A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Ina Garten's Pastitsio (Greek Lasagna)

It's March which means the "madness" in our family is always the family game we play called "What does James want for dinner for his birthday?"

Since I was a child, the tradition in our family was always that the birthday boy or girl got to choose their birthday menu, anything under the sun they wanted. As a kid, I always wanted my Mom's Chicken Chow Mein and my Nannie's (grandmother) Banana Bread. 

As adults, we've created a slight twist on the tradition with my cousin James where he tries (not very hard, LOL) to "stump" Auntie Miranda and I with his menu choices.  I usually make the dinner and Auntie does his cake from a clue or direction rather than a specific dish.  Last year he said "European peasant food" and since we're Swedish/Norwegian I went to from scratch Swedish Meatballs with cranberry sauce and Jansson's Temptation, while his direction to Auntie was "checkerboard cake" from which she created an incredible Cherry/Vanilla checkerboard cake. Yum!

This year we were told "Greek"  and "Pineapple Upside Down Cake".  Since I had to work the night before, Auntie very kindly created both the cake and the entree:  Pastitsio and Greek Pineapple/Coconut cake.  Holy Crap, she "did good!", as we told her last night.  Today I have Pastitsio recipe and tomorrow will upload the cake recipe and link back.  These are great recipes for anytime but, definitely, any birthday boy or girl would give you tons of hugs and kisses for making these!

 

St. Pat's Day: Guiness Irish Stew with Roasted Garlic/Rosemary Dumplings

    
 
  

Departing from my normal St. Pat's feast of corned beef and colcannon, I decided to splurge this year in a different vein, simmering Irish Stew all day in the crockpot, its dark earthy Guiness beer tones enhancing another splurge at Harter House-- lamb!  As even more of a culinary feast, I whipped up roasted garlic with rosemary, right-off-the-plant in the sunroom, dumplings to grace the top o' the pot.  Happy St. Pat's Day Y'all!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Cabbage and Potato Bake; Chimichurri Sauce

 

Our St. Paddy's feast consisted of broiled lamb chops with my FAVORITE: chimichurri sauce, and a sort of colcannon recipe by way of Louisiana.  It's an Emeril recipe with all the right ingedients but mixed up a little differently.  My husband likes potatoes, kale (cabbage), and bacon, but not all mixed together in his mashed potatoes.  That's sacriledge in the Church of Gene, who by the way is, like George Carlin, a frisbyterian. He believes that when he dies his soul will go sit on the roof and refuse to come down.  So I'll leave his mashed potatoes chaste and for another day but for tonight we're eating potatoes and cabbage. I found a great Emeril recipe that I will be making again and again, basically it's potato and cabbage quarters roasted with a topping of bacon and onion.  And yes, it is every bit as good as it sounds.  Pork fat does indeed rule, although I admit I just couldn't allow myself to cook a whole 12 oz of bacon for this dish and limited it to 6 slices which is still bad enough. But what the heck. It's a holiday.

The lamb chops are simply broiled to medium and topped with chimichurri sauce. Both the recipe for it and the Emeril recipe are after the jump.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!