St. Patrick's Day: Ryeless Reubens

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Growing up, my family tradition was always to have reuben sandwiches on this holiday every year.  I continued that tradition when Justin and I started dating, as one of his favorite sandwiches is the reuben and it's definitely one of mine as well, so there was no argument there!  Then our household switched over to a more Paleo way of eating, cutting out all processed food and heavy carbs.  So there goes our rye bread and thousand island dressing.

Well, today I created a dish packed with flavor that is just as satisfying and messy as I always knew the reuben sandwich to be, and I didn't even miss the bread!  I have Pinterest to thank for this one, but the idea of combining the different recipes was ultimately my idea.  There are a lot of elements to reaching the finished product, so it might be a bit intimidating, but it's really not bad at all.  I chose to make my own thousand island dressing, which tasted amazingly just like the conventional kind, yay!  that part took some time, but you can easily make that in advance.  I got quite a bit of dressing out of one recipe, so we'll have plenty of salads to make with it!

In the process of creating this thousand island dressing I discovered a much easier way to make Paleo mayonnaise than the method I've posted before. So long as you have the right tool.  I have the Cuisinart Smart Stick, and I LOVE that thing.  So much easier to use than a regular blender, and cleanup is way easier too.  I use it at least 3-4 times a week, whether it be to throw a smoothie together for breakfast or to assist with recipes like this one.

So for this mayo, you basically use the same ingredients as the original recipe:

1 egg

2 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon yellow mustard

3/4 cup olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Only here's the way easier part - put it all together in the blender cup.  Let it sit a bit so that the oil is all separated and sitting on top of everything else, then carefully put your handheld blender into the cup.  Keep the stick upright and flat on the bottom of the cup, and start the blender.  It'll turn into mayo instantly!  Once the majority of it has thickened, you can begin slowly lifting and tilting the blender stick up and around to incorporate the remaining oil until all is combined.  Ta-da!  Done!  This was adapted from the recipe on The Meanest Momma blog.

Okay so now that you've got mayo, you get to turn it into thousand island dressing!

Here's what you'll need for that:

1/3 cup diced (dill or sweet) pickle
4 tablespoons pickle juice
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon stone ground mustard
1 teaspoon raw honey
1/2 teaspoon garlic
Salt and pepper

Mix everything except the diced pickle together in a bowl.  Harlee helped me with this part while I blended the mayo, wish I had gotten a picture of that!  He's finally at an age where his "helping" is actually helpful, and not just me humoring him :).  I just put everything in a bowl and handed him a spoon, and by the time the mayo was done his ingredients were all mixed together too!  Then all you have to do is add the mayo and the pickle chunks, mix it all together, and voila, thousand island dressing!  This recipe is from Silly Little Cavegirl - I didn't change anything, so all the credit goes to her!

Okay so onto the grand finale - the rye-less reuben recipe!  I discovered the roasted cabbage recipe on Pinterest - it's originally a Martha Stewart recipe - and I adapted it to fit what I was going for with this ultimate dish.

Here's what I came up with:

3-4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, divided

1 medium head of green cabbage, cut into 3/4" thick slices or rounds

Salt and pepper to taste 

1 tsp caraway seeds

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush olive oil on both sides of the cabbage slices. Place the cabbage rounds in a single layer on the sheet and season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with caraway. Roast for about 20 minutes.

Then to make the "reuben" part, remove cabbage from oven and top each round with about a tbsp of the thousand island dressing, 3-4 slices of corned beef, and a slice of Swiss cheese.  Place back in the oven for another 15-20 minutes, until toppings are heated through and melted.

Serve and enjoy!