Food - Irish Style

I have never been a big St. Paddy's day person. The idea of going out, drinking beer and being around a bunch of drunk people acting stupid because they think that March 17th gives them a pass is just really not my thing. This year though, all my blogger friends and people I stalk online have been coming up with all sorts of fun Irish food and I had to get in on the action.

I knew that getting into this that I didn't want to do corned beef and cabbage, not because I don't like it but because I wanted to be different. So after a major online search I settled on Irish Stew, Irish Soda Bread and of course the Guinness truffles I had mentioned in my post on Friday. It was a bit of work to get this made, but easy, uncomplicated work and completely worth every minute of it. I will be making this again at the request of the BF.

The main reason for choosing this stew was because it called for both Guinness and red wine. The more the merrier!

The recipe can be found here and I followed the directions exactly and loved the final results. It is a hearty, belly warming, cold day stew that filled the house with a delicious aroma. If I were to change anything about this I would probably add a little bit more broth, but this is purely for personal preference of liking my stew a little bit more soupy. Highly recommend giving this a go and the more root vegetables you add, I think the better it would get!

The key to Irish soda bread is that it must be eaten warm out of the oven. It is not as good if it waits around.

Reading up on Irish soda bread is pretty interesting. There are lots of opinions out there and most people feel very strongly about them. Based on everything I read, the original Irish soda bread is simple ingredients of flour, salt, baking soda and buttermilk, but don't tell that to people who think currents and caraway seed should be included, they will go down fighting about this particular subject. I decided to stick with the basics and followed this recipe and it turned out really good! The texture and taste with the buttermilk, reminded me of cornbread, but different at the same time. It's an incredibly easy recipe to make and anyone can do it. With all the different recipes I found online, I did make one change and also put some buttermilk on top of the dough before going into the oven and then basted it once while cooking. Not sure if it did anything, but I must say the bread was moist.

Yum, just yum

I already wrote about these here, but after making them I must say I am in love with them! They are rich and they have a dark chocolate taste that is so yummy. If you tend to like your chocolate a little more sweet, you might want to try these using milk chocolate instead of semi-sweet, but I like them just fine the way they are.

Cheers

No St. Paddy's day is complete without a pint of Guinness, right? Well whatever your poison I hope you had a fantastic day and I can guarantee that I will not be waiting until St. Paddy's next year to be making these items!