Tiggers Definitely Don't Like Hunny

That was the thought that ran through my head when I ate lunch yesterday. No, it wasn't anything with honey - I'm just weird and the craziest things hop into my head. It was this meal, Carrot and Cabbage Medley. This is a favorite around here, and for some reason when I made it last weekend for Saint Patrick's Day dinner, we had a ton of leftovers. I think it was the cabbage - I spent over 15 minutes trying to find a head that wasn't funny looking or discolored in the store that morning. Most of them looked like the leaves were rusted or had a fungal infection. I never saw such awful looking cabbages. 

Anyway, I packed 2 full and one half-full 3-cup glass Pyrex storage containers and popped them into the freezer for lunch on Saturday. Friday I took them out to defrost and yesterday dumped the still partially frozen contents into a pot and slowly reheated it all.

When lunchtime came we sat down with our bowls and dug in. As soon as I bit into that first potato, the quote that's the subject of this post popped into my head. Yukon Gold potatoes do NOT freeze well at all! This was a watery, spongy mess! The skins slipped off just by looking at them so at any time one would wind up with a fork full of skins and no potato or cabbage. Ew!

My husband had no complaints. He grabbed his bottle of sriracha and devoured his bowl and went back to finish the pot off with an even larger serving for seconds. I ate most of mine but had a few soggy spuds left over that hubby finished off, too.

Next time? Well, go cabbage shopping earlier than the day I plan on eating it so if one store has nothing but sick looking produce I can fight my way through the other grocery store in town and hope they had something better.

And never freeze a meal with potatoes again. If it doesn't all get eaten that day, even if it's enough for another whole meal, just keep it in the refrigerator until it either gets eaten or goes bad and gets tossed (A very rare occasion here). But never freeze it!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

This Irish gal is making a traditional Irish dinner today.

For starters, I'm making a stew loosely based on this recipe from the old McDougall recipe forum on VegSource. Very loosely. In fact, all that recipe did was put the idea of adding cans of tomatoes into the stew. My stew is about 6 Yukon Gold potatoes (peeled and chopped), a small head of cabbage (chopped), 6 carrots (peeled and chopped), 2 onions (chopped), 2 cans of plum tomatoes (broken into pieces), a few cloves of chopped garlic, and about a quart of veggie broth. Just plop it all together in the biggest pot you have (I had to spread it over over 2 pots - Yikes!) and let it simmer all day so the house smells fantastic and the concoction cooks down to this melt-in-your mouth Irish stew.

Every stew needs its bread, and I'm making a plain loaf of whole wheat with some instant potato flakes tossed in for flavor.

And to go with the stew and bread, corned beef seitan from the recipe by Brian McCarthy found here on Everyday Dish. I've been meaning to make this since I first saw the recipe a year or so ago on that site but never got around to it. This year, it's now sitting in my biggest pot simmering away. This is why my stew had to get split over my next 2 smaller pots. I really have to get myself a nice big soup pot.

For the past week I've been playing all my Irish/celtic music CD's and even watched Feet of Flames twice to get myself in the holiday mood. Man, I love how Michael Flatley dances, but that man has an ego the size of all Ireland! LOL