I'm Green da ba dee da ba die

Today is the one the day of the year that's easy for Kermit the Frog to be green. For St. Patty's Day, I made corned beef and cabbage rolls, which took a lot of work to make.

 the rest of the slow cooked corned beef not used in the cabbage rolls

boiling quartered potatoes and corned beef

Potatoes had to be peeled and boiled for a good 2-3 hours (I know I said that I'm kind of sick of potatoes, but mashed potatoes inside of these cabbage rolls I had today were sooo good). I didn't use savoy cabbage like the recipe I got from Whole Foods asked for (I got some other kind of cabbage that was on sale instead) so wrapping corned beef and mashed potatoes seasoned with egg, salt, and dill didn't go as smoothly as it could have. Cabbage leaves had to be boiled in the potato and corned beef broth beforehand so it was a pretty oily experience working with the cabbage leaves when it came to making the cabbage rolls.

extra cabbage boiled with corned beef and potato broth

 baking the cabbage rolls for about 45 min.

yummy corned beef and cabbage rolls

The good thing is that the cabbage rolls didn't fall apart on my family and me when we ate them. Next time (heh, next year maybe?), I'll be sure to put more beef in each roll because the some of the rolls had more mashed potatoes than corned beef and so the mashed potatoes made these rolls a little bit too hot to hold. Even though the recipe says that it serves 8 people with 16 rolls, the 4 of us managed to finish 10/16 cabbage rolls. It was an awesome meal, and I was way too full by the time I was done eating. Bebe B seemed to like it even though he was grumpy and sleepy; if he didn't like it, he would have definitely spat all the food back out. Luckily, he didn't.

 mint chocolate chip milkshake

My mom bought some mint chocolate chip ice cream because it was on sale the other day so I made mint chocolate chip milkshakes :). It tastes much better and healthier than the McDonald's Shamrock Shake (there's no scary bright green food coloring in my milkshake, thank goodness!) After 2 days of cooking and 4 loads of dishes (today), it was a very successful dinner. I'm just not planning to do some hardcore cooking for a while (meaning maybe about a week or two). Maybe I'll make a salad to post about sometime. Salads are a bit more low maintenance to make and much, much healthier to eat. Okay, well, time for a little night cap with some Irish cream. Ta-ta!

P.S. oh dear, I'm definitely exercising tomorrow.

And the world's like a science and I'm like a secret

I'm beginning to understand a small fraction of how people who work at restaurants or fast food chains feel like - always smelling like food. Right now I smell like corned beef brisket and I cannot wait to take a warm relaxing bubble bath so I can smell clean - like juicy pomegranate, mangoes, and green apples I suppose. Speaking of juicy apples, I have a Desperate Housewives poster to my right with all the DH ladies laying on top of apples, with a tagline that says "Tempting, isn't it?"

Today I tried some of Fresh & Easy's lemon saffron Israeli couscous. Fresh & Easy is basically a British owned version of Trader Joe's except there are fewer Fresh & Easy stores around here and they only have self check out lines inside of these stores. Fresh & Easy has an amazing roasted banana gelato. For the longest time I have been hoping for something else that tastes like Dreyer's Slow Churned banana ice cream (I think this flavor is discontinued... or I just have trouble finding it for the past few years), and Fresh & Easy's roasted banana gelato comes very close to that same yummy banana ice cream taste.

Anyways, back to the couscous... I really liked it. It's very flavorful with a tangy citrus-y taste. I even added some cashew halves in with the couscous. Lunch was good with couscous, a glass of organic soy milk, and Julie Andrews in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). If I were to screen a Julie Andrews double feature, I would screen Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) and Victor Victoria (1982) back to back. Julie Andrews is amazing; too bad The Sound of Music (1965) and Mary Poppins (1964) overshadow some of her other work in films.

Guess what? I finally got to use the new slow cooker that has been sitting around the kitchen for who-knows-how-long. For about half of the day, I slow cooked this corned beef brisket I saw at Costco. The corned beef brisket smells fantastic, and even though the brisket broth itself is pretty salty and somewhat oily, it tastes great like mom's homemade soups (I should know... I burned my tongue trying to taste-test it :P).

I also made some Irish cream to celebrate St. Patty's Day tomorrow. Since not too many of us at home drink alcohol, I made 5 servings worth, and also since this particular recipe that I used doesn't ask for eggs, my Irish cream drink can last for about 2 months if I refrigerate it (woot!).

ingredients for the Irish cream I made

For once I wish I had Jameson so that way my Irish cream would be authentically "Irish" but instead I used a Scottish whiskey that I got from my sister called Chivas Regal because I don't normally drink and if I do drink, it's definitely not hard liquor on the rocks like Jameson. I was kind of repulsed by almond extract because ever since I was a kid, I hated almond jello, which both my siblings LOVE. I cringe at the smell of almond and what's worse is that once my aunt and uncle from Palo Alto brought over an overwhelmingly smelly almond scented soap; that thing itself made me shudder at the strong stench of almond.

Irish cream inside of a blender

I've had Irish cream before (and the whiskey taste is strong enough to cover the almond flavor anyways) so I'm not too worried about how this liqueur I made will turn out tomorrow. Alright, it's Cinderella-time (midnight!) ... and I gotta finish cleaning up the kitchen. *yawn* Maybe I'll take a little nip of some Irish cream before I go to sleep... that sounds really good right about now. Oh and this new song I'm obsessed with sounds great too.

Irish Invasion

I know this is supposed to be a food blog, but I must say that the last Office episode ("St. Patrick's Day") makes me happy. Two of my favorite sound bites from last week's episode are:

1. "Green M&Ms. Nature's viagra." -Michael (Isn't that supposed to be the voluptuous M&M's color? :P It's like Joan in M&M form.)

2. "Erin and I have our first date tonight. And it has to be perfect. Why? Because according to How I Met Your Mother, that's the date that your kids are going to wait patiently to hear about and you'd better have a good story to tell them." -Andy (awwww, love Andy! How can you not? He wore a faux-kilt AND he watches How I Met Your Mother.)

Well, in anticipation of St. Patty's Day, I made Irish boxty pancakes. I chose a recipe that doesn't require buttermilk because I never know what to do with excess buttermilk after using it for a new recipe and it feels like such a waste to get an ingredient you know you won't use too much of. I really wish I did prep work beforehand, but I didn't and it took forever to make the pancakes mainly due to how the grater was nowhere to be found and so I had to improvise with a potato peeler instead.


I was so afraid that this new food experiment would turn into a Bridget Jones's moment (remember her blue soup?), but fortunately it didn't and my parents both really liked the boxty pancakes. It's not too flavorful, but it is very fragrant and it does have that fresh potato taste to it (I think Spaniards would appreciate this dish since it's simple in flavor and not heavy with rich sauces like lots of French dishes are). I liked eating the boxty pancakes I made (*in the most non-matrimonial tone* I do!) but I guess since I'm tired and I've been working with potatoes a lot today, I'm a pretty sick of potatoes (haha).

These pancakes are supposed to be thinner, but it's my first time making them... so please be kind :P. I would have made a fancy sauce or stew to go along with the boxty pancakes but I didn't have the time to do that. Instead, I added apple sauce to go along with the pancakes. I read somewhere that either apple sauce or honey would go well with boxty pancakes, and I chose apple sauce over honey because it's not overwhelmingly sweet.

I think generally boxty pancakes goes well with lots of things; it's just like how crêpes could be eaten with practically any other food you can think of. If you're craving an amazing boxty dish and you're in the OC area, I would recommend going to The Auld Dubliner, although I'll have to warn you that the restaurant's service may be on the slow side, and it can get pretty loud inside that place. It's a treat to try one of their crème brûlée desserts though.

It's interesting how I kept on seeing this one poem when I was looking for Irish boxty recipes:

"Boxty on the griddle,
boxty in the pan,
If you can't make boxty,
you'll never get a man."

I'm pretty sure I can get a man regardless of whether or not I can make boxty, but this little poem about boxty is kind of cute :P. Golly, I'm a tired lassie right now. Expect lots of green and a post on corned beef brisket on Wednesday! (because I'll be slow cooking that for about 8-12 hours on St. Patty's Day)

P.S. I'm tempted to make corned beef and cabbage rolls instead of just cooking corned beef brisket with some other stuff. Hmm... do I want to precook corned beef a day beforehand?