Happy Cinco de Mayo!  Today is also Mr. SGCC’s birthday and we’re going out tonight!  I don’t know if we’ll do Mexican again or not, (we do it every year), but wherever we end up, I’ll be thankful that I don’t have to cook in this heat.  For those of you planning to cook, and who live in a more temperate climate, here are some muy delicioso Cinco de Mayo ideas from the SGCC archives.

Enjoy! 

Easy Chorizo and Potato Huaraches

Enchiladas Suizas with Quick Avocado Salsa

Chile Rellenos

Snapper Veracruz

Los Frijoles Refritos

Fideos Ole

Grilled Steak Fajitas

Guacamole

Spicy Melon Salsa

Pumpkin Flan

First of all, I’d like to wish all the Dads out there a very Happy Father’s Day!  Then, I’d like to remind all the daughters out there who still have their Dads with them how lucky they are.  I lost my father three and a half years ago and I’d give anything to have just one more day with him.  He was a wonderful man and I miss him terribly. Cherish each moment with your loved ones. Time flies by so quickly and there are no “do overs”.

Now that I’ve thoroughly cheered you up, let me tell you about the special Father’s Day dinner I made for Mr. SGCC.  There’s a little Mexican place in town we like to go to called Mi Pueblo.  They have good, fresh food at reasonable prices. Plus, they have a cute old guy that walks around with his guitar, serenading the diners at each table.  It isn’t the Frontera Grill, but we like it.  Our favorite dish at Mi Pueblo is their chiles rellenos.  They make then with these humongous poblano peppers that are stuffed with lots of well-seasoned meat and cheese.  Mr. SGCC absolutely loves them!  I don’t do a lot of Mexican at home, but I decided to try to recreate them for him.

Since I had never made chiles rellenos before, I turned to the guru of Mexican cuisine, Rick Bayless of the Frontera Grill, for guidance.  His chile rellenos are so popular that people line up outside the restaurant an hour before the doors open just to make sure they can get some.  In fact, the restaurant regularly sells out of them within the first twenty minutes!  I figured if Frontera Grill’s chiles rellenos were that hot, they must be good. So, that’s the recipe I decided to go with.  Little did I know at the time what I was in for!

First of all, the recipe is good – very good, in fact.  It is also, however, very long and time consuming as well.  There are four different components in this dish and each requires several steps.   None of the individual steps are particularly difficult, but there are a lot of them.  And be forewarned, you will probably need to hose down your kitchen after you’re finished! 

The first component you need to make is the tomato sauce which is used in both the meat filling and the serving sauce.  It’s an aromatic sauce flavored with onion, Serrano chiles, cinnamon and cloves.  If I had it to do over again, I would probably make this sauce a day or two ahead.  It keeps just fine in the fridge and doing do will cut a good an hour off of your prep time.

The next thing you have to do is make a tomato broth, which is served tableside with the finished chiles rellenos.  All this involves is simmering some of the previously made tomato sauce with some chicken or beef broth.  This is the easiest step in the recipe, but it does require at least forty-five minutes of cooking time.

After that, you need to make the meat filling for the rellenos.  Bayless calls it picadillo.  It’s made with ground pork shoulder, simmered with more of the tomato sauce, vinegar, raisins and almonds.  Very, very tasty!  Both the picadillo and the tomato broth can also be made ahead.

Then, it’s time to prepare the peppers, themselves.  Here is where things get tricky.  Bayless says to roast the poblanos until their skins get blistered and blackened.  Then he says to cut a slit down the side of each, rinsing and removing the seeds as you go, taking care not to tear the peppers.  Have any of you ever tried this?  I’m sorry, but it’s impossible!

My peppers looked perfect when they came out of the oven.  But, the minute I cut into them to remove the seeds, they started to disintegrate! As I tried to stuff them, they just fell apart. I felt like Dr. Kildare as I frantically tried to plug up the rips and holes by shoving in toothpicks everywhere!  By the time I got the peppers all stuffed, there were shreds of pepper skin, pepper seeds and blobs of picadillo smeared all over the place!  I just prayed that battering and frying them would hold them together at least enough so that we could eat them.  I had already given up any hope of getting a decent picture!

Oh, and that was the really fun part –  the battering and frying.  Bayless advises to freeze the stuffed peppers before attempting this step.  I did and it didn’t help me at all.  Plus, I lost another whole hour while my stuffed poblanos sat in the deep freeze!

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m scared of deep frying.  Boiling hot oil and I do not get along – and I have the scars to prove it!  I’m not ashamed of this. It is what it is. So, I really have to have a good reason to attempt it.  I guessed that Father’s Day was as good a reason as any, so I sucked it up and kept going.

I prepared the batter without any trouble. It was a nice, light and fluffy batter, by the way. Bayless says to hold the peppers by their stems, dip them into the batter and quickly pull them straight out  and into the hot oil. Is he kidding?!?! The moment I tried to dip the first pepper in by its stem, the stem broke off and the pepper sank straight to the bottom of the batter bowl.  I tried to fish it out using a fork, and that beautiful picadillo filling came squishing out of every orifice!  I finally just dug my hands in the bowl, grabbed the pepper and plopped it into the oil.   And, you know what?  The batter immediately started to puff up and turn a lovely shade of golden brown.  After a few minutes, instead of looking like a mutilated lump of mush, that pepper actually started to resemble a chile relleno!  That batter was like the Spanx of Mexican cooking! It smoothed out and covered almost every flaw.

I dipped (with my bare hands) and fried the rest of the peppers as fast as I could while I was still on a roll.  I didn’t dare stop for a second to take a picture. Then, I lined them up in a baking dish, doused them with sauce, smothered them with cheese and tossed them in the oven to bake. Both my kitchen and I were covered in picadillo guts, foamy batter and tomato sauce!  Bayless’s recipe doesn’t say to do all this, but I did it anyway. It was all about camouflage, baby!

Take a look.

Not bad, huh?  You have to admit that with all of that zesty tomato sauce and gooey, melted cheese on top, those chiles rellenos look pretty darn appetizing!  You’d never know what a mangled mess they were underneath!

And, OMG, were they delicious!  I hadn’t tasted Mexican food this good since…well… practically ever!  Not even when I was actually in Mexico last week.  Seriously. These chiles rellenos made Mi Pueblo’s version look like they came from Taco Bell!  Mr. SGCC was in chiles rellenos heaven!  He thinks I’m a goddess!  And, after having him heap mountains of praise on me for preparing such a fabulous feast for him, I stupidly replied with a shy smile, “Oh, it was nothing!”.  He believed me and is already bugging me to make them again.  Sigh….. The things we do for love.

Enjoy!

I love Nutella! And, I’ve been enjoying it for as long as I can remember.  As a kid, while all of my friends were bringing PB&J sandwiches to school for lunch, I was munching on Nutella sandwiches. Sometimes, all by itself, sometimes with bananas, and sometimes with another favorite – marshmallow fluff!  The other kids didn’t know what to make of my “chocolate sandwiches”.  They’d never seen Nutella before.  It was pretty much unheard of in this sleepy little Florida town way back in the 70′s.  My mother used to have relatives ship it down to us or bring some when they came to visit from up north.  Fortunately, all of that has changed, and we can now find this luscious, creamy chocolate-hazelnut spread  hanging out right next to the peanut butter in the supermarket.

Even though I’m all grown-up now, I still never miss an excuse to eat Nutella in any way, shape or form – although my favorite way is still right out of the jar.  And, because I am a grown up, I get to do just that.  My house, my rules!

Since its first appearance on the culinary scene in the 1940′s, Nutella has become much more than a popular after-school snack. It is literally a cultural and social phenomenon, not only in its native country, Italy, but all the world over. Nutella is marketed in over seventy-five countries across the globe, and outsells all brands of peanut butter combined worldwide!  So, what better way to commemorate its success than to give it its own special holiday.

World Nutella Day was created in 2007 by Sara Rosso, an American writer living in Italy, and is currently co-hosted by Sara and Michelle Fabio, another American writer living in Italy.  And, today, February 5, 2010, Nutella fans around the world will once again celebrate their love for the chocolate-hazelnut spread for the 4th annual World Nutella Day. For the past four years, Sara and Michelle have joined with thousands of Nutella fans from all over the world to get creative and showcase the wonders of Nutella.

This is my third year participating in World Nutella Day.  Last year, I made Nutella and Banana Filled Aebleskiver.  And the year before that, I offered up some Sogooditshouldbeillegal Triple Chocolate Nutella Semifreddo.  It’s always fun to come up with new ways to use this wonderful product!  This year, however, I decided to keep it simple and share with you the most popular way to enjoy Nutella here in SGCC-Land – Nutella Ice Cream.

I found the recipe for this dreamy dish a couple of years ago on Clothilde’s fabulous site.  One look was all it took for me to know that I had to try it.  With only two ingredients and a minimal time investment involved, it was a no-brainer!  After my rapturous first taste of the stuff, this Nutella Ice Cream became a permanent fixture in my dessert repertoire.

If you love Nutella, you really owe it to yourself to try this.   Rich, dense and impossibly creamy, this chocolatey frozen wonder is like crack in a bowl! Plus, it’s ridiculously easy to make!  Trust me.  After you try this stuff, you’ll be naming your firstborn children after me (and Clothilde)!

Super Simple Nutella Ice Cream
adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups (12 1/3 ounces or 350 grams) Nutella
1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon (14 1/2 ounces or 380 ml) evaporated milk

Directions:

1.  Pre-freeze the bowl of your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

2.  Combine the chocolate hazelnut spread and the evaporated milk in a medium mixing bowl and microwave together for 30 seconds to 1 minute.  You just want to warm them up a little to make the mixture easier to blend. With an electric mixer or hand blender, blend until the mixture is completely smooth and homogeneous.

3.  Cover and refrigerate until well chilled. Whisk again and churn in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

4.  Put in an airtight freezer-safe container and freeze until ice cream reaches your desired consistency.

Note: If you don’t have an ice cream maker, you can still make this recipe on a day when you’re home most of the time. Prepare the mixture in the morning and chill for two hours. Pour into a freezer-safe container and place in the freezer. Every hour or so, remove the container from the freezer, draw the sides in with a fork (the ice cream will set on the sides first), stir vigorously, and return to the freezer. Your ice cream will be ready by dinnertime.

This week marks the second anniversary of of Tuesdays with Dorie.  Amazing, huh?  Who’d have thought that when our founder and fearless leader, Laurie, began this little project two years ago it would take off like a runaway train?  Over three hundred members strong, TWD has become one of the most popular (and populated) baking groups on the web!  Even Dorie, herself, has gotten into the act, graciously lending her support and generously giving much-welcomed advice and tips. (I almost fainted the few times she actually commented on my posts!)

American by birth and French in spirit, Dorie Greenspan divides her time between her homes in New York and Connecticut and her flat in Paris. She has written nine cookbooks, (two with Pierre Herme), and won five James Beard and IACP awards for them, including Cookbook of the Year.   I have spent many an hour drooling over her pastries, tartes and brulées.   She is fabulousness personified!  Baking my way through her Baking: From My Home To Yours has been a delicious journey. 

For this auspicious occasion, I couldn’t think of a more fitting treat to bake than Dorie’s Tarte Tatin.  It is a quintessential classic French dessert.  Think of it as a cross between an apple pie and a cobbler. A marvelously French apple pie and cobbler, that is.  To make it, sweet, juicy apples are cooked on the stove in lots of butter and sugar until they are hopelessly caramelized.  After that, they are blanketed in pâte feuilletée, (puff pastry), and baked to ooey, gooey perfection.  Then, the whole thing is flipped with a flourish (ooh la la!) and plated upside down. The result is a light, flaky crust crowned with a mound of très délicieux apple-caramel heaven!  C’est magnifique!

The thought of making tarte tatin tends to inspire fear in many, myself included.  For me, it was that whole caramelizing the apples part.  I have almost burned my house down more than once while cooking sugar! (Just ask my local fire department. They know.)   However, after completing this recipe, I was surprised by how easy it was.  Yes, there was some nail biting as I waited for my butter/sugar bath to turn the desired color, which by the way, took twice as long as Dorie estimated it would.  And, I can’t deny that my heart skipped a little beat as I flipped my screaming hot tarte onto its final resting place.  But really, it was no big deal.  I would make this tarte tatin again in a heartbeat – and I intend to!  I think out of all of the TWD recipes I’ve made thus far, this is one of my all time favorites.

I want to send great, big, giant hug to Laurie for not only starting TWD, but for all she does behind the scenes to keep it going.  It’s a lot of work!  I’d also like to thank Dorie for giving us such a beautiful, comprehensive and well-written baking bible to work from.  And last but not least, I want to thank my fellow TWDers for inspiring me every day.

If you’d like to try your hand at making Tarte Tatin, you can find the recipe here on NPR.  And, if you’d like to see hundreds more amazing tartes, stop by the TWD blogroll.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a big, fat slice of tarte tatin waiting patiently for me to devour!

Thanksgiving is a mere four days away.  Are you ready?  Or, are you running around like a lunatic, frantically trying to pull it all together?  Whether you’re cool, calm and collected or a big pile of nervous, quivering mush, here’s a list of tried and true Thanksgiving recipes from the SGCC archives that I hope will help make your holiday a little tastier, if not easier.   Maybe you’ll find one or two new dishes to grace your Thanksgiving table this year.

Parmesan Artichoke Crisps

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Apple-Maple Acorn Squash Puree

Bacon Pecan Brussels Sprouts Sauté

Candied Sweet Potatoes

Cornbread, Sausage and Apple Stuffing

Oyster Stuffing

Gingery Pumpkin Caramel-Cheese Pie

Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle

Pumpkin Mascarpone Pie

Enjoy!

Sadly but truly, the lazy days of summer have come to an end, for this year at least.  This Monday is Labor Day, founded in the United States over a hundred years ago as a “workingmen’s holiday”.  According to History.com, “As the Industrial Revolution took hold of the nation, the average American in the late 1800s worked 12-hour days, seven days a week in order to make a basic living. Children were also working, as they provided cheap labor to employers and laws against child labor were not strongly enforced.

With the long hours and terrible working conditions, American unions became more prominent and voiced their demands for a better way of life. On Tuesday September 5, 1882, 10,000 workers marched from city hall to Union Square in New York City, holding the first-ever Labor Day parade. Participants took an unpaid day-off to honor the workers of America, as well as vocalize issues they had with employers.”

Although Labor Day was originally meant to be a celebration of our country’s labor movement and its achievements, it has come to be celebrated as the last, long summer fling before Autumn starts rolling in.  These days, instead of attending parades and political events, most people observe the holiday with beach parties, backyard barbecues and shopping the big sales at the malls.

Whatever your plans are for this Labor Day, here are some great recipe ideas from the SGCC archives to help you celebrate Summer’s last hurrah in style! 

Sumptuous Strawberry Soup

Fresh, ripe strawberries are blended with yogurt, sour cream, lime juice and honey to make this Sumptuous Strawberry Soup. The result is a cross between a rich mousse and a smoothie. Sublime!

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Edamame and Heirloom Tomato Salad

This fresh and vibrant Edamame & Heirloom Tomato Salad is full of beautiful heirloom tomatoes of assorted shapes, colors and sizes, tossed with a light lemon-miso vinaigrette along with steamed edamame, scallions and a chiffonade of shiso leaves.  It not only tastes wonderful, but it’s so pretty too!

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Oven Baked Corn Flake Crumb Chicken

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My Oven Baked Corn Flake Crumb Chicken is the perfect dish for any picnic.  It’s super simple to make and can be served either hot or cold.  It’s one of my ultimate “feel good” foods!

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Smoky Chipotle Sliders

These Smoky Chipotle Sliders are made just like regular burgers, except smaller.  I add some pureed chipotle peppers in adobo sauce to them for a distinctive warm heat and subtle smoky flavor.  They’re the perfect size for a barbecue buffet.

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Grilled Steak Fajitas

I make these Grilled Steak Fajitas with skirt steak marinated in a robust mixture of orange and lime juices, olive oil, garlic, jalapeno and cumin.  They’re served with a big pile of sautéed onions, peppers and mushrooms with some cool and creamy homemade guacamole.  Fantastico!

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Ribeyes with Spicy, Smoky Cacao Nibs Rub

Got your heart set on some thick, juicy steaks this weekend?  Then, you can’t go wrong with these Ribeye Steaks with a Spicy, Smoky, Cacao Nibs Rub.  The dry rub is a blend of crushed cacao nibs, smoked paprika, cumin and other spices mixed with some brown sugar and dry mustard, that takes these steaks to a whole other level.   Carnivore heaven!

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Pacific Rim Burgers

If beef is not your thing, try these Pacific Rim Burgers made with ground chicken and some spicy good stuff.  They are painted with a honey-teriyaki glaze and grilled.  Then, the burgers are smothered with an utterly magical ginger-based mayo, topped with crunchy, fresh cucumbers and served on toasted sesame seed buns. These burgers are so moist, flavorful and delicious that you will forget you’re eating ground chicken. Honest!  You’ll never miss the beef!

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Strawberry Shortcake

What celebration is ever complete without a scrumptious dessert?    Nothing says summer celebration better than berries, berries and more berries!.  This Strawberry Shortcake is quick and easy to prepare and is sure to wow your guests.  Plus, it tastes absolutely divine!    My version calls for a traditional biscuit base overflowing with luscious fresh strawberries and sweetened whipped cream.  Use the freshest and sweetest berries you can get your hands on and I promise, you won’t be disappointed!

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Blueberry Almond Crumble Bars

Blueberry Almond Crumble Bars have a buttery, crumbly shortbread-like crust filled with plump, sweet and juicy blueberry goodness.   These bars are flavored with gentle hints of orange, ginger and almond for a little extra “oomph”.  You can serve them warm with a scoop of ice cream on top or cooled on their own.  Either way, they are to die for!

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Drunken Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream

While it’s a little late in the season, I’m still seeing lots of lovely Bing cherries in the markets.  Although my favorite way to enjoy them is digging into a bowl and eating them out of hand, putting them into a dreamy, creamy ice cream is another top choice.  My Drunken Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream is a Philadelphia-style ice cream, which is one that contains no eggs yolks, instead, relying heavily on cream. This type of base is foolproof and is my preferred method for making fruit-based ice creams.  The cherries become “drunk” by getting a soaking in some cherry brandy or kirshwasser.  Teetotalers can skip this part and still have a deliciously rich and smooth frozen treat!

Have a delicious (and safe) holiday!

When I first made Dorie’s fabulous Perfect Party Cake a little over a year ago for a Daring Bakers challenge, I remember commenting that I wished I’d had an actual party to bring it to. Well, it took a while, but I finally got that wish. Last month was my twin nephews’ 7th birthday, and when I saw that the Perfect Party Cake was in the TWD queue, I volunteered to make it for the twins’ party.

The Perfect Party Cake starts with layers of lovely moist and light white cake, which are filled with raspberry jam and enveloped in clouds of fluffy white Swiss buttercream. Then, sweet, tender flaked coconut is pressed all around the perimeter of the cake. The result is a beautiful mountain of snowy cake perfection.

Because I had already made this recipe as written once before, I wanted to do it a little differently this time. Also, since I was making the cake for two little boys, I wanted to make it a little more kid-friendly. For the filling, instead of the raspberry jam, I used strawberry jam and fresh, sliced strawberries with a thin layer of lemon curd on top. I nixed the coconut altogether, because the boys don’t care for it.

Probably the last term I would ever use to describe myself is “cake decorator”. I’m pretty hopeless in that department! Anime characters and Transformers were just not happening. But still, I wanted the twins’ cake to look fun and whimsical. I tried to achieve that by decorating the cake with multi-colored polka dots that I made with a fondant cutter out of candy melts. I also found some really pretty candy melts that were white with multi-colored sparkles in them. I melted those down and let them harden into one big block. Then, I used a vegetable peeler to make big candy curls, which I piled on top of the cake. It was perfect because the flecks in the candy curls matched all of the different colors of the polka dots.

There were lots of “oohs” and “aahs” heard around the party table as the cake made its entrance. The adults all seemed suitably impressed. From the looks of those big smiles on those happy little faces, I think the kids liked it too!

Many thanks to Carol of Mix, Mix…Stir, Stir for choosing our recipe for this week. If you’d like to make your own Perfect Party Cake, you can find the recipe on Carol’s site. And, as always, check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll to see what the rest of the group come up with.

]]> http://stickygooeycreamychewy.com/2009/06/29/twd-perfect-party-cake/feed/ 66 http://stickygooeycreamychewy.com/2009/05/10/happy-mothers-day/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=happy-mothers-day http://stickygooeycreamychewy.com/2009/05/10/happy-mothers-day/#comments Sun, 10 May 2009 18:59:00 +0000 Susan http://stickygooeycreamychewy.com/?p=256
Mother’s Love
Her love is like an island In life’s ocean, vast and wide A peaceful, quiet shelter …]]>

Mother’s Love

Her love is like an island
In life’s ocean, vast and wide
A peaceful, quiet shelter
From the wind, the rain, the tide.
‘Tis bound on the north by Hope,
By Patience on the West,
By tender Counsel on the South
And on the East by Rest.
Above it like a beacon light
Shine Faith, and Truth, and Prayer;
And thro’ the changing scenes of life
I find a haven there.
– Author Unknown

Here’s wishing all of the mothers in my life, including you, my dear readers, a very Happy Mother’s Day!

I’ll be back on Tuesday with another delicious recipe!

Whether you just stepped off a boat from Dublin or don’t have an ounce or Irish blood in you, you’ll most likely be doing some kind of celebrating when St. Patrick’s Day rolls around next week. I’m not much into the whole green beer thing, but I must confess that this Italian girl loves a good corned beef and cabbage feast. But, as you probably already know, I can rarely leave a good thing be. So, I’ve put together a tricked out version of the original for you adventurous souls out there.

It all starts with the slow cooker. I gathered together all of the ingredients for a traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner and prepared it in my crock pot. After that, I separated the components and made three separate dishes with them. My corned beef was baked with a delicious apricot-spicy mustard glaze. With some of the cabbage, onion and potatoes, I made Colcannon augmented by the judicious use of some nice, thick bacon. Then, I used the rest of the cabbage and sauteed it with onion, cider vinegar and yes, MORE BACON!

Just look at these beautiful little cabbages! Aren’t they gorgeous? These beauties came out of the last harvest from my Uncle Sal’s garden. They were the tenderest, sweetest cabbages I’d ever tasted. Cooking with them was definitely a bittersweet experience, but I think he would have approved of the end result.

The great thing about this dinner is that most of the ingredients are already cooked in the slow cooker once, so preparing the individual dishes hardly takes any time at all. You can even do it all in advance and refrigerate until you’re ready to make the individual recipes. Also, you can cook all of the bacon for the Cabbage Saute and the Colcannon at once and divide it for each dish, like I did.

Please don’t let the quality of my photographs deter you from trying any of these recipes. In the first place, mashed potatoes and cabbage are not the most photogenic foods around. In the second place, that corned beef turned out so incredibly tender, that it just fell apart as I tried to slice it. In the third place, I had to work reeeeeallllly fast because my hungry natives were getting restless! All three of these dishes were absolutely scrumptious!

Tricked Out St. Patrick’s Day Dinner
(Printable Recipes)

Apricot-Mustard Glazed Corned Beef

Ingredients:

1 large sweet onion, cut into quarters
4 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 1/2 cups low sodium chicken broth
1 1/2 cups water
garlic cloves, minced
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 (3 pound) corned beef brisket with spice packet
1 large or 2 small heads of cabbage, cut into wedges

For the Glaze:

1 cup apricot preserves
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons spicy deli mustard
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons kumquat or orange syrup (optional)

Directions:

Place the onion and potatoes in a 5-qt. slow cooker. Combine broth, water, garlic, bay leaf, sugar, vinegar, and contents of spice packet; pour over vegetables. Top with brisket and cabbage. Cover and cook on low for 8-9 hours or until meat and vegetables are tender.

Preheat oven to 350 deg. F.

Carefully remove corned beef from the slow cooker and place in a shallow roasting pan.

Mix all glaze ingredients together in a bowl. Pour over corned beef. Bake 30-40 minutes, until glaze is nice and bubbly.

Remove corned beef to a platter, slice on the diagonal and serve.

Sauteed Cabbage

4-5 slices thick cut bacon
1/2 of the reserved cabbage from slow cooker, sliced into strips
1 large sweet onion, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tsp sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

Place bacon in a large skillet and cook over medium high heat until evenly browned. Place on a plate lined with paper towels and cut up into small pieces. Set aside.

In about 2 tablespoons of the reserved bacon drippings, (Save the rest for later.), saute the onion until very soft. Add cabbage and the rest of the ingredients and saute until liquid is absorbed and all is heated through.

Serve.

Colcannon

Ingredients:

Reserved potatoes from slow cooker
1/2 of the reserved cabbage, cut into small chunks
4 strips bacon
1 large sweet onion, sliced
1/4 cup half and half
Salt and pepper to taste
2-3 tablespoons butter (preferably Irish)

Directions:

Place potatoes in a large bowl. Smash them up a bit and set aside.

Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, reserving drippings, crumble and set aside. In the reserved drippings, saute onion until very soft. Add the cabbage for the last few minutes and continue to saute so that the cabbage absorbs some bacon flavor.

Mix the half and half into the potatoes and season with salt and pepper. Fold in the bacon, cabbage, and onions, then transfer the mixture to a large serving bowl. Make a well in the center, and top with butter.

Serve immediately.