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Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I realized last week, that my children knew nothing about the Irish culture or food.  To be honest, I don't know a whole lot either.  Before you have a heart attack, not to worry, I was raised in a strong Norwegian family that did their part to protest the holiday.  We were marched off to school each March 17th in red to show our family stance against the Irish.  Now, that being said, for me, it's not a personal thing, just what I was raised with.

I haven't raised my own children with this ritual, but I did realize that we possibly don't have a whole lot of knowledge about the Irish culture.  So, I decided this year, I would start with the food (oh, and we took a look at the Blarney Stone and it's meaning.).

I  saw that our Piggly Wiggly had Corned Beef on sale for $1.69/pound, red potatoes for $1.99/5 pounds and cabbage for $.39/pound.  These all sounded to me like an Irish dinner in the makings.  I had no idea that the seasonings for the Cornned beef came separate.  I thought it was something that was done to the meat prior to arriving in my meat department.  I searched the internet, and found this recipe.  This one I liked because it had really good reviews on it.

Slow Cooked recipes are always difficult for me, as we have our main meal at noon, before my dh heads out to work for the second shift.  The problem is, if I start it the night before, it's overcooked by noon, but if I wait until morning, it doesn't get done in time.  This time, I thought I would try the overnight option and pray that the meat didn't get too overcooked. 

This morning, I was really feeling the call of being authentic with our meal, so I decided to try my hand at Irish Soda Bread.  I got the recipe here.
I was a little worried about how full the pan was, but thought I would give it a shot.Sure enough, the bread did overflow in the oven, but it was well worth the mess, as it was just wonderful to eat.  Our family of six finished off the entire loaf for lunch.

Overall, the beef was very good.  Potatoes and carrots were winners too, but the cabbage was not bad, but also not our favorite.

I think we would definately do this again next year because everyone enjoyed it, but I'm not sure it will become regular fair for us.  Hope you had some wonderful St. Patrick's Day memories from today.

4 comments:

  1. I was about to make some Irish soda bread to celebrate the day, but have never had it and was kind of scared...i'm assuming that since y'all finished off the whole thing, it was pretty good? Maybe I'll make some tonight.

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  2. It was very easy to make because there was no kneading or rising to do. It tasted wonderful!

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  3. Have to try the Soda Bread now...we did have the sliced corn beef sandwiches on toasted marbled rye bread with melted Swiss cheese...there probably is an Irish cheese if I went looking at the store.

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  4. Yum! The bread looked great ... I think I'll try it next year!

    Thanks for stopping by and commenting on my Burlap and Buttons Canvas earlier and leaving such a nice comment. I've seen a few YouTube tutorials on cutting fabric with a Cricut but I don't know if I've seen felt ... if you try, let me know how it turns out!

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