Ah St. Patrick's Day!!!
I spent Saturday afternoon on my feet with Irish shows on in the background while I cooked. I started with the Commitments, that I turned off after a while because the kids were within ear shot and the language was making me wince too many times, Although I do love that movie and play the soundtrack often. So then I had The Quiet Man playing and when Maddy arrived, I realized that it was blaring and not QUITE so quiet. But I had to hear it over the noises of pots and pans banging around. So then just had Alexa play some Irish stuff so we could cook.
Here is our feast that we celebrated SPD with on Saturday night.
Maddy makes creative cheeseballs for every holiday and this was no exception! She also made several of the items below.
Can you guess what it is? I love it! Just a smidge is left after 6 days or so since. Oh and the green part is crushed up green goldfish crackers! Clever, huh?!
No Irish meal is complete with out a whole mess of onions and leeks as a starter!
The kitchen smelled divine!
I am not a huge fan of onions but leeks are definitely my favorite.
Matthew did a ton of food prep for us and chopped up whatever we needed.
Below is the recipe for Leeks and Blue Cheese Tartlets. I think I made these for the very first SPD meal but I made it as one big tartlet at that time. The tiny little booklet with that recipe is saved in a special spot every year so it won't get lost in the mad stash of cookbooks.
Once upon a time, I had even bought special dishes to bake them in and actually remembered to use them this year!
They turned out really good! There were 7 or 8 in all.
Then the next SPD staple, Leeks in cream sauce. The big brownish things are bacon. mmm
Colcannon!! Mashed potatoes with cabbage and onions!
Dublin Coddle, made with apple cider, bacon, sausage, potatoes, onions and carrots!
And of course the Corned Beef and veggies.
Which Leon called ONCE as a 3 year old, "This is the best ham EVER!" and we all have since.
I was perusing our Irish recipe books and found where you could just bake onions as a side.
Why hadn't I thought of that?! Oh yeah, I'm not a fan of onions typically. But I do love the flavor.
So yeah, bake onions til they're gushy! A couple onion lovers tried them and I'll puree or chop them up for something else later.
Brown bread made in the bread machine, because who has time to hand knead it on a busy day like this?! Throw it in and go! And definitely have legit Irish butter to smear on it!
Leon made a sponge cake with strawberries and homemade whipped topping! It was VERY yummy.
Shepherd's pie because that is Jen's favorite.
It was a little dry this year. I even put in 1/2 cup of actual Guinness. I'll revisit that recipe and tweak it for next time.
There was also apple/blackberry crumble, which baked the entire time we were eating the meal so it was good and ready to eat as soon as we digested for a little while.
And wouldn't you just know it, I find this apron AFTER the day of the feast...
Meri's going to borrow it sometime for when she cooks up a big meal for her bf.
On Tuesday, Leon and I caught up with Robb's old bagpipe band for one of their performances in an Irish pub.
So yeah, we went pub hopping to just one. It was PACKED! and so many kids there!
Leon didn't feel out of place at all, just crowded.
How did you spend YOUR SPD?
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