Roasted Cabbage Wedges

I don't like steamed cabbage but I love celebrating St. Patrick's Day - SOOOO tried a new recipe and it was delicious!!!  The only way I'm making cabbage now!!

Ingredients

• 1 green cabbage head (large)

• 4 tablespoon avocado oil (plus more for baking sheet)

• 3 teaspoon minced garlic (divided)

• 1 teaspoon sea salt (divided)

• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

• 1 cup fresh parsley (finely chopped)

• 1 lemon (freshly juiced and zested)

• ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

• ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika

Preheat oven to 400° F. Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment. Drizzle a little avocado oil over the parchment.
Prepare the cabbage by peeling away any yellowed or dry outer leaves. Cut the cabbage in half, leaving the core intact. Cut each half into 1-inch thick wedges.
Place wedges in a large bowl of cool water and allow to soak for 3-5 minutes to remove excess dirt. Pat dry with a clean dish towel.
In a small bowl, stir together 2 teaspoon of minced garlic with 2 tablespoon avocado oil, ½ teaspoon sea salt and black pepper. Drizzle or brush the garlic oil over the cabbage, making sure some get in between the layers.
Place the baking sheet into the oven. Roast 25-30 minutes, or until toasty looking and tender. While the wedges are roasting, prepare the parsley sauce.
In a bowl, stir together lemon zest and juice with the remaining 2 tablespoon avocado oil, 1 teaspoon garlic, ½ teaspoon sea salt, red pepper flakes and paprika. Add the chopped parsley. Cover and set aside until ready to serve.
To serve, transfer the cabbage wedges to a serving platter and drizzle with some of the parsley sauce. Serve immediately.
Notes

• Leaving the core intact while baking helps prevent the wedges from falling apart before you're ready to serve them. 

• I recommend using cannonball cabbage (the green head you typically see at the grocery store) in this recipe for the best results. 

• Avocado oil works great since it has a high heat point, yet you can swap with coconut oil or olive oil if needed.

St. Patty's Feast - Pot O' Gold & Rainbow of Fruit

You all know that I LOVE holidays - so I had to come up with some Brody friendly food but still festive...and here it was!!!  So cute :)

Pot O' Gold

Rainbow of Fruit

Shamrock Quesadillas

St. Patty's Day is here!!!  Time to celebrate with an all green/festive meal!!!  :)

Ingredients:
Shamrock cookie cutter
Garden spinach and herb tortillas
Chicken breast
Olive Oil
1 tomato
Sour cream
Shredded Cheese
1 avocado

Cut out shamrocks - cook chicken breast - cut veggies!

Put a little olive oil in a frying pan - then put tortilla shamrocks in, top with chicken, tomato, cheese, avocado - put a shamrock top and flip.  Once they are brown or a little crispy - remove (they will stay together if they are done).

Then spread some sour cream on those bad boys - and YUMMY!!!

Lucky Charm Pancakes!

Even though Brody isn't old enough to "participate" in the eating of St. Patty's Day food - I had to do something fun!  These were YUMMY!!!  :)

Ingredients:
Bisquick (eggs, milk, oil)
Lucky Charms
Whipped Cream

Follow the instructions to make Bisquick mix....stir in green food coloring, then mix in 1/2 cup marshmallows from Lucky Charms.

Make up the whipped cream.

Cook the pancakes.

Top with whipped cream and Lucky Charms!  DONE!!

Deli-Style Corned Beef Sandwich

Who has leftover corned beef - we do, we do!!  What a perfect way to eat that leftover St. Patty's food!!  I don't think this is a Irish meal at all - but it did use the best Irish ingredient: CORNED BEEF!  This was amazing!!  It totally reminded me of the sandwich Ross had in New York at Carnegie Deli.

This was super quick and easy - we ate this up with some chips and a dill pickle!  So yummy!!!  We are very excited for the leftovers tomorrow!!  Even if you don't have any leftover corned beef - so buy some, it's dirt cheap after St. Patty's Day!!

Ingredients:

Corned beef (you can use leftover corned beef from a roast or just deli-sliced corned beef)

Coleslaw

Sturdy bread; sourdough, rye, or sourdough rye is best

Swiss cheese

Place 1-2 slices of Swiss cheese on 1 slice of bread. Add corned beef and a few spoonfuls of coleslaw.

Broil, toast, or grill until cheese is melted and bread is toasted and serve immediately.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I'm a sucker for holidays!!  I have my mom to thank for my holiday obsession :)  We always had a totally GREEN themed breakfast, lunch, and dinner on St. Patrick's Day - and well, the apple doesn't fall from the tree :)

I'm a very lucky girl who is blessed to be married to my best friend!  Rossy is a great man, and I want him to always know how I feel about him!  We are headed to St. Paul for today's festivities - but I had to do something for him!!  What a fun treat for breakfast :)

We had Ross's parents over later for dindin tonight - and we made up Corn Beef and Cabbage - it was soooooo good!!  Ahhh what a crazy day!!  I love that it finally fell on a weekend!!  WOOT WOOT -- HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY TO ALL!!

Broccoli Cheese Soup

This soup was quick to make - but it wasn't my all time favorite soup.  It was good, but it wasn't awesome - and some of the other soups on my blog are better!  I totally thought it would be more green too - thought it would be an easy thing to make for St. Patrick's Day.

Ingredients:

16 oz package frozen broccoli

¼ teaspoon salt

1 stick butter

1 small onion, chopped

1 cup water

3 heaping teaspoons cornstarch

1 can cream of celery soup

1 can water

6 cups milk

1 pound Velveeta Cheese

Toppings: Garlic / cheese croutons

Cook frozen broccoli as per package directions adding salt to the water.

In a large saucepan melt butter and stir in onion. Saute until translucent and tender.  Add drained broccoli to the saucepan. In a cup stir cornstarch and 1 cup water - Add to broccoli mixture (this will start to thicken the mixture).

Keep heat on low and add soup and 1 can water.  When mixture starts to simmer (if it boils turn it to a simmer) add milk and cheese cut in chunks.  Stir until cheese melts.

You can serve it this way or use your immersion blender to make it smoother.  Serve hot with garlic and cheese croutons on top.

Shamrock Milkshakes

We had cookbook club tonight and we had a GREEN theme in honor of St. Patrick's Month - so check out our lovely menu:

Appetizer: Shamrock Nachos

Entree: Stuffed Green Peppers

Dessert: Shamrock Shakes

Everything was so good and so shamrocky :)  Who needs to spend $$ at McDonald's getting shamrock shakes...not this girl - we found the recipe and made our own!!  These shakes were so good - and it takes like 5 seconds to make!!

Altered from McDonald's recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups vanilla ice cream

1 1/4 cups 2% low fat milk

1/4 teaspoon mint extract

8 drops green food coloring

Combine all ingredients in blender and blend on high until smooth.  If needed, stop blender and stir with a spoon to help blend in ice cream.  

Pour into 12-oz cups and serve each with a straw.  (a GREEN straw...that's right....)

Shamrock Nachos

We started out cookbook club tonight with this fun/festive appetizer!!  I was trying to brainstorm for some green food for our menu this week, and I thought of these tortillas and got really excited!  This actually turned out really good....even though we burned a few! - but that's what cookbook club is for...to try it out before the real deal!

Anyways, this was super easy - and super yummy!!  You can always add lots more nacho toppings, but being that we had a lot on the menu we stuck to adding some more green!!

Ingredients:
Garden spinach and herb tortillas
Olive Oil
Sour cream
Shredded Cheese
1 avocado

Heat oven to 350.

I used a shamrock cookie cutter and cut out our "chips" from the tortillas.  Spread olive oil on both sides - put on a cookie sheet - and put in the oven for about 5 minutes.  I would just keep watching until they start to look crisp...we left ours in a little too long and burnt a few.

Then just cut up some avocado - and spread cheese on top of the "chips" and put in microwave for 30 seconds until cheese melts...and SHAMROCK NACHOS!!  What what!!

St. Patrick's Day Wreath

YAY more St. Patrick's Day decorations!!!  I barely had any decorations - and that makes our house so boring for March.....

This was so, so, so cheap!!  haha  I literally took a hanger and had Ross shape it into a circle....how creative is that ?!  ahhh just the thing for those stupid wire hangers!!!  Anyways - this is super easy and super cute!  I went to Mill End Textiles in EP to get the fabric - $5.00  Where else can you get a cute wreath for $5....um no where!

Supplies:
Hanger (hehe) OR foam / wire 8" wreath
Fabric (I used 10 diff patterns)
Ribbon

I got the 10 different fabric patterns cut to 9" x 21" - at Mill End Textiles.

I then cut each strip into 1" x 9" - I didn't really measure every one ....sort of just eye balled it.

I then used a hanger (ahhh I love it) - but otherwise, just go to Michael's and get a 8" wire wreath (if you do foam - I would recommend cutting your fabric longer).


Then just start tying the fabric into knots around the wreath - and BAM -- You have a St. Patrick's Day wreath!  To get it to hang - I just took some St. Patty's ribbon and tied it off.....cute huh?!

St. Patrick's Day Centerpiece

It's "St. Patty's Month" - so I thought I would share some super easy / inexpensive ideas!!  I'm all about cutie decorations - and the cheaper the better :)  This was probably the easiest idea I've ever thought of!!  I just happened to already have the candles and the ribbon, so it made it really cheap - BUT even if you had to buy both, it's still a cheap idea...and look how cute it makes the table look!!

Supplies:
Green candles
Ribbon
Brads

All I did was wrap some fun/festive St. Patrick's Day ribbon around some green candles - and secured the ribbon with scrap booking brads.....and DONE!!  Lovely green centerpiece all ready for St. Patty's Month :)

Roasted garlic-spinach dip

Makes 8 servings (1/4c)

133 Calories / 7g total fat

Preparation Time: 45 min

**Pretty good – very green….good idea for St Patty’s Day treat J

Ingredients:

1 whole head garlic

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 - 10 oz package frozen chopped spinach

¼ cup skim milk

Dash bottled hot pepper sauce

1 - 8oz package reduced-fat cream cheese (Neufchatel), cut up

Chopped tomato (optional)

1 recipe Toasted Pita Wedges **found these in the fancy bakery section – near Hawaiian bread at Rainbow.  You do need all 8 rounds in order to have enough bread/dip ratio

Directions:

Peel away outer dry leaves from head of garlic, leaving skin of garlic cloves intact.  Cut off pointed top portion of head (about ¼ inch) with a knife, leaving the bulb intact.  Place on a double-thick, 12-inch square of foil.  Drizzle garlic with the oil.  Fold foil to enclose garlic.  Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes or until garlic is soft.  Cool.

Toasted Pita Wedges: split 8 small pita bread rounds; cut each half into 6 wedges.  Place, cut sides up, on an ungreased baking sheet.  Bake in batches in a 375 degree oven for 7-9 minutes or until lightly browned.  Store any leftovers in an airtight container.

Cook spinach according to package directions, except omit salt.  Drain well; press out excess liquid.

Squeeze pulp from garlic cloves into food processor bowl, discarding skins.  Add the drained spinach, milk, hot pepper sauce, and 1/8 teaspoon of salt.  Cover and process until well blended.  Add cream cheese.  Cover; process until nearly smooth.  (used a blender and worked pretty good)

Transfer mixture to saucepan.  Cook and stir over medium-low heat until heated through.

To serve, transfer to serving bowl.  If desired, sprinkle with tomato.  Serve with Toasted Pita wedges.