St. Patrick's Day Shenaningans

The twins are home for Spring Break (!!!), so we started our St. Patty's Day with Irish Breakfast tea and a scone bake-off (between Sodie and I).

(I have to confess that hers were actually a tiny bit better than mine...apparently she's been getting in a lot of scone-practice at college, baking them for any occasion that arises).

We both used this recipe...delish!

Then we headed off into the woods for a morning hike.

We checked on the old letterbox that we hid last year.

Wow...yeah, this is how they get when they know you have a camera out.

Please note the green attire...we were absolutely un-pinchable!

Back at home we had some fresh green pesto over pasta for lunch (look at our billy goat trying to get some attention!)

And then Mado helped Toucie build this Leprechaun house...you know, just in case....

Later, Toucie found this inside, so there must have been a Leprechaun passing by who needed a nice napping place to visit as he was travelling through these parts.

Oh - I might ought to have warned you to avert your eyes if you are sensitive to the sight of MASSIVE amounts of green food coloring. This is cake batter. I don't know what else to say about that, except that, yes, I am guilty.

The rest of our day somehow escaped my camera...there was music and dancing and this horrible song from the 80's (but I have to educate my teenagers...I take that duty very seriously), as well as the books, the Bairin Breac, and our traditional Corned Beef and Colcanon dinner which you can see in last year's posts here.

Happy St. Pat's!

Happy St. Pat's!

What a full day...spring is certainly in the air!


We made our Bairin Breac this morning.

While I was working on the bread, I heard this in the next room:

Sodie is a wonderful harpist...she dug up sheet music for a few Irish tunes and suddenly our St. Patty's Day had a soundtrack!

Prepping our dinner of corned beef and colcannon came next. Toucie needed to settle in with a contribution of her own, so:

Potato stamp hearts make shamrock window decorations! 

Its not just little kids who imitate big kids around here....look who made off with the potato and the paint:

(Naya and Sodie stamping their windows with shamrock hearts!)



I walked by Sodie's harp again and saw this:

Contagious.

Back to work:

Our version of Colcannon is very simple:


Colcannon

1 head cabbage - chopped
8 potatoes - peeled and diced
salt, pepper and butter to taste

Place potatoes in a stockpot and add enough water (or broth for extra flavor) to barely cover them.
Bring potatoes to a boil and add cabbage .
Reduce heat to a simmer and cook cabbage and potatoes until potatoes are mashable.
Drain away excess liquid and mash the cabbage and potatoes.
Add salt, pepper, and butter to season. (We also add a bit of cream and a dash of caraway).


This is another of those dishes, like the Bairin Breac,  that is surrounded by controversy. Some say use cabbage, some say kale (we like both, by the way...cabbage in the spring and kale in the autumn!), so do look around the interwebs if you want to explore other methods of putting together this simple dish.

By the time I was finished assembling the evening meal for later cooking, I found this in the next room:

Awesome...who needs a radio?


We checked to see if anyone (a leprechaun perhaps?) had taken up residence in our most recent fairy house endeavor:

Mado and Toucie collaborated on this one...it was pretty grand when finished. Ahhh, the Waldorf grad handing down skills to the Waldorf novice :)


Our big project for the day was to make and hide a letterbox. We made this one with an Irish theme and called it "Celtic Not", since we are not Irish but still nuts about many Celtic things (especially music!).

I'll explain a bit more about our letterboxing in another post, but in a nutshell, its where we go out into natural areas and follow clues to find boxes that other people have hidden.

So, off into the woods. We've hunted for many letterboxes...this is the first letterbox that we have hidden for others to find.

Later we enjoyed our St. Patrick's Day feast .

And ended our celebration with some goofing off (as always seems to be the case!). Daddy played his bodhran along with some favorite Irish dance music and we coaxed Sodie and Naya into stepdancing a wee bit for us. Toucie upstaged everyone and had the energy to go on and on long after the rest of us had collapsed into our chairs (as again, always seems to be the case!).

Oh, Toucie wants to make sure everyone knows that her nails are green...rare and exotic treat.

Happy St. Patty's everyone...I hope yours brings bright blessings to you this season!

Irish recipes for St. Patrick's Day

 (this beautiful image is from The English Tea Store - click to see their version of the recipe)

 Here is a recipe that we will be using this year for our soda bread. While ours is a traditional Irish bread leavened with soda instead of yeast, it is not the traditional "Irish Soda Bread" that most people think of. It is often served at Samhain (that's Halloween to some of us!), but we like it for St. Patty's Day. There are two things that I especially love about this bread. The first, of course, is eating it. The second is the name.


BAIRIN BREAC ("Speckled Bread")
---------------------------------------

On the day before you want to serve the bread prepare these ingredients:

-2 cups of dried fruit chopped fine (traditionally sultanas and raisins are used, but we like a mix of many different dried fruits all thrown in together)
-3/4 cup brown sugar
-1 cup black tea

Mix the above ingredients together, cover, and let rest overnight.

************************************************

The next day, prepare these ingredients:

-1 egg, beaten
-1 1/2 cups flour
-1 tsp baking powder

-1/2 cup melted butter
-1 tsp cinnamon
-big pinch of nutmeg

Add egg to moistened fruit and blend well.
Sift dry ingredients together in a big bowl, then blend the wet ingredients into the dry.
Turn the batter/dough (it is hard to put a name on the soft consistency you will have) into the 8" round pan.
Bake at 350 degrees F for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
(It's done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean).
Allow the bread to cool before you try to slice it.

While my family  follows a whole foods, mostly traditional foods style of eating, we often jump right off the wagon when it comes time to celebrate. This recipe is not too naughty, and we don't eat it every day, so we don't feel too guilty about indulging. Our favorite way to enjoy this bread is toasted and buttered, alongside cups of hot Irish tea. Its nice for breakfast, snack, or tea-time.


(There is all kinds of controversy about how to spell the name, whether or not to hide trinkets in the bread (to bring good luck to the finders), and if so, what trinkets should go in, whether it should be made with soda or yeast, etc, etc. Here is a funny bit about all that mess. We just smile and eat.)

Storybooks for St. Patrick's Day

We are heavily in the midst of Spring Cleaning here, but I wanted to pop in and share with you the two books we have been enjoying in anticipation of St. Patrick's Day. I love storybooks that feature leprechauns as I have never gotten over my childhood love of Little People and fairy folk. I also like books that give a true picture of life in other cultures/countries, so I treasure St. Patty's books set in Ireland. (We save the stories about Saint Patrick, the man, for oral storytelling, by the way).

The first book is St. Patrick's day in the Morning , by Eve Bunting , illustrated by Jan Brett (she's a huge favorite!)

 It is the story of Jamie, a little boy in a family full of big people (Toucie can relate to this guy!) who is told each year that he is too small to march in the St.Patrick's Day Parade.

Of course he finds a way to show that he can participate...he's a bit of a rascal (Toucie once again totally relates), but it is a sweet story. 

 ...and it takes place in Ireland, with beautiful glimpses of Irish countryside and village life in the illustrations.

The other book we've been spending time with is The Leprechaun's Gold. This one's by Pamela Duncan Edwards.

This is one of few leprechaun tales I've found that doesn't involve someone trying to capture a leprechaun and defraud him of his gold. 

(sorry about the not-so-good pictures) In this tale a good man is rewarded by the leprechauns. This man is Old Pat, a harpist...and that is one of the things that makes this story special to us. Sodie is a harpist and her huge, golden harp in the middle of our house (and of course the music that daily comes from it) is a big presence in our lives, so once again, Toucie can relate to this.

It is a wonderful story and I highly recommend it!

We have other fun preparations going on for our upcoming celebration of Saint Patrick's Day...I will share more later this week :)