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Saturday, March 16, 2013

Weekend Cooking- St. Patrick's Day


This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.



My mother's family is Irish- the Brady clan- and so we always look forward to celebrating St. Patrick's Day. When I was younger, it was going to Tinker's at 9am and drinking green beer all day or until you could no longer drink. Thank goodness I gave that up.

After I got married and had two boys, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day a little differently. We'd have my family over for the day and I would cook a big dinner. We always had corned beef boiling on the stove,  one of my older son's favorites. I'd throw in a couple of heads of cabbage, which he also enjoyed. (Me, I can live without that.)

I also make a version of colcannon potatoes- mashed potatoes with chopped scallions and tons of melted butter poured into a well in the middle of the potatoes. I can't remember where I got the recipe for that one, but we don't make it with the traditional cabbage.

Dessert is the perfect ending to the meal. This recipe for Irish Bread Pudding I found in Cooking Light magazine years ago, and no  matter how much I make of it, it is never enough. It really is one of our favorite desserts of all-time and so easy to make. (And the Caramel Whiskey Sauce is heavenly!) I found the recipe and pinned it here.



In searching Pinterest, I found this recipe for Pistachio St. Patrick's Day Bread and I think it will make an appearance at this year's St. Patrick's Day celebration. It's from Better Than Burgers.


So enjoy the holiday, don't overdo the green beer and I'd love to hear about what special dishes you make for St. Patrick's Day in the comments section. Slainte!


20 comments:

  1. Enjoy your celebrations. I have already made corn beef once-last Sunday and will do it again this week.

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    1. I don't know that I like corned beef enough to have it twice in eight days.

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  2. Yum - that bread pudding looks heavenly. I make a similar bread pudding using Hawaiian sweetbread but it doesn't have a sauce. Will have to check out the pistachio bread recipe too. Happy St. Paddy's!

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    1. Oh I bet bread pudding with sweetbread is delicious. Happy St. Patrick's Day to you too!

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  3. That bread pudding sounds awesome. I'm a *huge* bread pudding fan. Yum! Hope you have a great weekend. Will you go to the parade?

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    1. No parade this year- it is snowing like crazy in NYC.

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  4. Ooh, I love bread pudding. We were at a restaurant last week that only serves breakfast and lunch. When we got done with our meal they gave us free servings of bread pudding. I'll be going back there again! :) This year we might go to the annual parade since of my daughter's friends is a Princess.

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  5. The whiskey-caramel sauce seems like a good addition to bread pudding!

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  6. Hi Diane,

    I haven't ever visited Ireland, even though we are only over the Irish Sea in the UK.

    We have visited a couple of reasonably authentic bars in the US though and I love corned beef and cabbage with mash. Soda bread with leek and potato soup to start with and some of your delicious bread (bread and butter would be my absolute idea of heaven) pudding and sauce for afters and that would be me set!!

    Hubbie on the other hand, would be running for the hills, if you dished up a meal like that for him!

    I am not too fond of the Guiness though, so I would have to seek special permission to crack open a bottle of white wine with my meal ... LOL!

    Have a great St. Patrick's Day

    Yvonne

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    1. I'm not a beer fan either, white wine sounds good to me. Happy St. Patrick's Day to you as well!

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  7. Happy St Patrick's Day - have a lovely time

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  8. I will not discuss the green beer...you might read my post today to get my take on that..lol

    As to the taters and scallions, that is also a traditional Irish dish called champ. with cabbage or kale..which is my preference, colcannon. both with tons of great Irish butter.

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  9. Sounds amazing! I'd love to invite myself for dinner at your house. We don't have any special traditions for St. Pat's.

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  10. I like the sound of the caramel whisky sauce, but not green beer. I think Irish and Scottish recipes are very similar.

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  11. It's funny - in the all the years we visited my grandparents in Ireland we never had corned beef - lots of boiled beef and boiled cabbage though! I love Colcannon and Champ - it is great that you make those. I love my Mom's brown bread and Irish soda bread on St. Patrick's Day.

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    1. I just learned that corned beef is something the Irish immigrants in New York City ate. They got it at the Jewish delis. What an interesting fact and combination of cultures!

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