Traditional Irish Soda Bread

 

4 cups flour
2 cups buttermilk (or milked soured with 2 Tbsp lemon juice or vinegar)
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1½ teaspoons salt

Preheat oven to 400 F. If you are using a baking stone, place on center rack to heat with oven.
If you do not have buttermilk and you will need to sour milk, add two tablespoons of vinegar or lemon juice to just under two cups of milk and allow to sit for five minutes, while you prepare the dry ingredients.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt (and sugar if you want to sweeten your bread)
Form a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in 1¾ cup of buttermilk or soured milk. (You may not need all two cups of milk, depending on your flour.)
Stir in buttermilk with a fork or spoon to create a sticky dough.
When the dough comes together, turn dough onto a floured surface and knead lightly - about three or four times.
Form a large ball and cut into two halves if you prefer smaller loaves.
Shape the loaves into round balls, slightly flattening the tops.
With a sharp knife, cut a deep cross into the top of your loaves.
Place loaf or loaves on parchment lined baking sheet, or heated baking stone, or place large loaf in an oiled cast-iron pot or skillet.
Brush with buttermilk (and melted butter if you prefer.)
For a more traditional baking method, cover your cast iron pot or baking dish with a lid (another pan can serve as a lid to simulate the bastible pot) for the first 30 minutes and then remove for the last 15 minutes of baking time.
If you are making two smaller loaves, you will want to reduce your total baking time to about 35 minutes.
If you are not using a lid or foil for the first part of baking, after 25 or 30 minutes, check if your bread is getting two brown. You will probably want to tent with aluminum foil at that point.
Bread is ready when the center X looks baked through and a toothpick comes out clean. As well, you can tap the bottom of the loaf and it should sound hollow.
Cover with a tea towel, moistened with sprinkles of water, and allow to cool for at least ten minutes before breaking into your loaves.
Serve warm with salted butter and honey or whatever else your heart desires.

source: 5 Minutes for Mom

Saint Patrick's Day Dublin Coddle

“This traditional supper dish dates back at least as far as the early eighteenth century. It seems to be more of a city dish than a rural one: it was a favourite of Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels. In Dublin itself, coddle retains its reputation as a dish that can be prepared ahead of time and left in a very slow oven while the people who're going to eat it have to be out of the house for a while - making it an excellent dish for very busy people! The name of the dish is probably descended from the older word caudle, derived from a French word meaning "to boil gently, parboil, or stew". The more recent version of the verb, "coddle," is still applied to gently cooked eggs, "Coddled Eggs". This recipe would also work VERY well if cooked in a crock-pot, reduce the liquid by about half if cooking the coddle this way. Comfort food at its best! Sláinte.”

4 1/2-5 lbs. Potatoes
2 large onions
1 lb. Irish sausages
2 lb. Bacon
2 1/4 cups hot water
1 chicken or beef stock cube
3 Tab. Parsley
Salt and pepper, tt

Chop potatoes into large chunks. If they are small, leave them whole.
Dissolve the stock cube in the hot water
Grill or broil the sausage and bacon to give them color. Let cool.
Chop the bacon into 1-inch pieces and the sausage into pieces the same size as the potatoes.
Preheat oven to 300F.
In an oven-proof pot or casserole dish with a tight-fitting lid, layer the bacon, sausage onions and potatoes. Season liberally each layer with salt, pepper and parsley.
Pour the bullion broth over.
Bring liquid to a boil on top of the stove, and then put lid on tightly and place in oven.
Cook for two hours. Add more liquid, if necessary. There should be an inch of liquid on the bottom.
Put back in the oven and cook for 1-3 more hours. (If desired, add a little Guinness to the pot towards the end of the cooking.)
Serve with Guinness and Irish Soda Bread.

Source: Genius Kitchen

HOMEMADE FRENCH BEIGNETS for MARDI GRAS

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 envelope active dry yeast
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 cup evaporated milk
7 cups bread flour
1/4 cup shortening
Nonstick spray
Oil, for deep-frying
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
Green, purple, yellow food color

Mix water, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl and let sit for 10 minutes.
In another bowl, beat the eggs, salt and evaporated milk together.
Mix egg mixture to the yeast mixture. In a separate bowl, measure out the bread flour.
Add 3 cups of the flour to the yeast mixture and stir to combine.
Add the shortening and continue to stir while adding the remaining flour.
Remove dough from the bowl, place onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth.
Spray a large bowl with nonstick spray.
Put dough into the bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a towel.
Let rise in a warm place for at least 2 hours. Can refrigerate at this point or proceed with recipe.
Preheat oil in a deep-fryer to 350-400 degrees F
Roll the dough out to about 1/4-inch thickness and cut into 3-inch squares.
Deep-fry, flipping constantly, until they become a golden color.
After beignets are fried, drain them for a few seconds on paper towels.
While the dough is frying, you can mix each color of food dye into 1 cup of powdered sugar. Or, you can just leave the powdered sugar white.


Using a mesh sieve, sprinkle (if using colored sugar, use some of each color) powdered sugar over the beignets while still hot.

Cherry Enchiladas

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
6 flour tortillas
1 (21 ounce) can cherry pie filling
2 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon crushed sliced almonds

The Day Before You Want to Serve Them
Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish. Combine the water, butter and 1/2 cup of sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Place a few spoonfuls of cherry pie filling just slightly off center of each tortilla. Roll up and place seam side down in the baking dish. Pour the hot liquid over the 'enchiladas' making sure to coat the tops completely. The mixture will be watery. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Next Day
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Combine 2 tablespoons sugar, cinnamon and almonds in a small bowl or cup; sprinkle over the top of the enchiladas.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven, or until outside edges of the tortillas are golden brown. Let cool slightly before serving.

Source: Allrecipes

An April Fool's Mixed-Up Dinner

We like to have fun on April Fools Day, but I think pranks are just mean spirited, so I don't allow them. A fun mixed-up dinner is a lot of fun with no harm done.
Begin with having your dessert first...

or so it appears.
This looks like a pie, and of sorts it is, but it is a chicken pot pie.

And if you have dessert first, you have to have dinner next. 

This year we are having mashed potatoes...

peas and carrots

and corn on the cob.

 I haven't found a main dish I like, so let me know if you know of a good one.

They, of course are all cupcakes and so really are the dessert even if they look like the meal. 

Sara at Best Bites, where I got the idea, used foil cupcake pan which made it look even more real.

To make the peas and carrots, begin by frosting the cupcakes with green frosting.

 For the peas Sara used green Runts, but we couldn't find any in our little town, so we had to settle for green peanut butter M&M's and Skittles. The carrots are orange Starbursts, chopped in quarters. Let me warn you, you are going to need a lot of them. We didn't have quite enough so more frosting shows through than should.

For the Mashed Potatoes use vanilla frosting and leave a little bit of a well at the top. 

Add a drizzle of caramel syrup and a flattened out Starburst (Laffy Taffy also works great) and you’re set.

 

Lastly, although not realistic, it was so cute I couldn't resist, the corn on the cob is 3 cupcakes frosted with pale yellow frosting and use Jelly Bellies for the corn. You could use a few shades of yellow and white, but works best is the buttered popcorn flavor, which kinda goes with the theme anyway.

Top it with a Starburst pat of butter and if you have any black and clear sugar sprinkles you can add salt and pepper. Sara added a yellow plastic corn skewer on either end of the row of cupcakes, which was really cute, but we didn't have any.

Happy April Fool's Day!

Update:

photo source

I found the perfect main dish for my mixed-up dinner, fish sticks!
Faux, of course, with strawberry jam dipping sauce.

• Cornflakes
• Sugar wafer cookies
• Peanut butter
• Seedless strawberry jam

1. For the fish sticks, place a couple of handfuls of cornflakes in a ziplock bag and crush them with a rolling pin. Cover 2 sugar wafer cookies with peanut butter, then toss them in the cornflake crumbs to coat.

Mini-Burgers for April Fool's Day

I thought I first saw this at the Family Fun website, but when I went there, I could only find a recipe in which you make your own cookies that would fit regular sized Peppermint Patties. These were so cute and SO easy to put together. No baking involved!

Nilla Wafer cookies

sesame seeds
shredded coconut
Green food coloring
Red and yellow icing in a squirt bottle
mini Peppermint Patties

First make the "lettuce" by putting some shredded coconut into a plastic bag. Add a few drops of green food coloring, close the bag, and shake until the coconut has turned a light green.

Next make your sesame seed buns by brushing the tops of some Nilla wafers with any flavor jam -just enough to make some "glue" to hold the sesame seeds. Sprinkle on the seeds.

To assemble the burgers, take a plain Nilla wafer (not one of the ones you have seeded) and place a Peppermint Patty on it. Squirt a small amount of red icing "ketchup" and a small amount of yellow icing "mustard" on the Peppermint Patty. Sprinkle with coconut "lettuce." Top with one of your sesame seeded cookies.

Hot Chocolate Cup-Cakes

Don't these look just like hot, steaming mugs of hot chocolate?

They make great April Fool's surprises!

Katie made these adorable hot chocolate cup cakes with marshmallow frosting. You can too!

Just use your favorite chocolate cake recipe (I would share this one, but it is gluten and casein free) and add 1 Tab cinnamon and 2 Tab. additional cocoa to make a rich-chocolaty cake. Fill regular mugs 3/4 full with batter. Place batter filled mugs into a 12 x 9 inch baking dish. Add about 1 inch of water to the baking dish. Bake as cupcakes. (It may take a few minutes longer.)
Once cooled top with the fluffy white "whipped cream" frosting, which is easy to make. You can also just use marshmallow fluff by itself or real whipped cream, if you wish
"Whipped Cream" Frosting
1/2 cup margarine
2 cups confectioners sugar
1 cup marshmallow fluff
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 to 4 tsp. milk
Mix with electric mixer until creamy smooth. This was able to frost five of our cup-cakes.
Dollop on the top of the cooked cup-cakes. Add mini-marshmallows for decoration. Enjoy!
These are fun to serve with steaming mugs of hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows. See if your friends and family can tell which mugs of hot chocolate are the impostors!

April Fool's Day Fun

We had a Japanese Sushi Teatime...

for April Fool's Day. They are all "Candy" Sushi!

 The boys had fun trying their own hand at making candy sushi creations.

 The boys don't play with playdough much any more, but I do make it for them every once in awhile. 

I presented them with these balls of homemade playdough today...

 and when they began playing with it, they were pleasantly surprised to find out that there was color hidden inside.

The boys had their own little April Fool's surprises, too.

Directions on how to make candy sushi and color surprise play dough at All Things Beautiful.

April Fool's!

Meatloaf "cupcakes" with Mashed Potato "icing"

and Jello "juice"

for April Fool's Day.

Source: ivillage

Easy Homemade Guacamole

guacamole and chili relleno casserole

5 ounces Pico de Gallo
2 ripe avocados
1/4 tea. chili powder
1/2 tea. cumin
2 tea. lime juice

Mash the avocados until it is the consistency you prefer. Mix in the rest of the ingredients until well blended. If you like a very smooth consistency, you will need to put it all in a food processor to blend.

Classic Waldorf Salad

• 3 medium size ribs celery thinly sliced
• 3 large Gala apples, unpeeled, quartered, cored, and cut into 1/4 inch dice
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup walnut or pecan pieces
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise, prepared or homemade
• 1/2 teaspoon celery seed salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
  
  
  In a large bowl, toss together all the ingredients. Refrigerate 1 hour.
  
  
  source: modified from All Vegetable Recipes

Irish Colcannon

• 1/2 head cabbage, finely chopped
• 4 potatoes, cut into chunks (I used red potatoes)
• 1 large (or two small) leeks, chopped
• ½ cup half and half (cream or milk)
• 1/4 cup butter
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¹⁄₈; teaspoon pepper
• ¹⁄₈; teaspoon mace or nutmeg

Place cabbage, potatoes and leeks into a large pot and simmer for about 10 minutes or until potatoes are soft enough to mash. Drain. Add milk and butter and mash until desired consistency. Add spices and stir thoroughly.

1. Adapted  from  the  recipe  here.

Shamrock Shake

• 2 cups vanilla ice cream
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1/4 - 1/2 Teaspoon Mint extract
• 9 drops green food coloring

• chocolate syrup (optional glass decoration)
• whipped cream (optional topping)
• green sugar (optional decoration)

1. Blend all ingredients together until smooth and yummy.
2. drizzle some chocolate syrup around your glass.
3. Pour Shamrock Shake into the glass.
4. top with whipped cream and green sugar.
5. ENJOY!!

Happy St Patrick's Day!!

Source: Craving Comfort

Leprechaun "Pies"

First step is to put a plastic or foil covered chocolate coin in the bottom of a cup or parfait glass.
Make instant Pistachio pudding in a bowl.
Your little one can pour the ingredients in the bowl and can even hold the mixer!
Have your little one spoon it in the cup on top of the coin.
Top with whipped cream. Yum!
A desert with a special treat at the end!

3.14 National Pi Day: Pi r squared

This chocolate pie is so affectionately named (Pi r squared) because it is so deep that I cannot make it in a regular round pie pan, and so use a square baking dish. The crust is a traditional graham cracker no-bake crust.

1 2/3 graham cracker crumbs (You can buy the already crushed crumbs or you can crush them yourself by placing graham crackers in a plastic Ziploc bag and crush them with a rolling pin.)

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup plus 2 Tab. melted butter (Put in a small glass bowl and microwave.)

Mix together in a bowl and then press into a buttered 9 inch square baking dish.

Layer the slices of two bananas on top of the graham cracker crust. Overlapping slightly is okay.

Make a package of chocolate pudding mix according to the package. (You will need 3 cups of milk for that.) Once it is bubbling, just take it off the stove and pour over the bananas and crust. Put in the refrigerator to thicken and cool. That will take a few hours.

Once the pudding is firm, it is time to make the whipped cream. Sure, you can use store bought in a can, but once you have made it from scratch once, you won't want to go back to the canned stuff. Put 2 cups of whipping cream (It comes in a small square carton like a small milk carton in the dairy section.) in the bowl of your mixer. Put the whisk on your mixer. (I use a Kitchen-Aid, but you can use a hand mixer.) Add in 1/4 cup of powdered sugar. (You can use regular granulated sugar, but it will have a grainy texture.) You can also add 1 tab. of vanilla, but my kids like it just fine without it.

Going slowly up so you don't have the cream all over your kitchen, take the mixer to its highest power. You will need to mix it like this for several minutes before it thickens into whipped cream. If you squeeze in a small amount of lemon juice, say 1 teaspoon, in while it is whipping, it will make it thicken easier and the sour taste does not come through in the finished whipped cream. Some say that it whips better if you get the bowl and the whisk very cold in your refrigerator or freezer. I have never done that since mine has always whipped up fine without it. See, I told you it wasn't that hard. Now top that pudding with the whipped cream. It is best to eat it right away, but it can be stored in the refrigerator until later...if you really can resist it.
(First published on 3-14-2011)

Puddle-icious Cupcakes

This idea comes from Bake It in a Cake.

To go with our cloud/water theme, we made "Puddle-icious" Cupcakes.

Fluffy white cloud on top...

when cut open reveals rain falling down and forming a puddle at the bottom!

This effect is pretty easy to make. Just add a couple drops of blue food coloring or food gel to 1/3 of your favorite vanilla cake batter. I used a white cake mix. Scoop a tablespoon of it into the bottom of your paper lined cupcake tins to make the “puddle.” Next, add a few tablespoons of blue jimmies sprinkles to the remaining (undyed) batter to make the raindrops. Add a couple tablespoons of that to the cupcake tins. Then bake! Finish ‘em off with a “cloud” of white vanilla buttercream.

December 1 is National Pie Day: Pies for You and Pies for Me

When one person likes cherry pie and the next person likes apple and still another likes Mince, it is time to make these individual mini-pies.

Crust: Rub one stick (1/2 cup) butter with 2 cups flour. Add anywhere from 4-8 teaspoons of water. Add a little at a time until it can form a ball but not be too sticky.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface until it is about 1/4 inch.
Use a large cookie cutter to cut the pastry circles. Gently place these circles into individual ramekins or into a cupcake tin.

Add your filling. It can be a favorite recipe of your own. It can be canned pie filling.
Or, you can use Lemon Curd, a berry jam or marmalade. Everyone can choose their own filling.

Cut out circles for the top crust or you can use any shape cookie cutter to make interesting top crusts. The crusts do not have to cover the whole top, if you don't want them to.

Bake in a 325 degree F oven for 15-25 minutes.
If you wish, sprinkle some powdered sugar on top before serving.

And for another educational pie, you could make

A is for Apple Pie

Candy Pizza

When I saw this recipe from Pamela of French Knots, I knew that my boys, especially Sam, would love it. Although she uses it as an Easter treat, I could not wait until Easter, but I did wait for a celebratory time. It would also be a great way of using up Halloween candy.

First mix up the cookie batter for the crust:
1 1/4 cup softened butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup nestles mini morsels - semi sweet

Combine butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Add salt, baking soda and flour - stir until combined. Add mini chocolate chips. Place dough in a greased 14" round pizza pan or a 15 1/2" x 10 1/2" x 1" rectangular pan. Cook for 15 to 17 minutes at 375 degrees.

While the crust is baking, chop up the candies of your choice for the toppings. We used Hershey's Chocolate bars, Milky Ways, Kit Kats, Almond Joy, and Reece's Peanut Butter Cups, but you can use whatever you like or have on hand. When they are crushed up, you can also add M & M's, chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, butterscotch chips and sugared pecans, or anything else you would like to add that does not need to be crushed up. Put aside.

Then in a microwave safe bowl add: 1 cup milk chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of peanut butter. Heat until melted and smooth. It makes a yummy sauce.

Once the cookie dough is done baking, smooth the sauce all over the top.

Put on all of those topping made earlier.

Allow cookies to completely cool in pan. Once cooled serve and enjoy.