The Smiling Onion

Vegetarian and Gluten-free Cooking

Subscribe

“Pots of Gold” Baked Potatoes with Herbed Sour Cream & Leeks

By Leave a Comment

Happy St. Paddy’s Day, everyone! If you are wondering how to commemorate the holiday, look no further. I’ve got a simple, St. Paddy’s Day recipe that should fit the bill and would also go great with some Irish beer. Because really, what could be more Irish than potatoes and beer? (Actually, perhaps whiskey, but you can have that for dessert.)

Anyway, for this St. Paddy’s Day, I decided to do a twist on baked potatoes with sour cream. I wanted to keep the simplicity of the dish but also add a lot more fun for your taste buds and a little sprinkle of fancy schmancy just because.  Enter mustard crust, an ooey gooey flavor-packed outside to our little pots of gold. Blending the cream with some parsley and chives also gives the dish a nice brightness of flavor and adds a lovely, St. Paddy’s Day-appropriate green color. Finally, a sweet mustard drizzle (made with your leftover mustard crust mixture) and some sautéed leek greens complete the dish. Think: a lovely rainbow of flavors spiraling out of a little golden nugget, bringing good fortune to your taste buds every time you take a bite. Yum!

[Read more…]

St. Paddy’s Day Cabbage with Caraway and Thyme

By Leave a Comment

The first word used to describe cabbage isn’t generally “decadent,” but when it’s caramelized in butter with leeks, caraway seeds, and thyme,  I’d say decadent is a pretty apt description. It’s maybe not quite as decadent as last year’s St. Paddy’s Day recipe, which fell in the realm of sweets and desserts (Irish whiskey banana bread!), but – as a side dish, it’s pretty damn delicious. And Irish to boot!

Green cabbage is traditional for St. Paddy’s Day, and butter, caraway, and thyme are often used in Irish cuisine. I don’t know if it’s traditional or not, but I happen to like this with a little pinch of ground mustard thrown in for a slight kick. (I actually thought about serving this with a mustard cream but decided the cabbage was so good on its own I didn’t want to overwhelm it with a sauce.)

Serve this cabbage alongside whatever your St. Paddy’s day meal pièce de résistance happens to be. Or, if you are looking to create a vegetarian pièce de résistance, try using this cabbage as a stuffing for baked potatoes and serve them with the mustard cream I almost made (combine mustard, sour cream, and minced fresh parsley). Options abound! (Oh, and you might as well make the aforementioned whiskey banana bread for dessert!)

[Read more…]

Irish Whiskey Banana Bread

By Leave a Comment

What better way to celebrate St. Paddy’s day (which is in just 2 days!) than with a loaf of whiskey-infused banana bread?  This sumptuous treat will fill your home with the most incredible, cozy, delicious aromas — aromas that (fair warning) may prompt you to cancel your night out, wrap yourself in a Shamrock blanket, and call some friends to help you make a dent in the conveniently already-open whiskey bottle until it’s time to devour that warm loaf of banana-y goodness.

What’s that? Your friends aren’t gluten-free? No worries. I gave this to my husband and he swore he couldn’t tell it was sans gluten. The loaf rises and browns beautifully. It has a crusty outside and a warm, cakey inside. And the flavor? Don’t get me started. This banana bread is the perfect sweetness. It’s just banana-y enough with a salty, buttery undertone (yay for salted butter in baking!) and an almost caramel or deep vanilla-like note from the whiskey infusion that will leave you licking up the crumbs like there’s no tomorrow.

[Read more…]

Irish Flag Skillet

By Leave a Comment

Happy St. Paddy’s Day, everyone! I hope you are all gearing up for some Jameson and Guinness (well, skip the Guinness if you’re gluten-free like me!) It’s a beautiful day in New York City, so I, for one, am planning to do my celebrating outdoors.

If I decide to celebrate, that is. In all honesty – while I am partial to Irish whiskey (who isn’t?) –  St. Paddy’s Day is not my favorite holiday. This probably started about six years ago, when I had the extreme misfortune of working in Times Square during the St. Paddy’s Day madness. If you’re a native New Yorker (or someone who has lived here for a while), you probably agree with me that Times Square is almost never a pleasant place to be. But while most of us can stomach walking through it on the way to something better (which is really anywhere but Times Square)  – on St. Paddy’s Day, it’s really best to avoid it at all costs. At least that was the case six years ago, when I was working in the Paramount Building, right smack dab in the center of it all.

Venturing out on my lunch break at 1 PM – mind you, this wouldn’t have been quite as upsetting if it had happened later in the day – I was met with a mob of green-clad, drunken, obnoxious frat boys. This frat must have swallowed a pinch of magic leprechaun dust or something, because it was expanding exponentially as I attempted to make my way to the deli a block away. Now I have nothing against frat boys; I mean, I went to Oberlin, so … (For those of you who aren’t picking up on my sarcasm, Oberlin is a hippy dippy liberal arts college where you’d be hard pressed to find a frat boy even if he held the key to unlocking the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You can find plenty of hipsters, though!) But…I do have something against exponentially expanding swarms of frat boys who are already drunk at 1 PM and have completely taken over Times Square. Suffice it to say it was NOT a pleasant journey to the deli and back. And it definitely took me out of the St. Paddy’s Day spirit for quite a while.

I have, however, held on to some St. Paddy’s day traditions. I’m currently wearing green (I will never say no to some good luck!) and I enjoyed a delicious skillet for breakfast this morning inspired by the colors of the Irish flag. It’s got caramelized onions, fingerling potatoes, and swiss cheese for the white component; some tender red kale for the green component (red kale for the green component? In case you’re confused, red kale has purple stems and greenish/purplish leaves but it’s basically a dark green once it’s cooked); and for the orange component, some cute carrot chunks that pop out at you every once in a while with a nice bite of sweetness. And yes, I know Irish cheddar would have been more St. Paddy’s Day appropriate, but the swiss is REALLY, REALLY good here. Trust me.

[Read more…]