"Left Over" coleslaw

Tonight  I made coleslaw out of bits and pieces of stuff I found in my refrigerator.  Literally!  This coleslaw has sugar snap peas,  red and yellow peppers, fennel bulb, daikon, carrots, red onions, bok choy, and radicchio.  In fact, just about the only thing it doesn't have, is cabbage! 

I pulled out bits of vegetables left over from previous nights, julienned everything and tossed them in a bowl.  I made a simple dressing with pomegranate-infused red wine vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, and olive oil.  I was really happy with the way it turned out and will probably use this method to clean out my refrigerator again.  I think next time, I might add some raisins, or other dried fruit.

I sprinkled chopped peanuts on my serving.  (The only reason I didn't add them to the whole salad is because my husband and son don't like peanuts in their food.  Imagine that!)

So, why am I blogging about something as boring as coleslaw?  Because the salmon I made to go with it (which was my intended topic) turned out to be a disaster!  A friend of mine gave me some planks which she told me she uses to grill salmon.  I thought they'd be just the thing to grill my bourbon-teriyaki glazed salmon.

I soaked the planks in water for about an hour and a half prior to putting them on the grill.  I had a bit of a problem with this as the planks floated.  In order to keep them submerged, I had to weight them down.  But, I devised an ingenious method to do this so didn't anticipate any problems with the grilling.

My planks weren't on the grill 3 minutes when they burst into flames.  I would have taken pictures so that you could have a good, hardy laugh at my expense, but I was too busy trying to save my fish and didn't have time to go searching for the camera!  It was a mess! 

I had to quickly remove the fish to the grill, where they got stuck and consequently fell apart when I tried to remove them.  And then I had to remove the planks and find a place to toss them where they wouldn't cause any damage.  I share this story with you so that you won't think all my adventures in the kitchen are unqualified successes!