This is the Guinness Bread. This bread is absolutely fantastic! My only regret is that I had eaten so much I had to scrape most of my piece out...I just couldn't do it! I sent half the loaf over to our friends! I used quick-cooking Irish steel cut oats rather than rolled oats and it had an awesome, rustic texture. It was also sweet and savory all in one...I can't rave about this recipe enough!
This is the Boxty...I added this recipe because it's doing double duty this week. If you don't know, every Thursday, on the RE (recipe exchange), we vote on different themes, then we vote on a recipe that has less than 5 reviews and whomever wants to participate cooks the recipe, rates and reviews it, submits a photo, if possible, and then we have a discussion post on it. This was the recipe voted for this week. I really did enjoy the simple potato flavors of this recipe, the different textures. I baked my potato for this the old fashioned way..in the oven and then I used a grated red potato for the raw one. I did not use as much flour as the recipe called for because I scaled this back for 2 people, even scaled back, I managed 8 patties from it! I topped this with some grated parmesan cheese.
Now, I know! I know! Corned beef is NOT an authentic Irish dish. I chose this recipe for the fact that my background is Irish. And here is some more background...Around the turn of the 19th cnetury, the English owned the majority of Ireland's land. They, in turn, rented out small plots to Irish farmers. Irish farmers earned roughly 8 pence a day, which is about 1/5 of what they could earn at that time over here in the New World. In October 1845, most of Ireland's potato crop was wiped out due to a blight. Potatoes were the principal food source for Ireland's people. The Great Potato Famine can be blamed for the deaths of nearly a million people over the next 5 years. By 1855, nearly a quarter of Ireland's population had emigrated to America. Life in America was hellish for the Irish immigrants but they weren't afraid of hard work, by any means, and often took the most dangerous jobs: building bridges, canals, railroads, mining and, in later years, logging. The deplorable conditions in the coal mines that they had to work in led them to eventually found a secret society called the Molly McGuires.
I chose the corned beef recipe to honor my ancestors and relatives who built the bridges and canals and the railroads and my grandfather, who battled black lung disease from the mines and my father, who at the age of 71, still drives a log truck every day and my brother, who lost his leg in a logging accident and still works in the woods. That is what this recipe means to me. The Irish in America couldn't afford the traditional bacon and that's how the corned beef tradition came to be here...blood, sweat and tears...you can't keep us down!
Like I said, the roasted carrots and radishes are not, persay, a traditional Irish dish, but they are healthy for my husband, so I included them in this menu. Delicious!!
I had tossed around the idea of making Diane's Colcannon http://allrecipes.com/recipe/dianes-colcannon/detail.aspx and then I looked at Alison's version. I liked it better. I have made colcannon in the past, I usually make it every St. Patrick's Day, but I made my own version and I like to use kale in place of the cabbage, because I like kale. I wanted to go traditional in this blog, I chose Alison's Colcannon. You boil the potatoes, and I used baby reds, and in a separate saucepan, you heat up sliced green onions and shredded cabbage. I think I like the kale version better. This was very good, don't get me wrong...but it takes forever for the cabbage to get soft and this is usually the last dish that I need to get ready and I have a husband who's claiming that he's starving...kale cooks quicker!
My Irish-inspired St. Patrick's Day dinner...Go Ireland!!
And just when you thought this rambling blog was over....HA! It's not...I made the Luck 'O The Irish Brownies yesterday and O-M-G!! These should be called Irish Heart Attack Brownies because they are decadently SA-WEEEEET! Delicious...you could definately taste each separate layer...but SWEEEEET! I have never used a double boiler for anything before in my life...Bob helped me out with the design of this lovely model...
And this WILL HAPPEN TO YOU if you're like me and have the top pop off the blue and it's stuck to the green and, well...you get the point...it's almost off of my fingers, with the help of an SOS Pad!
These are so cool to look at...I've never made anything remotely like these before, so, believe that! If I can do it, you can do it!
My groceries came to $16.08 this week. I was able to get that corned beef for $3.98 and it was 2.69 pounds. I don't think that was too bad of a deal. So that left $3.92 to go into the Beach Bag...11 week total $68.94.
Trishie, a super cool AR/RE member, who lives in Ireland had sent me some authentic Irish recipes. I really want to thank her for those, and I really wanted to try them for this blog. I feel I owe her an apology because she took the time to research them for me and type them out and email them to me. I didn't use them because I showed them to Bob and he said no, he wanted corned beef...right now I'm trying to bulk him up before radiation so he doesn't get too run down, so if the guy wants corned beef, I'm gonna make him corned beef. I will make the traditional dishes in the future, though, and that's a promise.
We had 42 votes on next week's blog country. Bob picked Hungary and this week we had a guest country picker, my MIL, Ann. She picked Greece. The tribe has spoken! Greece it is! Stayed tuned in and until next week...peace, love and hippie beads!
