Showing posts with label St. Patrick's Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St. Patrick's Day. Show all posts
Irish Potato Torte for St. Patrick's

Irish Potato Torte for St. Patrick's

March 15, 2012 Irish , St. Patrick's Day 0 Comments
This was originally posted in An Irish Potluck in 2009, but I've cut/pasted it for you for this year. Sorry no pictures, but it IS good. 


I got this recipe from Irishabroad.com which had a LONG list of Irish recipes. (This compared to many other sites that only had a handful of the common stuff like colcannon, Irish stew, and soda bread.) The torte was made in layers, like a lasagna - potatoes, cabbage, cheese, potatoes, cabbage, cheese, potatoes. It was a very nice side and I will definitely make it again as a regular St. Paddy's dish. It doesn't hurt that it uses the bacon drippings to coat the potatoes.

• 1/2 head Savoy cabbage, shredded
• 3 tablespoons Kerrygold Irish butter
• 1/2 pound Irish traditional bacon, diced
• 4 baking potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/4-inch thick
• 8 ounces Kerrygold Cheddar Cheese
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter a 9-inch quiche pan or pie plate.

In a pot of boiling water, blanch the cabbage for 2 minutes. Drain and refresh in cold water. Pat dry. In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the bacon and cook until browned, about 5 minutes. With a slotted spoon, remove the bacon and toss with the cabbage. Add the potato slices to the skillet and toss to coat in the bacon drippings. Place one-third of the potatoes in the bottom of the prepared pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and half the cheese. Top with half the bacon and cabbage mixture, salt and pepper, then repeat with one-third of the potatoes, remaining cheese, bacon and cabbage, salt and pepper, and end with a layer of potatoes. Cover with a sheet of parchment paper and bake for 45 minutes. Remove parchment for last 5 minutes to let potatoes brown. Slice into wedges. Serves 8
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Crockpot Tuesday: Irish Lamb Stew

March 09, 2012 crockpot , Irish 1 Comments
Irish Lamb Stew
Rating: 4.5/5

Repost for St. Patrick's.

This is an adaptation from several recipes put together in a way that made sense to me with the ingredients I wanted. For instance, I wanted pearl onions but you can just largely dice regular onions too. I also wanted a bit of spice and so I've got thyme in this version. Normally any recipe from the British Isles is pretty void of spice. If you look at many Irish stew recipes they only have the meat and veggies with beer for flavor. Boring and flat in flavor. Even with this version it still required a good bit of salt at the end to promote the flavors more.

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Paleo Colcannon + Sugar Detox

February 13, 2012 colcannon , Irish 2 Comments

I haven't posted in about a week because 1) I have writer's block, 2) I haven't cooked anything, 3) I haven't gone out to eat anywhere, and 4) because I'm on a sugar detox, Paleo diet for the rest of the month of February.

The main focus is on the sugar detox because I have a huge sweet tooth. I know sugar is bad. Dr. Oz says sugar scours the walls of your arteries making it easier for plaque to cling and clog them. Cancer cells also feed off of sugar.  My mom-in-law has had two bouts with breast cancer. The last time she decided to try a new treatment where they filter the sugar out of your blood. She would go and have it done every few months for about a year. Well... she's now cancer free and eats healthy now (she ate healthy before, but even more so now). 

For the rest of the month I am not eating anything sweet (including fruit), dairy, grains, or beans. This means I'm pretty much on a Paleo diet. If you haven't heard of that one, it's also called the Caveman diet with the premise being that all cavemen ate was meat and veggies only. The argument is that our bodies haven't evolved that much over the millennia and that we should go back to eating that way.

Now while one of my friends is a true convert to Paleo, I can't imagine going so myself. I love dairy too much for one thing. But I wanted to do the sugar detox and figured I might as well go full throttle and eliminate the other stuff too for the month.  That's why you see a little tab above for Detox Diary.

Honestly, the meals aren't that difficult. Eggy based breakfasts in the morning, salads or ceviche for me at lunch, and meat and veggies for dinner. I'm snacking on nuts mostly for snacks. It hasn't been too hard on the sweets side during the week. For me the week is easy. It's on the weekends that I get bored and want to bake.

Even though potatoes are a vegetable, white potatoes are a no-no for sugar detox and Paleo because of the high carbs that are easily converted to sugars. Paleo practitioners love to use cauliflower as a substitute. This weekend I tried cauliflower "mashed potatoes" for the first time and decided to make them into colcannon by adding some kale.

Colcannon is an Irish dish of mashed potatoes with cabbage or kale mixed in. As we are approaching St. Pat's Day, it seems appropriate to post this version.

Paleo Colcannon

1 head of cauliflower, cut into small pieces
2 c kale or cabbage, chopped
1 T bacon grease or oil of choice
2 T olive oil
salt and pepper 

Over medium heat on the stove...

In a large pot of boiling water, add the cauliflower and cook until tender. A fork should be able to easily pierce the pieces.  Drain the cauliflower and set aside.

In the same pot, add the bacon grease. Once it has melted, add the chopped kale and saute until wilted and tender. 

Return cauliflower to pot and add olive oil. Mash the cauliflower with a masher or a fork while mixing in the kale. Season with salt and pepper.



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