St Patrick's Day Recipe Wins!

St. Patrick's Day has always been a big celebration for my family.  Mom made Irish soda bread and we had corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and carrots.  But what I remember most was waking up and rushing out to our tree and the ferns to see if we were able to get the Leprechaun's pot of gold before he left at sunrise.  We never did catch him but each year we found the copper coins he left behind since he only collected gold. I loved this tradition and my mom would share her family's stories and Irish lore. Darby O'Gill was one of the few movies we owned and we all knew the music by heart.  I remember the year a friend brought back a stone from Ireland for my mom  and she has kept it in a safe place ever since.  I truly hope one day I can take the journey with my mom to our heritage and learn even more about the Kennedy & McGivney side. There are also the sad parts of Irish history and we learned about the potato famine and the other struggles they had.  I will never forget some of the passages from the books we read and it makes me proud to know  a part of my history and pass it along to Hagberg.

I look forward to St. Patrick's day more than most of the holidays and each year we try to invite friends over to celebrate.  This year we had the friends who gave us the nickname Hagberg and though we went for the more Americanized corned beef (tradition Irish food would be a lamb stew, chicken boxty or even a shepherds pie) but we did try Colcannon this year.  It is a traditional Irish side dish with potatoes mashed with cooked cabbage and onion.  I imagine it was also a way to get food to stretch during lean times.  It was a simple but tasty side and so it may be 2 days past it I hope you add it as a "try something new" recipe.  We mixed the two recipes linked since we liked the cream cheese in one but wanted the bacon in the second.

The best of the night was the Irish Dairy Cake.  It was amazing out of the oven but now 2 days later it is a perfect pound style cake.  I am hoping to get some berries to add to it for dinner tomorrow night.  Don't try to count the calories-just make it and enjoy eating it.  

My table looked festive too with my St. Patrick's Day topiary!

Happy crafting and I hope you are enjoying March!

~

Eva

(I will get better about taking pictures, I promise!)