This side dish was inspired by a beautiful food photo I saw in the November issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. I would love to be able take beautiful food photos like the ones in magazines. I’m not there yet, but it’s a lot of fun practicing.
Cabbage, pear, gorgonzola and walnuts sounded like a really good combination of flavours. As you can see from the photo, I also added beets because I happened to have them. I only had a few walnuts so I added pecans too. I think the walnuts work better.
Ingredients:
1 head of cabbage
4 pears
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 tsp cajun spice or paprika (optional)
1/3 cup Gorgonzola (or blue cheese)
1/3 cup walnuts
Cut the head of cabbage into 8 wedges. Blanche the wedges in salted boiling water for literally a minute. Cover the surface area of each wedge with a little olive oil. I poured a little olive oil on a plate and dredged the wedges in it. That way every part of the cabbage gets coated evenly. Sprinkle each wedge with a little salt and pepper. Place them on your baking sheet. I like to cover my baking sheet with parchment paper; it makes clean up later a breeze.
Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven. Turn the cabbage wedges over. Add your slices of pear and walnuts. Cook for another 15 minutes. Remove from the oven. Have a little taste to see if the cabbage is cooked through. If it is, go ahead and add your bite size pieces of gorgonzola and bake for another 5 minutes or just long enough to warm the cheese a little bit.
You can even prep this dish ahead of time and bake just before your guests arrive. We had it as a side with sirloin steak tonight, but you could serve it as a stand alone dish. It’s that good.
Enjoy!