How do you cook your corned beef & Cabbage for St. Patrick’s day?

I do the Corned beef in the crock pot with potatoes and then I cook the cabbage separately, usually I season and sautee it. Soggy cabbage is so yucky!

So.. How do you do it?

The color seems off....

I have a little time to myself in the office right now, everyone’s at lunch and it’s pretty quiet (which is good because I had a hell of a night last night and this morning was insane here!) So being I passed on lunch today because my stomach is quite knotted and I decided to take advantage of the solace here and browse through FoodGawker and TasteSpotting.

Searching through the pages of both I saw the same photo and caption for Blue Tacos, and it made me remember a few years back when Heinz was making colored Ketchup. I remember it in green, red, blue pink and purple (Ewwwwwwww!) I bought the Green one on request by The Kid and he took one look at it on his hamburger and on the plate with his french fries, looked at me and told me he wasn’t hungry anymore.. He must have been about 4 or 5 at the time.. So funny.. It sat in the fridge for months until I finally tossed the whole damn bottle.

I have a thing against eating food that isn’t the color that it’s supposed to be.. Blue soda, ice cream that’s just a little too green or a neon color that just does not naturally occur.

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Gramma's Pitzele (sweetened fried pizza dough)

Today we were totally snowed in for the first time in years. We were notified of today's imminent school closing last night via a mass phone call from the principal of The Kid's school, which was followed by a very boisterous Woo Hoo! The Kid slept in while I got up at my regular time watching the news and figuring if I was going to make it to work or not (decidedly not when the buses were running around 45 minutes late).

I decided today would be a good day to make pizza dough. Then I decided that I would make some Pitzele to quell this monster sweet tooth that I've been having since giving up Chocolate for Lent.

My grandma used to make Pitzele for us when we were kids after dinner on Saturday. It's essentially pizza dough that is flattened in little rounds, fried and sprinkled with sugar while hot.

The dough is very basic and this recipe is good for 2 pizzas or 1 large pizza and breadsticks or whatever else you want to make with it.

Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

2 1/4 teaspoons fast rising yeast
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 1/2 cups flour


Directions:

1. In large bowl, dissolve yeast and brown sugar in the water.
2. Let sit for 10 minutes.
3. Stir the salt, oil and italian seasoning into the yeast mixture.
4. Mix in 2 1/2 cups of the flour.
5. Turn dough out onto a clean, dry surface and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky.
6. Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth.
7. Let the dough double in size.
8. Should take about 1/2 hour if in warm spot.
9. Punch down and let rest a minute.
10. Roll out, and prepare your favorite pizza.
11. I use a pizza stone sprinkled with a bit of corn meal.
12. Once I have the dough shaped I bake it plain for about 5-10 minutes, then pull out of oven and add toppings, just seems to work better every time.
13. Bake in preheated oven 425 degrees until the cheese and crust are golden brown, about 20 minutes.

To make Pitzele you tear off 1Tbs of dough and flatten it with your hand on a cutting board or piece of parchment paper and add it to a pan of hot oil (not too much oil though, you don't want deep fried) after a minute or so carefully flip and brown the other side and then place on a plate of sugar and serve... Mmmm!!!

Mmm Chicken & Dumplings

One of my very favorite comfort foods is Chicken & Dumplings. Today we're in for a whopper of a snowstorm that went from an estimated 3-5" on Friday up to 6-10" last night and then just a little while ago when flipping through the channels saw that it's gone up to 8-14" I've had enough of winter already.

Anyway, on to the Chicken & Dumplings

I don't like to just toss chicken in a pot with water and very rarely do I use bouillon, so what I do is I take the skin off all the chicken, toss it into a Zipper bag and season it really well with salt, pepper, sage and paprika then I roast it in a 425°f oven for 25 minutes


I then put the chicken into my trusty stock pot and cover it with 2 quarts of water, 1 small onion, sliced, 2 cloves garlic, smashed and then let it go for about an hour. After the hour is up I add in a big bag of frozen mixed vegetables, check the seasoning and adjust it to my liking and then it's time for the dumplings.

I will confess here, I don't go all out rolling dough for dumplings.. I make Bisquick dumplings. There is nothing like the little fluffy clouds of dumplings that you get from Bisquick, that's how my grandma made 'em and that's how I do it too. (Pancakes too, but that's another day) Bisquick dumplings are so easy! 2 1/4 cups Bisquick and 2/3 cup milk, mix in a bowl until doughy and add to hot liquid. Cook uncovered for 10 minutes, cover and cook another 10 and you're good to go!

Yummy!!!