another problem I'm trying to solve is finding a better way to process the ginger and garlic. I left my garlic press somewhere and I miss it. So I've acquired a couple of gadgets to try out. Ginger is the hardest to process because it is so stringy. I end up cutting thin slices, then making tiny julienne strips to make a tiny dice. But I wish there was an electronic gadget that would take the ginger and the garlic and grate or mince them together. Believe me, I looked. My requirements are that the gadget has to be worth packing in my van as well as be very easy to clean. I found a small mandoline that is made handle garlic, and should work with ginger. It has a device to hold the object to be shredded, to protect the hand.

Which is a good topic for vanpacking, the kinds of kitchen items you should carry in order to eat healthy on a budget. My strategy includes a small cutting board and a few good knives, at the minimum. I only need one board because I don't use them for meat.

Processing

I think I got it now. I took two weeks off of the software project from hell and got some things accomplished, including a vacation and handling personal goals. I paid $2500 cash for a very small but well laid out and well maintained mobile home on a permanent site, with a lot rent of $95 a month. The utilities are about $35-100 a month depending upon the season. The owner of the mobile home park is getting out of the rental market, so it was a matter of timing. The outside isn't pretty, but the view from inside is spectacular. It is next door to the $2000 trailer my oldest friend obtained, so this makes a great permanent address for less than $200 a month, in a quiet community.

With the van paid for and well maintained, and my lifestyle suitably downsized, I'm ready to tackle my own plans for writing and traveling, living out of the van. It's time.