St. Patty's Day Corned Beef & Cabbage (Revamped)

So as many of you know, corned beef and cabbage is the most popular sustenance of choice (besides beer of course) on the day we commemorate Saint Patrick.  You might know it better as the day we pinch...or the day you get really really drunk (no, not Cinco De Drinko..the other holiday)  Also the day that everyone is all of the sudden claiming every bit of Irish ancestry they have in them.  All 1/16 haha

Anyways, while there is nothing wrong with your classic corned beef and cabbage where you basically boil the living crap out of it, I share a similar viewpoint as Liz Lemon on 30 Rock.

"All of human kind has one thing in common: The Sandwich. I believe that all anyone really wants in this life is to sit in peace and eat a sandwich."

Beautiful words Tina Fey.  Beautiful words.

Take something already delicious and slap it on bread...yummy!

Start by making yourself some coleslaw.  Or buy some.  Or if you  had some KFC the other night and have a styrofoam cup full..use it up!   

 I used a small head of cabbage, a cup or so of red cabbage, and 1 shredded carrot.  For my sauce I used a little less than 1 cup of mayo, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, and a couple pinches of sugar.  Adjust to taste.

Next, toast your buns because everything is better covered in butter and pan fried to golden brown. I usually use an onion or kaiser roll, but I had ciabatta on hand and I actually think I liked it better. 

And because I'm incredibly impatient, this is the point where I make myself a taco.  Corned beef "tortilla" with coleslaw filling.  I should open an Irish taco truck.

Shmear a thin layer of 1,000 island on both sides of the bun

Heat up your corned beef in a pan.  This is VERY important.  Even though I will never turn down a cold piece of corned beef for snacking purposes, nothing compares to eating it warm.  It brings out so much more flavor.

Pile it on your bread. Top with cole slaw.  Grab a beer. Wear some green.

Phineas and Ferb Birthday Bash

My niece Elsa, like most 7 year olds, is waaaay into Phineas and Ferb.  As soon as she said she wanted a Phineas and Ferb party a few months back I started watching for research. I was pleasantly surprised how much I like it!  I think it's one of the few good kid shows on TV these days.  TV just isn't the same anymore.  Whatever happened to Wishbone, Arthur, Zoom...Looney Tunes.  Kids Tv shows just aren't the same anymore...but that's a whole other subject.  Back to the party....  I will be posting projects from the party in various different entries by theme so I don't have one run on entry of non sense.  Hopefully it will be less of a mess that way =)

Phineas and Ferb Party Ensemble

Of course the birthday girl had to have a showstopping outfit.  A Perry tshirt from Walmart got the ball rolling.  My sister wanted her to still have something frilly since Elsa is the ultimate girly girly and what's more girly and frilly than a tutu?!!  We found glittery blue tulle on a spool at Michael's.  You'll also need some elastic that is about an inch wide.

Start by measuring their waist.  Subtract 3 inches from that number and cut the elastic to that length. Sew the 2 ends together to create your waistband.

Figure out how long you want their tutu to be.  We figured 15 inches for hers because we wanted it to be a little longer, like a skirt, rather than the traditional tutu that sticks straight out.  If you want the traditional look shoot for around 12 inches in length.

Cut the strips of tulle 2x the length.  So if you want a 15 inch long skirt cut the strip 30 inches.  Our tulle already came 6 inches wide which was perfect.  If you buy your tulle on the large bolts you will have to cut it down to 6 inches wide and then to the desired length.

Put the elastic band around something that is close to the size of their waist.  You want the elastic to be stretched out as you tie on the tulle strips.  The Kitchenaid bowl  was the best thing we could find.  You do watcha gotta do.

Fold the strips in half and bunch it together in the middle.  Take the bunched up middle part and place behind the elastic and form a small space or loop.

Fold the bottom of the tulle up and throw the loop creating a knot.  Do that all the way around and you will have yourself a no sew (well....very little sew) tutu.  We used about 30 yards of tulle but again we made it longer.  If you do 12 inch strips you will only need about 20 yards.

Discalimer:  We got the glitter tulle because it was adorable...and they didn't even have regular blue tulle without glitter.  It gets EVERYWHERE so if you don't feel like living in a pixie dreamland I suggest you skip it.  There was a trail of glitter everywhere she went.

Shoes

Since Perry has yellowish orange feet we thought it would be cute for her to wear some bright wacky shoes.  Elsa had a gnarly old pair  of flats that were on their way to the garbage

 So my sister just slapped some orange acrylic paint on them.  We knew these were going to be a one time deal so they weren't exactly masterpieces.  They got her through the party and then they went in the trash.  Paired with an orange headband and her ensemble was complete.

She kept calling herself a pretty Perry

Phineas and Ferb Party Food

We wanted to have food that correlated with the show in same way.  Candace's favorite food is grilled cheese.  I never noticed this, but my niece  insisted that the sammies are round in the show so we cut them out with biscuit cutters.  She made some cute little signs to go with them

 Mini corn dogs or "slushy dogs"  We also added in the "Corn dogs corn dogs yummy yummy yummy"  for an added touch

Cake

I wanted to do something a little different for the cake so we decided on an orange creamsicle flavor. 

   I started with a yellow cake mix and just subbed orange juice for the water, added the zest of an orange, and 2 tsp. of orange extract per box.  I ended up making 3 boxes of cake mix so I used 6 tsp. of orange extract.  Now as an adult I can handle eating an orange flavored cake that is white, but if I were a kid and you were calling the cake Orange Creamsicle cake and it wasn't orange I would give you the shifty eyes.  So for the sanity of the children I added some orange food coloring.....maybe even too much haha.

I wanted to make an Agent P cake so a fedora was a must.  I formed it out of rice crispy treats.  I accidentally got the variety pack so there's strawberry teats, chocolate drizzle, and who knows what else crammed all together

  

Then covered it in fondant.

I stacked the orange cakes with vanilla buttercream for the Cream portion of the orange creamsicle.  I decorated the cake to look like Perry's face and added the hat on top

The best part was when one of the kids declared  "This tastes like a popsicle!"  Mission accomplaished

Drinks

This isn't so much about what we served to drink, but how we served it.  My sister wanted to avoid a million pop cans crowding every open inch of space and the inevitable spills that come along with having a pack of children hopped up on sugar.  We found these little water bottles for a dollar at Walmart.

We peeled off the label and put on a Phineas and Ferb sticker.  We wrote their names on them and they got to take them home at the end of the day.  Cute and functional.  Her carpet was spared

Phineas and Ferb Party Decor

My niece Katie is an awesome artist.  She drew some amazing pictures of all the characters and we hung them all over the house.

 I found a Phineas and Ferb calender at 99c only.  We cut the pictures out and hung those too.

It's not a kids birthday without streamers

Phineas and Ferb Party Games

Building "Inators" and Contraptions

We collected random odds and ends from home and work like bubble wrap, soup cans, toilet paper rolls etc.  We spray painted some of them grey and blue just to make them a little more interesting. We also got googly eyes, pip cleaners, pop poms, colored foam, duct tape, and glue.  We let the kids have at it and just let them do whatever they wanted. 

  Having fun building

You're Sooo Busted!

As you probably know, Candace is always telling her crazy brothers " You're soooo busted!"  The original idea of this game was that each kid would have one minute to try to "bust" as many balloons as possible by sitting on them while everyone watched.  That didn't quite work out as planned.  Before the directions could even be given they were already all running around popping them.  Either way the kids had a ton of fun so it didn't even matter.

Where's Perry?

I don't have any pictures of this game but it's pretty self explanatory.  The kids took turns being the one to hide a small stuffed Perry and the rest of the group looked.  They played this game FOREVER which was nice and gave us time to get the food all ready.

Coloring Books

My older niece Katie was in charge of printing out pictures of Phineas and Ferb for coloring books.  Just put them all together with a ring.  I had little cellophane bags of crayons leftover from my wedding that I just switched out  the ribbon to match.  It was nice because they served as an activity and favor all in one

'

This was the last thing we did after presents and cake.  It was a good wind down activity as the parents showed up to take them home.

 

Stuffed Peppas

Begin by slicing the tops off your bell peppers and removing the seeds and membranes from the inside.

Then, dice up your onion.  I also like to cut around the stem of the bell pepper tops and dice those up and add it to my filling mixture as well.  Or you could just save the the pieces for snacking....or just be wasteful and throw them away. (Booo!)  Whatever does it for you

Brown your ground beef and add in the onion, pepper pieces, Worcestershire sauce, thyme, salt, and pepper.  Drain off the excess fat.  Turn off the heat and add in your garlic.  I like to grate my garlic directly over the put with my microplane.  It saves you from tedious chopping.

Mix in your cooked rice, drained tomatoes, and parmesan cheese.  You will have a lovely mixture that looks like this.   See how the peppers give it nice color?

Stuff your peppers and place in a baking dish.  I had enough stuffing leftover that I could have made 2 more peppers for a total of 8 instead of my 6.  My peppers were huge so if you had smaller peppers you could probably get up to 10.   I had some mini yellow squash so I scooped out the seeds and stuffed them with my extra filling

 Pour a little water into the bottom of the baking dish and cover it in foil.  After 45 minutes in the oven, uncover them and top with more parmesan cheese

Bake until the cheese is melty and delicious.

And here are my cute little squash boats.  They're so small you can just pic them right up and eat them in 2 bites

2# ground beef
6-10 bell peppers, depending on their size
1 large onion
3 Tb. Worcestershire sauce
28 oz. can diced tomatoes, some of the juice drained
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp. thyme
Salt & Pepper to taste
3 c. cooked white or brown rice
1 c. parmesan cheese, plus a little extra for topping

Cut the tops off the peppers and remove the seeds and membranes.  Dice up your onion and bell pepper scrap.  Brown the ground beef and add the onion and peppers part way through.  Drain off the fat and add the Worcestershire sauce, thyme, salt, & pepper.  Turn off the heat.  Add the drained tomatoes, rice, garlic, and cheese.  Stuff your peppers with the mixture and place in a baking dish.  Add some water to the bottom of the dish.  Cover tightly with foil and bake in a 350 oven for 45 mins.  After the 45 mins, uncover the peppers and top with more cheese.  Bake until cheese melts and top crusts a bit.