St. Patty's....Sort of.

In the days leading up to St. Patty's day I had planned to make corned beef, cabbage, and Irish Boxty's.  Standard Irish themed meal.  Well yesterday morning Byrd and I stopped by her parents house to pick up some baby loot from Granny Annie (Byrd's grandmother) whom her mother went to see last weekend.  They had some grilled sausage for us for lunch, Johnsonville Irish O'Garlic sausage.  I had never seen this and think it creative and a bit funny that they named a sausage this.  Putting an O' in front of something makes it Irish, kind of like adding vowels to the end of words to make them Italian or Spanish depending on the voice used.  I am guilty of the latter.  Menu change 1. Byrd wanted sausage instead of corned beef.
McGuire's Irish Pub is and has been one of my favorite restaurants throughout my life.  This is the first and last place I have had Irish Boxty's.  Basically they are garlic mashed potatoes, made into balls, rolled in herbed bread crumbs, and fried. They serve them with a horseradish sauce, salsa, and guacamole.  I have no idea why these flavors work so well, but man do they.  We got to running around town and time slipped away from us, so Menu change 2 Potato cakes instead of boxtys.  I have never had a potato cake, but Byrd's dad used to make them for her when she was growing up so she wanted to make them.
The cabbage got to stay.
I fired up the Hibachi for the sausage.  My plan was to grill them, then add them into the cabbage and onion pan.

While those cooked I shredded some cabbage, sliced some white onion, and diced some bacon.  I started the pan with about 2 Tbsp of butter, then added 2 slices of diced bacon.  Cooked until the bacon was almost crispy then added in the cabbage and onion.  How to make cabbage unhealthy? Fry it in butter and bacon grease.  Then I pulled the sausage off the grill and put a lid on it to simmer.

While I was running around doing this, Byrd was making Potato Cakes.  She washed, peeled, and shredded 2 cups of potato.  Then put them in a towel and rang out all of the water.  Into a bowl, then added 3 eggs,  1 1/2 Tbsp of flour, and salt.  I was in awe of my wife.  She then broke out a cast iron skillet and added some oil.  Once it was hot enough she started to spoon in the potato mixture.  I was drooling at this point.

The doctor would not be happy if she new this is what we were cooking last night, but it's just one meal right.

As for the theme of the day, we definitely ended up more German than Irish, but that's ok, because it was delicious.  As Byrd reminded me, our house smells like Waffle House, and it's because we cooked, not because we needed it to soak up the St. Patty's day festivities like years past.