Irish Soda Bread

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we usually cook corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and my favorite:  Irish Soda Bread.

I enjoy eating the Irish Soda Bread with a thick slathering of salted butter.  I use to serve it with Irish cultured butter like Kerrygold.  In our town we are able to get fresh dairy delivery weekly, which includes butter.  Now I use Calder Dairy salted butter.

I rarely use graham flour and right before St. Patty’s Day, I buy a package of it and get excited that I’m going to make the Irish soda bread.  This is a simple recipe—no embellishments.  We are NOT Irish, I didn’t grow up eating special Irish meals so I don’t know how authentic this is but I find it tasty.

            3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

            1 cup whole-wheat graham flour

            1 tablespoon coarse salt

            1 teaspoon baking soda

            1 teaspoon baking powder

            4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

            1 2/3 cups buttermilk

Mix all dry ingredients together and cut the butter into the flour mixture.  I start off with a pastry cutter and then I move to smashing the pieces into small bits.  Add the buttermilk all at once and combine.  The dough is sticky in certain sections and dry and crumbly in other parts.  Do the best job incorporating it all together.  Make a dome / round loaf shape and place on baking sheet. 

Cut a deep “X” on the top of the dome.  Bake at 350-degrees F for 80-mins.

I did two loaves instead of one because the mixture wouldn’t stick together.  I baked it for 50-minutes.

It’s hard to stop from just picking the crust off and eating that…but we don’t want to just take all the best parts for ourselves., especially since we were having guests to enjoy beer and dinner with us.

Spinach Ice Cream

It’s the day after St. Patrick’s Day and I’m still in a green mode.  Today I am making spinach ice cream, also known in this this house as mint chocolate ice cream that has spinach in it.  It sounds crazy but it’s delicious.  No one can taste the spinach and one feels a bit healthy eating spoonfuls of this.

1.5 cups of whipping cream

1.5 cups of half & half

1 cup of sugar

½ tea table salt

1 tea vanilla extract

1 tea mint extract

2 to 3 handfuls of fresh baby spinach

1 c of mini chocolate chips

I blend the spinach with some half & half and then I added the sugar.  Today I mistakenly added the extracts to the mixture.  I should have waited until the mixture was churning in the ice cream maker.  The alcohol and salt lowered the freezing temperature and my mixture won’t freeze.  I’m also wondering if the ice cream bowl wasn’t frozen enough.   It was left in the freezer out in the garage (we have two refrigerators) and in cold winter months, the freezer doesn’t get cold enough.

So I had to move the “bowl” in the house refrigerator and moved all the would-be-ice cream mixture into a container and placed in the refrigerator.

After blending the spinach with some half & half and sugar, turn the ice cream maker on and pour the mixture into ice cream bowl.  I like to turn the machine on before dumping the mixture in.  Some people say it matters and other say it doesn’t.  I don’t believe it matters but I still do.

Add the whipping cream into the ice cream maker so it mixes up with the spinach-sugar-half&half mixture.    After it churns awhile and gets a good consistency—15-minutes, add the flavorings.   After it’s a done—add the chocolate chip and churn for a couple of minutes.  It doesn’t take much time to incorporate the chips.

Scoop into a shallow covered bowl and set in the freeze.  

I do tell people what’s in it.  I don’t like to be sneaky with my cooking.  Well, I am sneaky, but I’m about disclosing what I’m trying to sneak in for healthier product.

Pi Day, 3.14

Today is 3.14—it’s Pi day… so in celebration we ate some pies.  The kids and I enjoyed a deep-dish pizza pie for an after-school treat at our local pizzeria.  This is after I huffed and puffed while making an attempt at jogging and while they rode their bicycles.  I may have omitted that I’m training to RUN a 5K.  It’s because for most people running a 5K doesn’t really require training.  Embarrassingly, I cannot  run even 1-mile.  I need to start somewhere…so there it is.  That’s something I’m awful at doing yet I'm still doing it.

Back to what I am good at…baking…

Couldn’t finish Pi-Day without a homemade fruit pie.  I made an apple crumb pie. 

I do believe that pie making is a labor of love.  While the ingredients are humble—flour, butter, sugar (for the crust) and fruit that is simply sweeten, putting it all together is a feat!  I typically make the crust recipe that comes from American Test Kitchen.  My mother-in-law laughs because there’s vodka in it and I keep a bottle of cheap vodka in the freezer just for my pie crusts.

In addition to pie making and eating, we need to get working on the wheatgrass baskets for our egg coloring party.  Yearly we host a small gathering of young children (friends of my son or daughter) to dye-color and decorate boiled eggs.  We provide about a dozen eggs per child; the dyes; stickers, tattoos, magic crayons.  They get to take home a basket of real wheatgrass with their beautifully decorated eggs.

Here’s a photo of the materials for the wheatgrass Easter/Spring baskets.  The baskets are from the dollar store.  I’m hoping they can withstand the weight of the topsoil.  This is a bag of wheat berries.  You can also get them in the bulk section of most health food stores.  I didn’t take a picture of the plastic bags I use to line the baskets before the topsoil goes in.  I typically cut open half-gallon storage bags.

The wheat berries need to soak overnight.  Don’t let them soak over 24-hours or else they will start to smell bad and become unusable for the Easter/Spring baskets.

In the next several days, you will see the seeds transform to luscious greenery!  I hope you’ll do this project at home too.  

first day

I’m going to try this blogging thing.  I’m inspired by all the wonderful people in my lives and also by my sweet daughter and devilish son who asked, “Why do you go to all those classes?”  It was a thought-provoking question.  There are many reasons I do it.  To occupy my time by doing something creative; to get out of the house after being home all day; learning something that people wish they know how to do.  I don’t think I want to become a florist.  I don’t think I want to be a print-maker. I don’t want to be a chef. I don’t want to be a baker or cake decorator.  BUT I do know I like to impress people with my creations and knowledge.  At this point in my life I have the luxury of being able to squeeze some classes with great teachers—people who are in the business, who are willing to share their talents, knowledge and secrets with the general public.

There is a part of me that thinks I have an idyllic life.  I sometimes am afraid to say that because it’s like I’m tempting the gods.    I have three healthy and in general terms, good children.  I have been married for 18-years to a supportive and sometime funny man.  I live in a city that’s been on the top 100 cities to live for countless amount of years.   The city that I like so much that I rarely leave its boundaries and it is a running joke among my friends.

I will document the various classes I take and the products / outcomes of these classes.  Sometimes there a things that my friends have created and shared with me. 

My first creation will be my wheatgrass filled baskets.  It’s almost Easter, not exactly, but in order to have the grass ready for egg coloring party, I’m starting to think about it.   Photo above is last year's baskets.  In the up-coming weeks, I'll give you the how-to's so you can make one of your own.