Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Today I am Irish.  I love St.Patrick's Day.  The green beer, the wearing of green, the goofiness, and eating good food.  St.Patrick's Day isn't quite the same once you have kids (compared to college, etc), but that doesn't mean you can't have fun!

I made corned beef, vegetables and cabbage in the slow cooker.  It smelled delicious!  I used a recipe I found at Food Network online.  Click here to view.  The recipe says to add the potatoes at the same time as everything else, and microwave the cabbage.  I recommend adding both the uncooked potatoes and uncooked cabbage wedges when there is about 60-90 minutes left in the slow cooker.  Otherwise, they'll be complete mush.

In the afternoon I made an Irish soda bread.  I'm usually  not a huge fan of Irish soda bread because it seems dry. This Ina Garten recipe had rave reviews so I knew I couldn't go wrong.  Ironically, my friend Jesica has made this recipe many times and loves it.  Instead of using the currants she'll occasionally use dried cranberries.  We plan to eat the leftovers with breakfast tomorrow - its that good.

I need to remind myself to keep my phone away from my cooking area.  Flour is not easy to get out of tiny cracks...

The dough is pretty sticky.

The stickiness requires a good amount of flour on your work surface when you form in to a round shape.

Don't forget to lightly carve an 'x' in to the top of the dough with a sharp knife.  I dipped my knife in flour so it wouldn't stick. 

The finished bread.  It smelled so good it was hard to wait until dinner!  Serve with butter.

After school B and I made green, shamrock shaped cookies. He loved wearing the hat he made at school - he said it helped him bake better.  And I'll admit.  We did not make these cookies from scratch.  We used a box mix, and I have to say they turned out great.  If you're feeling lazy, try Krusteaz's sugar cookie mix.  The box includes directions for rolling cookies (slightly altered with 1/4c. flour compared to their basic recipe).

Dinner time!  The soda bread was amazing and soft.

The corned beef and vegetables were some of the best we've had.  

And what really made the meal?  The horseradish sauce that is included in the corned beef recipe.  Oh my gosh.  To say I loved it is an understatement.  I'm not a fan of spice, but love the sting of horseradish.  It is very easy to make...some of the juice from the slow cooker, sour cream, and horseradish sauce/cream mixed together.  A super tangy kick of a sauce for dipping your meat and veggies, and much better than a squirt of straight horseradish on your plate. 

Happy St.Patrick's Day!  Time for another green beer!