Emergency Room, St. Paddy's Day and Avocado Fries

For those of you who know my husband Dan, you know he really enjoys LED lights and arduino's – when you put them together – well let's just say he's a happy camper .. or he was anyway.

The day before St Paddy's day he was working to get the color and patterns just right for the occasion. I was in the living room reading and he came in with his hand over his eye and said; "I hurt myself." As it turned out he was bending over to put up the newly programmed St. Patrick's Day lights and got poked in the eye with a branch – Yikes!

After trying to convince him to go to the emergency room (and I was unsuccessful) he spent a painful night and then conceded at 7am so off we went.  It was long and painful but in the end resulted in 3 prescriptions and no more pain, which was the goal.

So it's St. Paddy's Day (and I'm Irish) but we couldn't really go out to dinner (because Dan was doped up on Percocet) so I pulled out the recipes from our vegetarian cooking class and decided to make the black eyed pea, cabbage and cheese dish since it kind of reminded me of corned beef and cabbage (btw I would never eat corned beef).

The recipe is pretty simple, 1 head of cabbage 1 cup of black-eyed peas (uncooked, cooked equals 3 cups), tamari, salt, pepper and cheese (I used almond cheese). I didn't have any tamari or soy sauce so I opted to leave it out – don't do that it really adds a flavor that you need. While healthy our dish was bland, but we did include some Field Roast Italian sausages (made of eggplant and other delicious things) on the side and carrot cake cupcakes – they saved the day!

To make the dish cook 1 cup of black eyed peas in a pan of water for about an hour and at the same time steam 1 small head of cabbage. When the beans are done, combine them with the steamed cabbage, tamari (between 1 – 2 T), salt and pepper to taste and then add cheese. The recipe calls for cheddar, since we don't do cow cheese here I used almond cheddar which is pretty flavorless – so aside from binding it all together it really didn't do much for the dish.  Bake it for about 25 – 30 minutes. 

We had lots of leftovers – initially boring leftovers but we revived them the next day by sautéing an onion, peppers, mushrooms and adding cayenne pepper the result was delicious. Next time these things will be added upfront, I mean really, onions make everything taste amazing right?

And speaking of amazing, have you tried avocado fries? I was browsing Pinterest a while ago and saw a recipe for them and pinned it but I never got around to actually making them. When I got my first paycheck from my new job I took Dan out for dinner to celebrate and the restaurant had avocado fries as an appetizer – I had to try them, they were so delicious, I was not disappointed. They had a crunchy outside and a creamy, velvety inside that definitely made my taste buds do a happy dance.

If you like avocado you need to and I do mean NEED to try these. You cut an avocado in like 6 or 8 pieces, dip it in egg white and then roll them in panko bread crumbs with some cayenne pepper, salt and any other spice you like and bake them at about 400 degrees until crispy on the outside. Serve them with a chipotle mayo and well just do it – you'll be glad you did.

A few lessons about this week; don't poke yourself in the eye, don't refuse to go to the emergency room and be in pain for an entire evening, don't leave out key ingredients in the recipe and DO order avocado fries – all good advise.