Onion Sausage Toothpick Things

When I took my trip to Ireland, I ate a lot. Like. A lot. 15 pounds and near diabetic coma a lot.

Quite a few things stuck out to me that I loved: black pudding, Lucky’s mom’s mashed potatoes and gravy (drooollllllll, sooooo good), the guiness, the TEA (Oh GOD it’s good!). Even the battered fish was so excellent. Fish in Ireland has no smell. I walked right up to the fish counter at the grocery store and stuck my nose in it, so did the Texan who HATES fish, and nope, not a scent. If you’ve ever been near a fish counter here in the US, you KNOW you can smell that briney, fishy scent about a mile away.

But I came back with a simple obsession. Perhaps it’s because all the ingredients are available here or because it was something I could actually eat without rocketing my blood sugar. Either way, I’m an addict.

One night when Lucky was having a party at his place, Lucky’s mother made these little snack things. They were a piece of ham (though it was more like sausage), with a single cocktail onion and a single cube of cheese on each toothpick. I.ate.the.hell.out.of.those.

They are surprisingly good. Lucky gave me guff because he says his mother has been making those simple things all his life and why I would choose something so simple to bring back with me with such fervor is somehow funny. But I can’t stop eating them. And  everyone here that tries them is really surprised how good they are. How simple and how damn tasty.

So, first thing I did is I went to the store. In Ireland they are jars of pickled onions. Here, the closest ones I’ve found are called sour cocktail onions. And the jars are freaking TINY! Think like maybe a dozen little onions in each jar for like $4. Ugh. The things we will do for an addiction.

I’d put those on a toothpick with some colby jack, cheddar, or pepper jack, and a chunk of venison sausage and it was heavenly wonder. I ate that every single day, if not more than once a day. And then I ran out of onions. I’d gone through probably a dozen jars before I decided I’d try to make my own.

I went to a local market here and bought a bag of fresh mini onions. That was the first mistake. Those things are a PAIN IN THE ASS to peel. It was only later I learned you could use frozen. Duh.

I tend to like the onions really crisp, so I opted to do a fridge-type cure instead of canning because I didn’t want them going soggy. I figured how hard can it really be? A pickled onion, or a sour onion? Vinegar and salt, big whoop. I added spices for good measure because I wanted a spicy onion. Now THAT sounded good! So I added some red pepper flakes. And a whole jalapeno to add some spice to it.

Then I poured vinegar over it and let it sit in the fridge for 2 weeks.

Then I tried one, so excited! YAY! A seemingly endless supply of cocktail onions.

Epic. Fail.

It had flavor alright. It was spicy and the onions were firm and it tasted like biting into a huge crispy ball of vinegar. No. This wouldn’t work. I was pissed. I was heartbroken. I was back at the store buying more $4 a jar cocktail onions.

I’ve since seen several recipes to can cocktail onions, but I fear it. Mostly because they call for frozen onions. And the problem there is the between being frozen and cooking them, there’s going to be a soggy factor. And I’m NOT about to sit there and peel a million tiny little onions.

That doesn’t mean I’m not going to TRY to make my own. Even if those fail I can always use them in cooking. But still. It sucks. I really wanted this to work. And it didn’t. It was actually AWFUL!

I won’t give up my onion sausage cheese toothpick things. No way and you can’t make it, but I’ll admit a fail when there’s a fail. And this was a HUGE one. See, Martha Stewart never tells you THIS sh*t!

Fancy Quesadillas

I ran across pioneer woman’s spinach mushroom quesadilla recipe. Living with a Texan, I know he’s a big fan of those.  He’s not usually a fan of mushrooms, but he will tolerate them and I think he’s growing to like them. He likes spinach a whole lot. Mr. B loves both, so I figured this was a win win.

Usually my quesadillas are just tortillas with Chihuahua cheese smashed in the middle and pan grilled, so the idea of making my life harder with a fancier recipe is of course appealing. Never in my LIFE have I spent so much time making a damn quesadilla.

First you take some mushrooms and slice them up.

Being that I’m the lazy, gadget wielding bitch you’ve come to know and love, of course I didn’t slice these by hand.

Never thought mushrooms could look ominous did ya?

See how easy that was?

Now, you melt butter in a pan. I happened to have a pan handy, however, I’d used said pan to fry bacon a few minutes before. It’s cast iron, so it really soaks up the bacon juice. Instead of washing it, I went ahead and drained off all the bacon fat and just stuck the butter in there. I mean, really? What’s NOT better with bacon fat and drippings?

Now add the mushrooms and sprinkle with some salt, and saute them up.

Now the recipe calls for adding wine. Well, I didn’t have any wine that wasn’t super sweet Christmas wine. I also don’t really typically like wine IN my food. So, I did what any woman in my position would do. I used chicken broth. Actually, I made chicken broth from granules.

I went ahead and poured in the broth.

You cook that until nearly all the liquid is reduced and place them to the side.

Now you basically do the same thing with the spinach except since spinach can’t cook that long you only add a few tablespoons of wine, or in my case, broth.

Now you put those two things together to the side.

Now you are going to prepare your cheese. It called for Monterey Jack, which I had some of. I also had some cheddar, swiss and pepper jack hanging around in small amounts in the fridge. So I mixed them all together and grated the crap out of them. Not by hand of course. Food processor. Hello!

I opened up my goat cheese, which this recipe calls for and I thought what a cool addition. I’d never heard of adding that to a quesadilla before. By the way, opening up goat cheese is a pain in the ass. Easy open container. Right.

Now, we start assembling the quesadilla. The recipe says to spread butter on each side. I decided to melt butter and brush it on one side right before going into the pan and brush it on the other side once I’d flipped it. Saves the mess in my opinion.

Now you put some cheese inside the tortilla.

The shadow is optional. Sorry.

Now you place some spinach mushroom filling and more cheese in there.

There’s that damn shadow again.

Ok, then you dot the filling with goat cheese and place another tortilla on top. Butter the tortilla and put the buttered side face down in the pan. Mind you: This recipe says to GRILL them. Well, I don’t have a grill on my oven so this will have to do.

I didn’t spread it around in the tortilla too much so it’s bumpy in the middle. I’d rather have a pregnant quesadilla going into the pan than a sloppy mess on my floor trying to hold it together while it goes in the pan, or, worse yet, the cheese oozing out the sides while it’s cooking. I’d rather smoosh it while it’s in the pan to desired non-pregnant-ness.

Then butter the side that’s face up and flip it.

And you’ll have this in a few minutes.

How was it? It was good. It wasn’t amazing, again, like I expected. BUT. I don’t think that’s the recipes fault at all. I made serious variations to it.

I didn’t grill it, I didn’t use just monterey jack cheese, I use chicken broth instead of wine and I used low carb tortillas.

Mr. B thought they were amazing, Texan’s only complaint was that he wasn’t a fan of spinach in his quesadillas apparently. Spinach yes, in this, no. Keep in mind as well that this family is accustomed to VERY plain quesadillas. Take ANY family who’s used to plain something and give them the fanciest something and they may not love it. It’s just how it goes.

However, I’m still planning on making the REAL version. And I suggest you do too, cause it just sounds so damn good.