St. Patrick's Day and other fun stuff

So, Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone.

The pic is of Achill Island . . . where my Gram grew up. This view is not far from her girlhood home. The wild west coast of Ireland.

When I was younger (a lot younger) my family and I marched in Cleveland's St. Patrick's Day parade. My youngest sister was a majorette (when she started, the youngest in the bunch), my younger brother was in the fife and drum corp and two of my other sisters and I were in the drill team. We practiced every Sunday afternoon, starting the first Sunday after New Year's. After doing this for about 9 years, I quit and have not been to a parade since. However, my oldest daughter went last year with friends and this year both girls are going. I have to say, while I might be tempted to join them, there have been too many years where I spent the day freezing or wet or both, to bear risking it.

Anyway, my husband decided to buy corned beef for dinner for last evening. He does the grocery shopping and since it has been years since I made corned beef (seriously, the last time I did, it was sooooo awful that we called it LURCH SOUP . . . I don't remember why but it just seemed appropriate at the time). However, I decided to give a shot again and being internet savvy now, I searched out recipes and ended up with this one:

combine:

3 cups water
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Put the following in a crock pot in this order:

2 pounds corned beef brisket with spice packet, cut in three chunks and fileted
1 medium onion, cut into wedges

2 stalks celery

1 pound carrots cut into big chunks

4 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered

1 small head cabbage, chopped

The recipe said to put all the vegetables in the crock pot first and top with the beef. With flashbacks to my previous attempt, I reversed the order. I also cut the hunk of meet into three chunks and then fileted them. The reason being is that all the comments made about the various recipes said that any of the meat that was not covered with water ended up tough. I turned the crock pot on high for 3 hours and then reduced it to low for another 3 hours. I then sorted out the vegetables (not an easy task) but threw the potatoes into a pan with butter, chives and garlic and browned them a bit, sauted the cabbage with butter. I left the carrots and onions in the "broth" with the corned beef while the cabbage and potatoes were in the other pan.

The corned beef was totally wonderful, even Zachariah loved it. Lindsey isn't eating meat but she was sorely tempted. Instead she made a vegetable sandwich . . . a sight to behold.

Since Dave had bought a large head of cabbage, I only used half and used the other half and made stuffed cabbage. We will have that on Wednesday.

To top the whole thing off, I made Irish Soda bread. It was my Gram's recipe and is just a lovely thing. Of course, Zachariah didn't like that. Instead, he ate three slices of regular rye bread.

Gram's Irish Soda Bread:

4+ cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 Tbs. caraway seeds
1-1/2 cup butter (soft - not melted)
1-1/2 cup raisins
1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Rehydrate raisins by covering raisins with water and bringing to a boil. Drain just before combining with dry ingredients.

Soften butter if necessary (it should be soft but not melted). Combine dry ingredients. Add caraway seeds. Mix. Add drained raisins. Mix. Add butter and milk. Mix. If batter is too goopy, add more flour. Dump into large (about 8" to 10") cast iron fry pan or use any round pan. (Pampered Chef's bakers work well too . . . cake pans do not).

Bake for about one hour. Bread should be brown and dry on top. Yummy.

Okay, so that's all I've got . . . well, except that this is a map of Achill Island. My Gram grew up in Pollagh.