What to do with your Corned Beef and Cabbage Leftovers??

Make egg rolls! 

This is a great dinner or snack! Here is what you will need to get started. 

Ingredients: 

leftover corned beef brisket

leftover carrots, potatoes, and cabbage 

Egg Roll Wrappers 

Begin by chopping up the brisket, carrots, potatoes, and cabbage, into bite size pieces. Mix together in a large bowl. Take one egg roll wrapper at a time, lay it flat on your counter top or prep space, fill it with the mix as seen in the picture below. 

When you wrap it up, begin by folding up the bottom corner (in the picture below) Then fold in both sides. Holding tightly, brush with water, then gently roll. 

On a baking sheet, I like to use a wire rack for more even baking, but you could just use a baking sheet or you could fry them. 

Brush each roll with a little oil oil, then bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. 

Tastes great served with a thousand island dressing-like dipping sauce. 

Last years egg rolls (2013)

Last years egg rolls (2013)

Click here for a homemade egg roll wrapper recipe

I hope you'll give them a try! If you do, let me know how things turned out :) 

Enjoy! 

Homemade Egg Roll Wrappers

Last year, I couldn't find egg roll wrappers, so I used a recipe that I found to make them yourself. 

http://www.pennilessparenting.com/2010/10/homemade-wonton-and-egg-roll-wrappers.html

The above website also has step-by-step pictures 

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour (perhaps whole wheat flour would work as well but I haven't tried)

1 teaspoon salt

1 egg

Less than 1/2 cup cold water

Corn starch or potato starch

1. In a medium sized bowl, mix flour and salt.

2. Make an indentation in the flour, and pour in an egg. Mix well with a spoon.

3. Pour in half of the water and mix, preferably with a spoon, but when that is no longer an option, mix with your hand.

4. Slowly mix in a little bit of water at a time until you get a non crumbly dough that is just the tiniest bit sticky.

5. Let the dough sit for twenty minutes, covered.

6. Lightly dust a flat immovable surface with corn starch or potato starch. (I prefer to use my counter, but any clean surface will work.)
7. Pull off a golf ball sized clump of dough and place it on the starched surface, lightly covering all sides.

8. With a rolling pin, roll out the dough in as square (or rectangle) a shape as possible. You want the dough to be relatively thin, because otherwise it won't cook well. I usually just roll until the dough becomes semi translucent- i.e. I can make out the color of the counter beneath. Be careful, though, because a dough too thin will tear while cooking.
If, during the rolling process, the dough begins to stick to either the counter or the rolling pin, spread a miniscule amount of starch on the dough. Too much starch though, will make the dough hard to work with. (Not to mention, give you chills.)

9. Using a cookie cutter or a sharp knife, cut the dough into squares. If you're making wontons, you probably want your squares at least 3 inches by 3 inches, and if egg-rolls, at least 5 inches by 5 inches. Alternatively, if you're making Chinese noodles for dipping in duck sauce or the like, you will want to cut these into thin long rectangles.

10. To cook, either boil for wontons or deep fry to make egg-rolls, fried wontons, or Chinese noodles.

11. If not using right away, dust with a heavier layer of corn or potato starch so they don't stick together, and stack. Cover with plastic wrap to stop moisture from escaping and wrappers drying out. I assume this can be frozen, but I haven't tried it myself.

Homemade Irish Soda Bread

Irish soda bread is a great side for your St. Patty's Day meal. Below is how I make it. Chloe loves it so much, this year she asked that we send some in to her class, for their St. Patrick's Day celebration! 


Irish Soda Bread

Ingredients: 

4 cups flour 
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
2 cups of raisins
2 eggs
1 1/4 cup of buttermilk (if you don't have it, you can make with milk and vinegar)
1 cup of sour cream

Use a large cast iron pan or 9 in. round baking pan


Begin by setting your oven at 350 degrees. 
In a large bowl mix together, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and raisins. In another bowl, blend together, eggs, buttermilk, and sour cream. 

Stir the liquid mixture into the dry mixture. Knead dough in the bowl, the dough will very sticky. 
Place the dough into the prepared cast iron skillet. Cut a slit in the top of the bread. Bake for 60-70 minutes. Cool before slicing and serving. Enjoy!! 

*Note: 
I often make this without the raisins and it still tastes great!! :) 



Until next time... 

Corned Beef and Cabbage

One of our favorite holidays to celebrate is St. Patrick's Day! We get all decked out in our green, bake Irish Soda Bread, Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes, and cook the traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner, among a few other things. Since St. Patty's Day is near, I thought I'd share a few recipes, starting with Corned Beef and Cabbage. 

Corned Beef, Cabbage, Red Potatoes, and Carrots
Ingredients: 

3-4 lb. Corned Beef Brisket

Pickling spice (comes with corned beef brisket)

4 Large Organic Carrots, cleaned and cut

4-6 Organic Red Potatoes, clean and quartered 

1/2 head of Cabbage

5 cups of water 

I've made Corned beef and cabbage, a variety of different ways, but this is the EASIEST and my favorite way to make it. 

I start with my crockpot, place the potatoes on the bottom, the raw brisket on top of the potatoes, add the pickling spice, then layer the carrots on top. I add about 4-5 cups of water, or until everything is covered. Then cook on high heat for about 7 hours. 

Next, remove the brisket and vegetables from the crock-pot, leaving the liquid, add the chopped cabbage and cook for 10-15 minutes. 

When that is finished I remove the cabbage and serve aside the brisket and veggies with a slice of Homemade Irish Soda Bread! It is DELICIOUS!! 

Look out for my next post...What to do with your Corned Beef and Cabbage Leftovers! :) 

Until next time... 

BBQ Chicken Calzone

I few weeks ago,  I had spent many hours meal planning for the next few months, but I hadn't decided on what to make for dinner, Sean text me from work asking "what's for dinner tonight,"  just as I was searching through the fridge and pantry to see what I could come up with. He suggested BBQ Chicken Calzone which sounded good to me. We haven't made it in awhile and the only thing I needed from the store was some cheese. Here is the recipe below, I hope you enjoy it as much as we do! :)

BBQ Chicken Calzone or Pizza 

Ingredients: 

1 pizza dough, (follow my quick recipe or you can use whatever dough you prefer)

1 medium organic red onion, finely chopped

1 lb. natural chicken breast, cut into bite size pieces

1/2 cup of barbecue sauce of your choice 

1/2 lb of  mild or sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

1 egg

a few slices of smoked gouda 

salt and pepper to taste 

Preheat oven to 425.

If you followed the pizza dough recipe, you can start this recipe while the dough is set aside to rise. 

In large skillet, cook chicken on medium heat until no longer pink. I add some salt and pepper here. 

Add 1/2 of the barbecue sauce and the red onion. Cook, stirring often, until onions are tender. 

Let this cool as you roll out the dough. 

Place your rolled out dough onto your pizza stone, spread the rest of the barbecue sauce on half of the dough, sprinkle with half of the cheese, top with the chicken mixture, then add the rest of the cheese. 

Fold dough over and seal edges tightly with your fingers. Brush egg wash onto the dough. Cook for 25-30 minutes. Allow at least 10 minutes to cool before cutting and serving. 

*sometimes no matter how good you seal the dough, cheese and bbq sauce drips out. (this especially happens when you make it as a pizza) Place a piece of aluminum foil in the bottom of your oven for easy cleanup. 

If you give it a try, I'd love to hear what you think.



Until next time...