Alisande, while your substitutions sound good to me too, I've made that salad as written. People seem to enjoy it. I think the last time someone asked for it I took it as three separate packages of the three prepared steps inside a large lidded bowl, tossed it at meal time on my SILs boat.

Some time try this: Red Cabbage with Apples and Bacon

I've made it and also had it served in a restaurant.

I know most people eat very differently from me, enjoying lots of fat and sugar, but this recipe seemed to take it to such extremes that I honestly thought it must have been in error. But I'll take your word for it, Morz, that people liked it.

Glenda, I love red cabbage cooked with apples and onions and balsamic vinegar. I'm sure the bacon is a delicious addition, but I can't indulge in it myself.

alisande, when I search on-line for recipes I *always* check the rating and then read the reviews. I've seen instances where people gave a 1-star rating to a recipe and then said "This was the BEST blah blah blah ever, and I made it exactly as written!". ;O) Glad your variations were a hit!

I love red cabbage! I usually make mine with apple, cider vinegar, sugar... and sometimes add ground cloves. The last time I bought a red cabbage it cost just under $5 and it was *tiny*! :(

Alexander, I'm with you about that recipe; I would have steered clear of it entirely. You've got a better imagination than I, that's for sure.

Ah, yes, Alexander must be my masculine alter ego. He splits a lot of wood and likes to cook, but likes cool cars even better. (Hmm.....that sounds familiar.) :-)

LOL, Alexander.

Lol! That's so funny....I just started using my new Kindle (Fire HDX 8.9) and haven't stopped the auto-correct feature yet. I think that I had better do that PRONTO, as I tend to be a careless casual writer.

Did you know that your user name would correct to Alexander?

Haha . . . no, I hadn't thought about it beforehand, but I figured that's what happened. Alexander isn't bad. Could have been worse, I'm sure!

As soon as I see sugar and sunflower/vegetable/canola oil, I move on. I only eat real fats. :) No sugar.

We mainly only eat Cesar Salad.

Lol, what do you consider 'real fats', Debby? I take it that plant derived oils don't qualify? How do you make your Ceasar salad dressing?

What's a "real fat," Debby? Does olive oil count? That's a vegetable oil too. I use it for almost everything, but usually not for baking.

I should probably start buying corn oil. My dad used it in all his cooking (olive oil on salads), and lived to be 90. Neither he nor I could tolerate butter or other animal fats.

I make grilled cheese and ham sandwiches using olive oil.

I like it!

Good idea, Glenda, to use olive oil for grilled cheese sandwiches. The sandwiches are a favorite treat I've been avoiding lately because of trying to eliminate (or greatly reduce) butter.

glenda, I assume that you mean you brush olive oil, rather than butter, on the bread to grill it. hmmmmm.... that sounds interesting. I'd like to try that with something like Italian bread, ham, salami, roasted red peppers, and provolone. I guess I'm hungry. :)

The restaurant that makes my favorite paninis brushes olive oil on their bread (their wonderful bread!). I make paninis at home the same way, but mine aren't quite as good. The restaurant also uses pesto inside the panini instead of mayo or butter. It's so good.....

I go by this picture, although I don't eat lard or tallow.... ;)

Yikes! I didn't know tallow was edible. :-)

But we're all different, and I always say there's no one perfect diet for everyone. If I ate the first five fats in the "Natural" column, I'd be in serious trouble--if I were still alive. And I know this for a fact.

Now that winter's here, I've been mixing avocado oil with my body creams. Great stuff. Previously, I tried it with coconut oil, but when it crossed the skin barrier it gave me chest pains. Too bad, as I love the smell.

The problem with the way people eat today is: we believe low fat diets are the way to go. But when manufacturers remove the fat from food, they have to replace it with something, so they replace it with sugar. Check the carb content of your foods. You'll be amazed at how much carbs and sugar are in your food. And guess what sugar does. It's sticky. It sticks to your arteries. Fat isn't sticky. It's slippery. It doesn't stick to your arteries. EVer since we were told to go low fat high carb, the size of people has increased ridiculously high. But cutting out the right 'bad' stuff reduces peoples fat. Fat doesn't make people fat. Fat doesn't increase cholesterol. Sugar does. The way I eat lowers blood pressure, reduces risk of Alzheimers, reduces cholesterol....... and I've dropped 30 pounds in 3 months. As for the cesar salad dressing, there is a low carb version of it. It's one of the very few processed foods we buy.

I'm with you on the sugar, Debby. The stuff is wicked. Dr. David Servan-Schreiber's solidly researched book, Anti-Cancer, devotes a whole chapter to sugar. Among other things, cancer cells thrive on it.

But the fats are much more of a grey area because again, everyone is different. Dr. Robert Atkins was my MD in NYC. I lost weight on his low-carb, high saturated fat diet, but it raised my cholesterol. Years later I tried low-carb again, but this time eliminated the animal fats. Much better! Lost weight, lowered my cholesterol and blood pressure, and my dangerous triglycerides plummeted.

I always say some bodies can tolerate anything, and that includes sugar. My dad couldn't walk up a subway ramp in his forties without taking nitroglycerin. Back then no one ever heard of cholesterol, but he heard of a doctor who did. This guy was ahead of his time. He had my father give up all saturated fats.

No more cheese, ice cream, sausage, fatty steaks, etc. He gave them up all at once and never looked back, setting an example that served me well later in life. It wasn't long before he didn't need the nitroglycerin anymore. He bought a bicyle, started playing tennis again, and lived to be 90.

But he didn't give up sugar. He and my mother had dessert every night, and cakes were often made from mixes. He loved candy, and Halloween was a favorite time of year. :-)

Sugar didn't clog his arteries, and it didn't give him diabetes. However, I can't say the same for me. I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic in my twenties, with wide swings in blood sugar, plus there were those awful triglyceride levels I mentioned earlier (547 at one point).

I suspect I inherited some difficult genes from my maternal grandmother (who died at 43 from a heart attack) in addition to some genes from the diabetic side of the family. So I stay away from sugar--and feel much better for it.

When a doctor's office asks what pills I take, and I tell them I take none, they're likely to say, "Aren't you lucky!" Then I say, "No, it's not luck."

Everything in moderation, goes the saying. But for me, I have to avoid sugar because it's a "trigger food" that leads to more food, especially sugar and fat combinations. I'm trying to avoid being a victim of overabundance where sugar and fat are relatively cheap and readily available, but it's not always easy. Sugar is in so many foods, keeping the palate attuned to its "normality."

I have an old oily/sugar recipe for French Dressing, and it's delicious.