St Patrick's Day

So yesterday was St Patty's day.. It was a great excuse for me to do some really good cooking. In a few places I've mentioned the menu and had a bunch of people asking me for the recipes and/or amazed at how labor intensive it sounded. Here's the secret.. it's not as hard or as impressive as it sounds.. hehehe
it was all really quite simple and pretty easy. So, to show just how easy it is to cook a nice "proper" Irish meal for St Patty's day, I'm posting the whole lot, step by step.

First, a proper Irish Soda Bread... Now, if all you've ever had is the stuff they sell in the stores this time of year, with the raisins and whatnot.. then you've never really had proper soda bread. Your typical Irish peasant didn't have raisins and yeast, and wasn't going to waste good eggs on bread what doesn't need em...
Proper Irish Soda bread is very simple. If you can make baking powder biscuits (heck if you can make the "add water" kind of biscuits) then you can make this.

4 cups of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
14 ounces of buttermilk

In a large bowl combine all of your dry ingredients. Add the buttermilk to form a sticky dough. (I do all if this in my mixer. Bosch or Kitchenaid with the dough hook, but wouldn't be too hard to do by hand.) Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead just enough to form a round, flat shape.
You can put this in a round greased cake pan, a large cookie sheet or stone. I have stones, so I use them for just about everything.
Cut a cross on the top of the dough (to let the fairies out)
Bake at 425 for about 45 minutes depending on your oven. It is suggested that the bread be covered for the first 30 minutes, but that is optional.
When the bread is done it will have a hollow sound when tapped on the bottom.


Colcannon
There are recipes out there that will give you measurements if you absolutely must have them, and there are many variations. Most of my cooking is done freestyle unless measurements are absolutely necessary, so this is what I did for last night's batch. (made about 4-6 servings)

4-5 potatoes, russets are best for this, or another mealy type. do not use waxy ones, they don't mash up proper.
1 bunch Kale
1 large dollop butter
milk/buttermilk
handful of dried green onions
Fresh ground pepper
dash of salt

Ok, peal and chop potatoes into large chunks. I leave about half the peals on, but that is personal preference. Put into a large pot of water with a dash of salt and boil until potatoes are soft.
When potatoes are nearly done, set a second pot to boiling and add kale. You can also steam this if you prefer. DO NOT OVERCOOK. You just want to soften the leaves and get them to turn a nice vibrant green color. Drain kale and remove the large stem from the center of each leaf. Chop kale and set aside.
Drain potatoes and return to pot over low heat. Add dollop of butter and a little milk and/or buttermilk. (I like the extra flavor the buttermilk gives) Mash the potatoes to the consistency you like. Add in a handful of green onions (I used dehydrated cuz I had them - and yes, i did that myself too, again, not hard, and handy up here when you can't always get fresh stuff.. if you have fresh green onions available, use em! just chop finely) and freshly ground black pepper and fold in the kale.


Slow Cooker Pot Roast

For this I did use a brisket cut, but feel free to use whatever cut you prefer or is on sale that week. Tough cuts are fine because they will have a long time to cook at low heat which will soften them up.

1 roast
1-2 turnips
6-8 carrots
1/4 onion
1 can low sodium reduced fat beef broth
pepper corns
green onions
mushrooms
bell pepper
garlic *
Cabbage

2 days in advance, place your roast in a large, sealable bowl or large bag along with the broth. I added the green onions and mushrooms to this as well. In my case, both were dried and powdered, but fresh would work just as well. this would also be a good time to add garlic, which I will admit, I completely forgot about this time.
Seal this all up and let marinate in the fridge for about 2 days.

Day of:

Place the roast and all the stuff from the bag into your slow cooker. Clean and chop your turnips and carrots into nice big chunks and add them as well. Add in your onion, bell peppers, more mushrooms if you like. Season with whole peppercorns.
Turn your slow cooker on low and leave for the day. If you haven't got all day you can cook on high. It will still take several hours, but will be worth it.
About an hour or so before it is done, Loosely chop some cabbage and add on top of roast. This doesn't take long to cook.

If you don't have a slow cooker, you can do all of this in a roaster in your oven (though I wouldn't recommend leaving the house for too long with the oven on...)
Just turn your oven down to about 250 and let it do it's thing. Times will vary depending on your oven, piece of meat, etc.



There ya go.. That wasn't too hard now was it? I know.. "Isn't corned beef traditional?" ok, yes it has become so, but a good pot roast with turnips and carrots was just as common, and because of some health concerns, I can't be having with all the vast amounts of salt in a proper corned beef, so this is my compromise.. If members of your household decide they don't like colcannon.. (I only make it when hubby's not home as he can't stand it.. weeds ruining perfectly good potatoes and all..) then skip that and just add some small potatoes (or cut up some large ones) to the roasted veggies.. though in that case I would say that you'd be better off with the waxy type instead of the mealy.. waxy (such as red or gold taties) hold together better for that sort of thing...

there ya go.. next year you can impress all your friends and relatives...