Last weekend, after hearing the weather forecast, I took off for the grocery store like a Georgian anticipating a one-inch snowfall.  I was not alone.  The park lot was full.  I grabbed an abandoned cart from an outbound customer and joined shoppers playing bumper carts in the produce section.  They were beady-eyed and intent, not at all like the aisle roamers I  encounter on Wednesdays. Fortunately, I wasn’t there to do a major grocery shopping.  I  just wanted to get the ingredients I needed to try out several recipes.

But as I watched my fellow shoppers, preparing for the next Ice Age, I broadened my scope.  By the time I pulled into my garage, I had purchased enough staples to survive a blizzard of epic proportions, if need be.

I started my cooking adventure with a salad recipe, one that would pair nicely with the chili I was thawing.  It’s a recipe for Asian Slaw that made the rounds a few years ago, but recently reappeared on the Internet and for good reason.  Besides being tasty, it’s good for you.  The dressing goes together quickly in the blender and works with any number of different vegetables.

I had all the ingredients for the dressing: honey, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, peanut butter, Sriracha, fresh ginger, and garlic. It was the slaw that required the store trip.  It calls for cabbage, red pepper, carrots, edamame, green onions, cilantro, and peanuts.

The hardest part was chopping the vegetables, which is why getting the pre-cut slaw or veggie mixes would make this a breeze.  But since I wanted to alter the ratio of vegetables to suit my preference, I by-passed the packaged mixes.

Here’s the recipe.  This particular one comes from Once Upon a Chef, but there are a number of other takes on the same dish, including one from Guy Fieri, Alton Brown, and Martha.

What makes this dish special is the dressing.  You can vary the veggies to suit your taste, but the dressing gives the zing.  I made just one change in the recipe: I lessened the amount of fresh ginger from 1 Tablespoon to 1 teaspoon, simply because I don’t care for a strong gingery taste.  And I used the food processor rather than a whisk.  It worked fine.

It takes a mere 10 minutes for the vegetables to meld with the dressing.  The rest is heavenly.