Bacon and Cabbage Recipe

Bacon and Cabbage

I'm getting geared up for St. Patrick's Day, and this year I want to make a traditional Irish meal which is cabbage and bacon. I didn't have any back bacon and thought okay well let's try it out with regular bacon slices. Most people think that the traditional meal for St. Patrick's Day is corn beef and cabbage. Apparently this is a North American traditional meal. One day I was talking to a friend online who lives in Ireland and she told me that on St. Paddy's Day they feast on bacon and cabbage.

A blogger that I follow, +Natasha Hoover over at Diary of a Plague Year , had posted an article about boiled bacon. I do boil bacon when making a few Lithuanian dishes but Natasha's post came to mind, while thinking about how to make the following bacon and cabbage dish.

Here is my recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 pound of bacon (1 pkg.) of sliced bacon cut into pieces.
• 1 medium size head of cabbage chopped 
• 2 medium onions sliced
• 3 garlic cloves chopped
• fresh ground pepper

Instructions

1. Place the bacon in a large pot or dutch oven and cover with water. Bring the bacon to a boil and cook for approximately 20 minutes. 
2. Add the sliced onion and chopped garlic and stir. Continue to cook for another ten minutes.
3. Add and stir in the chopped cabbage.
4. Season with fresh ground pepper.
5. Cover and continue to cook over low-medium heat stirring occasionally for approximately another 20 minutes or until cabbage is cooked and wilted. 
6. Drain and serve. ENJOY!

You can either eat this as a side dish or all alone. This recipe will serve 6-7 people as a main dish.
We are a family of 5 and all of this went in one meal. I served a side salad along with the bacon and cabbage.

Cheese Tortellini with Mushrooms

Cheese Tortellini with Mushrooms and Onions
Photo by Susan Zutautas

Here is a dish I made the other night to go along with hamburgers. You could very easily eat this pasta on its own or serve as I did as a side dish. I know my cousin who is a vegetarian would love this dish.

Below I've included step by step pictures on how to make Cheese Tortellini with Mushrooms.

Ingredients

Sliced mushrooms, onions, and garlic
Photo by Susan Zutautas

1 package of cheese tortellini (I used a small package since this was for a side dish. You could always use the larger package and increase the onions, mushroom and garlic)

3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

1 medium size onion sliced fairly thick

3-4 cloves of garlic sliced

8 - 12 mushrooms washed and sliced (I used white mushrooms but brown or shiitake would go very nice as well)


Let's Get Cooking

1. Bring a medium or large pot of water to a boil. Add the cheese tortellini and cook as per package instructions.
2. While the tortellini is cooking heat the EVO (extra virgin olive oil) in a frying pan. Add the onions, garlic and mushrooms. You can now add any spices that you may like. I added chili pepper flakes to give the dish a bit of spiciness.  Cook on medium high stirring as everything is cooking for approximately ten minutes. 
3. Drain the tortellini and put it into a serving bowl along with the cooked mushroom mixture. Toss and serve. ENJOY!

All photos are by Susan Zutautas