Baked Corned Beef, Spinach, and Swiss Cheese Braid

Corned Beef Spinach and Swiss Cheese Braid

I am so pleased with this! Although it’s another “what to do with your leftover corned beef from St. Patrick’s Day post,” I promise you this one is over the top. My husband and daughter raved at how good this was. I am tickled pink. We ate half of this “sandwich” and my daughter said she wanted to take the entire other half to school for lunch the next day. (My husband put his foot down on that, as he wanted some for lunch too!)

I’m astounded that I actually baked a bread-type item without it being a total failure. Believe me, I had my doubts. My prep shots looked like I had a disaster in the making, but I am so happy with how it turned out — not only in taste, but in appearance. The crescent pastry puffs up nicely and hides most of the defects from squishing the seams of the dough together, cutting it up, then braiding it. (I also added some sesame seeds on top at the last minute, what a great idea!)

Corned Beef Spinach and Swiss Cheese Braid ~ Uncut

Another bonus: Super easy to make and only 6 or 7 ingredients. Probably 15 or 20 minutes prep time, then in the oven it goes for 25 minutes. If you still have some leftover corned beef in the fridge, I highly recommend making this. (Or just go out and buy some deli-sliced.) I doubt you will be sorry.

Corned Beef, Spinach, and Swiss Cheese Braid

6-ounce bag fresh spinach
2 8-ounce canisters refrigerated butter-flavored crescent rolls
1 1/2 cups cooked corned beef, sliced/chopped
Yellow mustard
4 ounces Swiss cheese, grated
1 egg white, beaten
Sesame seeds (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Steam the spinach with a few splashes of water in the microwave (or other method) covered in a bowl for a few minutes. I used a smallish bowl and had to do two batches. Strain all the water out by pressing on it with paper towels in a colander to get as much moisture out as you can.

Turn that Frown Upside Down! I love my new Zak Spoons and Serving Tray

Next, line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or spray with baking oil). Roll out the crescent rolls and press the seams together as shown below on top of it. Feel free to brag how you can do that better than me.

Crescent Dough Pressed Together

Add the sliced/chopped corned beef down the middle.

Corned Beef on Pastry Dough

Squirt yellow mustard all over it. A pattern is optional.

Mustard on Corned Beef

Top evenly with spinach.

Spinach on Mustard and Corned Beef

Spread the grated cheese over the spinach.

Swiss Cheese Over Everything!

Next cut the pastry dough on both sides with kitchen scissors in about 1/2-inch slices just up to the filling, as shown below.

Crescent Dough Cut

“Braid” the dough slices over the filling. Don’t panic halfway through braiding when it looks a mess.

Sandwich Loaf Halfway Braided

Brush the egg white over the top, then sprinkle sesame seeds (optional) over the loaf.

Crescent Pastry Dough with Egg Wash and Sesame Seeds

Bake for 25 minutes until golden brown. Let rest for 5 minutes, then slice into some delicious hot sandwiches! I’m not a big sandwich eater for dinner, but this was even guest-worthy!

Corned Beef Spinach and Swiss Cheese Braid

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What to Do with Leftover Corn Beef and Other Stuff

Healthy Leftover Corned Beef, Cabbage

Saint Patrick’s Day is next Monday, and if you are like me you will cook corned beef and cabbage (or hopefully get to eat some!). I have a recipe I posted last year for what to do with the leftovers that is light and healthy that I’d like to re-share with you. I developed a soup that is not heavy at all and will help ease any over-indulgence you had the night or two before.

Get the recipe here: Healthy Leftover Corned Beef, Cabbage, and Potato Soup

Or if you are feeling adventurous, here are some corned beef fritters you can fry up! Corned Beef Fritters

Or if you want a great leftover corned beef appetizer, here’s baked version! (Just slice your corned beef thin instead of using the deli-sliced. Or shred it!) Crispy Reuben Roll-Ups

ALSO: The tallies are in and I will be making Goat’s Cheese Soufflé for my French Dish Challenge #1. I bought the ingredients last weekend and wanted to make it straight away when I got home, but much to my dismay I discovered (and then remembered) that I sold my lovely oval, fluted ramekin dishes at our garage sale two years ago.

This is what they looked like:

My Long Gone Oval Soufflé Dishes

I have the round ramekins to make the soufflé, but to finish them off you need some larger, shallower baking dishes to pour the cream and cheese over the souffles to brown up after removing them from the ramekins.

I then went on a thrift store hunt to find my dishes (OK not mine, but something similar) and ended up hitting every single thrift store in town. I found two cute CorningWare baking dishes  with handles that would work at the third thrift store, but I needed three of them! And then BAM! The next thrift store had one of the exact same ones I had just picked up. Talk about serendipity! (Down note, it cost one dollar more and was dirtier then heck on the bottom. The other two were pristine and unused-looking.)

Last but not least, I was featured in the latest Andeo organization’s emailed newsletter about my Coq Au Vin experience with our foreign exchange student Caroline! She is safe and sound back in Paris now and we really miss her! I wish I could link to the newsletter but it was an email-only version of it. But you can read the experience here if you haven’t already: Coq Au Vin.

OK that is it for my long and ramble-ish corned beef and other stuff post. Next up will be my soufflé post on the weekend. We shall see how it turns out. My husband said he raised goats in his 20s and swears goat cheese is disgusting. I hope to change his mind!

Crispy Reuben Roll-Ups

Crispy Reuben Roll-Ups

First, I want to thank the Ranting Chef for the honor of being in his online competition “Diced!” I was so excited when I got the email saying I had been accepted into the next round of competition, and was quite pleased with the list of three required ingredients: Corned Beef, Canned Corn, Corn Flakes cereal.  Yes, we can stop with the “corny” puns now…

Being from Texas, one of the first things that popped in my mind to make was corned beef corn fritters. I told my husband what I was thinking of making, and him, being from the Northeast, suggested a Reuben-type recipe. I angsted for over a week trying to decide which one to make, and when I couldn’t make up my mind I thought “heck, why not make both and see which one you like better?”

Crispy Reuben Roll-Ups Ingredients

Well these Crispy Reuben Roll-Ups won out, and darn it I had to give credit to my husband for winning out over my idea. After taking the photographs, I sampled one then called him over to try one out. He took a big bite and said, “Hey, these are great! He sat it down on a plate then went off to get a glass of milk. I took a look at the one he bit into and thought “wow, I put a lot of corned beef in that one! I bet that would make a great photo.” I grabbed his roll-up and put it back on the appetizer plate to snap a few shots.  Next, from the kitchen I hear, “HEY, where’s my roll-up?!”  Oops! I quickly gave it back to him to finish eating.

Crispy Reuben Roll-Ups Assembly

His initial idea was to roll up the corned beef, thousand island, sauerkraut and Swiss cheese as a cold appetizer. I reminded him it needed corn and cornflakes too. I then started thinking about how I could incorporate those two and came up with the idea to mix the corn in with the dressing, roll up the ingredients in an egg roll wrapper and coat it in crushed cornflakes, then bake it. I was quite pleased with the results, and I hope you will be too! This recipe makes enough for about a half a dozen roll-ups, but I only made three since I wasn’t sure how they would turn out. Now I wish I made them all!

Now for the exciting part… you can VOTE for this recipe by going to the competition page (voting starts December 7 and lasts one week) and click the voting button for this recipe.  The recipe with the most votes in one week moves on to the next round. I am nervous and excited to see if I make it, as who knows what three special ingredients I’ll get next for the Main Dish entry…? So what are you waiting for? Vote Now!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE! ———> Diced! Voting now open!

Crispy Reuben Roll-Ups

Ingredients:
1/4 cup Thousand Island dressing
1/2 cup white shoepeg corn
Egg roll wrappers
Sliced deli corned beef
Sliced deli Swiss cheese
Sauerkraut
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon milk
1/2 cup crushed corn flakes cereal

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Add the dressing and the corn to a food processor, and blend until the corn is incorporated. Set aside. Place an egg roll wrapper on a plate, then top with sliced corned beef (the first one I made I only used one slice but it came out skimpy so added more to the next ones). Then add one slice of Swiss cheese, one tablespoon of the corn dressing mixture, and one tablespoon of sauerkraut to the middle. Roll up the egg roll wrapper according to package directions. Seal with a bit of the egg/milk wash. Brush the egg/milk wash evenly over the entire roll-up, then coat with the crushed corn flakes.

Spray a foil-lined pan with oil, and place the roll-ups on the pan. Spray them lightly with oil and bake for 10 to 15 minutes until crispy and lightly browned. Remove and let cool for a few minutes. Serve with the remaining corn dressing.

VOTE NOW! —–>Diced! Voting now open!

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Sneak Preview ~ Diced! Competition

Crispy Reuben Roll-Ups

I have just found out (because I am so behind on my emails) that my entry for the Diced! online food cooking competition will be posted on Friday. So stay tuned. The most “Likes” on each recipe’s post for the week will move on to the next round. So I will wait until Friday to post that recipe and the link to the blog that you must “Like” in order for me to gain a vote. Please vote for me! This is an unabashed self-promoting post, lol.

Back story on this: I had to write a few sentences in an email to the host of this why I wanted to enter the competition. In short, I was selected to be a contestant. You are given three ingredients to cook a specified genre of food. The first was an appetizer, soup, or salad. The three ingredients to make something out of were Corned Beef, Corn Kernels, and Corn Flakes. So that is how I was inspired to make these Crispy Reuben Roll-Ups. And they were actually quite good! But you will have to wait for the Friday contest post to “read all about it.” 🙂

But do not go to that website and “like” any posts until you have reviewed all the recipes after Saturday, which is when the last recipe for the contest is posted. I mean, fair is fair, right? If you like someone else’s recipe better then by all means vote for that one. But, hey  c’mon. Vote for mine? XO

Corned Beef Fritters

Corned Beef Fritters Appetizer

You must be thinking anotherfoodieblogger has lost her mind. Corned Beef Fritters??? Please let me explain. I am taking part in an online competition called “Diced!” at this blog here: Rantings of an Amateur Chef. You are given three specific ingredients that must be featured in the recipe, and for the first round it had to be an appetizer, soup or salad. The ingredients were corned beef, canned corn, and corn flakes cereal.

I couldn’t make up my mind between two concoctions for the contest, so decided to make both of them and send in the one that I liked best. This is the one that didn’t make the cut. Now wait a minute there! It is not bad tasting or anything, but I liked the other one better, and truth be told, my daughter said she liked this one better. However she just ate hers plain, and mine had sauerkraut and mustard with it. I thought the sauteing the sauerkraut mixed with the red cabbage would add a nice bit of color to the presentation, but it really did overpower the taste of the corned beef fritters, which was the main ingredient. By the way, I bought deli-sliced corned beef, but you could also use leftover corned beef if you have cooked some yourself.  I also think I could have added more corned beef. Since I still had another recipe to make, I didn’t bother trying to make them again with the changes.

Corned Beef Fritters Ingredients

If adding corned beef to fritters freaks you out, simply omit it and then you’ll have your basic Texas-style fritters! You might want to add a little salt or other seasoning, too, as the corned beef adds the salty flavoring.

When my other recipe is featured on the competition blog, I’ll share the post here with you. And then I want you to go over there and vote for it! Stay tuned — the competition deadline is November 28, so it will likely be early December before you see it.

Corned Beef Fritters Ingredients

Corned Beef Fritters

1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup crushed corn flakes
1 teaspoon baking powder
Ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 cup canned yellow corn
1/4 cup corned beef, minced in a food processor
1 tablespoon chopped green onion
1 small egg, beaten
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Corned Beef Fritters

Add the dry ingredients to a bowl, and mix well. Then add the rest of the ingredients except the oil and stir to combine well. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Measure out 1/4 cup of the mixture then dump upside down into the hot oil. Repeat until gone. I ended up with three. I had added a fourth smaller one to the pan, but I tried to flip that one over too soon and it made a mess, so I scooped it out and just finished cooking the three. Fry the fritters for several minutes until browned on the bottom and fairly set. Flip over, then cook for several minutes more until browned and cooked through. Turn down the heat if necessary. Remove and drain on a paper towel. Serve with a sauce of your choice.

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

Healthy Leftover Corned Beef, Cabbage, and Potato Soup

Healthy Leftover Corned Beef, Cabbage, and Potato Soup

Have you ever been frozen with so much indecision with what to make for dinner that you can barely force yourself into the kitchen to make a meal? That happened to me today. I waffled back and forth so many times on how to make this soup, and was so terrified of it being a complete flop, that I literally stayed out of the kitchen for hours until I was forced to just go head on into the kitchen and start doing something. ANYTHING! So I started out with the basics and began slicing and dicing. There…I started feeling more comfortable. I defrosted some homemade chicken broth. OK. I’m feeling a littler more confident. Uh oh. Should I add some tomato and carrot for flavor and color? OK add them to the photo shoot, then you’ll be forced to use it, right? Should I use the leftover boiled potatoes in this, or start with a fresh chopped one? Stop it! You like dicing. I ran and got a potato and peeled it and chopped it before I changed my mind. Oh no! What if the soup is too bland? Quick, add some allspice to it. Whew!

Healthy Leftover Corned Beef, Cabbage, and Potato Soup Served

This entire episode began with me asking hubby if I could make soup out of our leftover corned beef dinner we had a day before St. Patrick’s Day, since he was going out of town overnight and wouldn’t be around for the evening’s meal tonight. “Oh. I put six potatoes in the crock pot so we could have another meal out of it when I got back on Monday.” Hmmm. OK so there went that. But then I noticed how much corned beef was left, and knew I could pull off a soup in his absence. So then I asked my daughter. “Would you like some soup made out of the leftover corned beef?” Silence. More silence. “Well, the corned beef is just so salty,” she finally replied. We have indoctrinated our daughter into a pretty low-salt diet, which is not bad, but a crockpot dinner of corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes simmered all day had put her salt-buds over the top. I agree, it was too salty for my taste too, but it didn’t stop me from devouring mass quantities of it. We restrict ourselves to this type of meal once or twice a year.

So now I present to you a “healthier” version of corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes, made in soup form.

Chopped Cabbage and Veggies for Soup

Healthy Leftover Corned Beef, Cabbage, and Potato Soup

About 2 teaspoons olive oil
1 cup sliced cabbage
1/2 cup sliced onion
1/2 cup sliced baby carrots
Ground black pepper, to taste
3 cups homemade or low-salt chicken broth
1 cup shredded cooked corned beef
1 small peeled potato, diced small
1 small chopped tomato
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
3 tablespoons of leftover corned beef broth, or salt, to taste

In a medium pot over medium heat, add the olive oil, cabbage, carrots, and ground black pepper. Saute for about five minutes, until the cabbage starts to brown a tad. Add the chicken broth, shredded corned beef, and potatoes. Bring up to a boil, then simmer for about 15 minutes. Add the tomato and allspice, and simmer for another 10 or 15 minutes on low. At this point, taste for saltiness. I had my daughter taste it and said it was a bit bland, so then added a tablespoon of the leftover corned beef broth. She thought it needed a bit more so added 2 more tablespoons, and she deemed it fit to eat. If you didn’t save any corned beef broth, then just add salt to taste at this point.  I was very pleased with this soup, and wish I hadn’t angsted so much in just starting to make it!