St. Paddy's Day in New Orleans

Saturday there was a St. Patrick's Day parade, and people were extremely pumped up about it. Turns out there are a lot of Irish folk among us. Most claimed that this was their favorite holiday all year. I'm still not on board with that, but it was a whole lot of fun.

Christine made a delicious brunch to start  our day, and then we all walked down to Louisiana Street to watch the parade.

Jason showcasing Christine's brunch spread

The parade was loooooooong! There were tons of drunk Irish men walking around with beers and handing out flowers. I saw one of them almost get run over by a float, and a bystander pulled him out of the way in the nick of time (not really- he did kind of get hit first, good thing floats dont move too fast.) Yikes. 

ready for the parade!

dixxonnssss

The parade members LOVED anyone with red hair, and a little red head girl in front of us had three bags packed full with flowers. The people on the floats were throwing Irish Spring soap, carrots, potatoes, and huge heads of cabbage. You are supposed to take it all home and make Irish soup with it. NO thank you!! 

Joe was so excited he caught a cabbage. 

No clue where that thing went later.

Big group

All of our swag

Is that Kate Middleton??

Decked out

We love our neighbors..looks like John caught a cucumber

Finally over!

The next day we had some cabbage of our own..but not Joe's parade catch. I made this hot and sweet vegetable slaw with ginger dressing and it was awesome. I am still eating it every day for lunch. Joe didn't eat it because he doesn't like ginger, so more for me! I used Kathy Z kale and left out the Brussels sprouts because I was sick of chopping. I also used cilantro instead of parsley because that is what I had, and it was great. I would do it on purpose next time. ALSO- I didn't use fennel and I used napa cabbage instead of red cabbage because that was all that they had at Rouses! 

fall vegetable slaw with hot + sweet ginger dressingserves: 8-10

dressing:
1-2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced
juice of 1 lemon
2-3 tbsp honey or agave nectar
pinch of cayenne (as much as you want)
salt and pepper
1/2 cup grapeseed or other neutral oil

slaw:
1/2 head red cabbage, cored and shredded
1/2 lb brussels sprouts, shredded
2 kale stalks, stems removed and finely sliced
2 green onions, thinly sliced
10 sprigs of parsely, leaves sliced
1 small fennel bulb, halved, cored and shaved thin
1 semi-ripe bosc pear, cored and thinly sliced
1/3 cup sunflower seeds, toasted
salt and pepper

Make the dressing: combine all of the ingredients in a blender and flip to high for 30 seconds. Taste for seasoning and set aside. If you don’t have a blender, whisk the finely minced ginger, lemon juice, cayenne, salt and pepper together to combine. Slowly drizzle the grapeseed oil into the ginger mixture while whisking until thoroughly mixed.

Toss all of the slaw ingredients except for 2 tablespoons of sunflower seeds with a a good amount of salt and pepper. Pour the ginger dressing over top and mix with your hands to combine. Scatter remaining sunflower seeds over the top and serve.