I'm a wee bit Irish

I love themes so this being the month of St. Patricks day, I wanted to go with it. I love to decorate! I love being able to use things for other days, for other things, like I found this place setting at the Dollar tree and I can use for another another Chef night. I am so excited to say I bought everything for under $20.00. and everything is microwave safe and dishwasher safe! This the easy part of the day. I love my little leprecaun! And for $10.00 more I was able to get everyone a T-shirt, and they were so gracious to wear.

Okay, food! I made Stuffed Cabbage, corned Beef and Cabbage(vegetables), Nana Dot's Irish Soda Bread, and Irish Cheese Chocolate cake.

The hardest thing for me was, what do I start to do first? I had a lot going on and I like to have things ready to heat up. If I could have the cheese cake done early then that's one thing less I have to worry about. Well, so that is what I started with first the cheese cake. I had never made one that you had to cook. I made two, one cheese cake with premade pie crust and one pie crust I made. The first cheeese cake was with a premade pie crust and it would of been fine if I had made two pies. I had enough pie filling to make two pies. It was not pretty. I had pie filling over flowing. I was at least smart enough to use a cookie sheet. My pie looked like the Grand Canyon! And so what to do? I made another pie. I made my own crust too,with a springform pan. Not quite as ulgy but still had the canyon but not quite as grand. Tasted pretty good I thought! And the first pie I used some whip cream and grated cookie and it looked almost professionally done.

Okay! I lied, I did ask my husband to put the corned beef in the crock pot with one bottle of Guinnes, while I was out shopping. I am sorry, but it was such an easy thing to do, I forgot. But that was the only thing. I over cooked the veggies, I put them in too soon. Carrots, potatoes, onions and what I had left of the cabbage. I seperated the veggies and sliced the corn beef against the grain. I Put the corned beef on a cookie sheet and put in the oven for the last 20 mins under the stuffed cabbage. I liked the corned beef!

I really liked the Soda bread! I was surprised! With caraway seeds, apple cider vinegar! Oh, and I now know what currants are, they are like raisins.

Stuffing the cabbage, there is a trick to getting the leaves to seprate. I was a little freaked out! Steam for 3 mins. And I cooked the meat and rice before I stuffed, that way you can control the grease, and bind with cheese. Or you can stuff with a mixture of raw meats and cooked rice, it make it easier to roll and stuff. I think I could of rolled a little better and made it prettier.
I am pretty pleased, I thought all the flavors went well together and I used only one head of cabbage so it did'nt seem to over power, I needed the luck of the Irish!