St Patrick's Day 2014

Top o' the morning to ya, lad! Today we're going back to our Irish meal from last Monday -- St. Patrick's Day! If I could've shared this with you beforehand I would have but this menu was literally planned the day of. Unfortunately I did not continue with making the second annual Perfect St. Patrick's Day cake. I would have if there had been a party but it's somewhat senseless to make a whole cake for just Patrick and myself. I did daydream longingly about that cake all day so it's definitely still in the "could be St. Patrick's Day" tradition box. As for 2014 we entered a Guinness & Beef Stew and Irish Brown Bread into the "could be St. Patrick's Day" tradition box. Maybe in 2015 I'll put them all together!!


You may have noticed I said this menu was literally planned the day of ... meaning I was putting together my weekly meal plan together Monday morning (St. Patrick's Day). I had one slight hiccup at the grocery store later that afternoon, and you might can guess it. They were sold out of Guinness Stout beer!! I snapped up the last pack of Guinness Extra Stout beer and didn't have any trouble with the recipes (both the stew and bread call for a bottle). Read below for the recipes!



Guinness & Beef Stew from People.com
    Serves 8 > I halved everything (the portions below are still for the full recipe)!
Ingredients
3 tbsp. canola oil, divided
¼ cup flour
2 lbs. boneless chuck roast, trimmed and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 tsp. salt, divided
5 cups chopped onion (about 3 onions)
1 tbsp. tomato paste
4 cups fat-free, lower-sodium beef broth
1 bottle (11.2 oz.) Guinness Stout
1 tbsp. raisins
1 tsp. caraway seeds
½ tsp. black pepper
1½ cups diagonally sliced carrots (about ½-inch thick)
1½ cups diagonally sliced parsnips (about ½-inch thick)
1 cup cubed, peeled turnips (½-inch cubes)
2 tbsp. finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Directions
   Heat a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add 1½ tbsp. oil to pan, swirl to coat.
   Place flour in a shallow dish. Sprinkle beef with ½ tsp. salt; dredge beef in flour.
   Add half of beef to pan and cook 5 minutes, turning beef to brown on all sides. Remove beef from pan with slotted spoon. Repeat with remaining oil and beef.
   Add onion to pan and cook 5 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Stir in tomato paste and cook 1 minute, stirring frequently.
   Stir in broth and beer, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Return meat to pan, then stir in remaining ½ tsp. salt, raisins, caraway seeds and pepper. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
   Uncover and bring back to a boil. Cook for 50 minutes, stirring occasionally.
   Add carrot, parsnip and turnip. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover and bring to a boil; cook until vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Sprinkle with parsley.

We felt that the stew did not need to be returned to boil for 50 minutes after the initial hour of simmering. We added the vegetables after an hour but continued to let the stew simmer for another hour and everything turned out fine.


Irish Brown Bread from Happy Money Saver blog
    Total time: 1 hour 40 mins
Ingredients
1 cup old fashioned oats
2¼ cups whole wheat flour
½ cup dark brown sugar
2¼ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. fine sea salt
⅓ cup melted butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1 11.2 oz. bottle Guinness beer
   (Halved everything here too; recipe still denotes full portion)
Instructions
   Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease loaf pans or bowl.
   Mix all of the dry ingredients in one bowl and set aside.
   In another bowl mix the butter, vanilla, buttermilk and beer.
   Next take the beer mixture and pour it into the dry ingredients. Gently stir until you get a well blended batter. This will not look like a typical bread dough, but more of a batter.
   Pour batter into prepared pan and sprinkle with a handful of additional oats.
   Bake at 425 degrees for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, reduce the heat to 400 degrees and bake for an additional 30 minutes. Turn the oven off but keep the bread inside. Open the oven and let bread finish cooling on the rack inside for another 30 minutes. Remove and let bread finish cooling. Serve with stews, chili’s, and chowders. Or serve on it’s own with a slather of butter and honey.


We took a somewhat impromptu trip to visit our friends in DC for the holiday weekend. Thanks DC friends for having us! Here we are in our green!


What traditions do you have for St. Patrick's Day?!

1 comment:

  1. You need to make that brown bread for Poppa - you remember he loves brown bread at the Caulkins Labor Day reunions. I guess that would be the "New England" kind.

    ReplyDelete