Finished Raised Beds

As of last night Jeffry and I have three completed raised beds filled up with dirt and connected to irrigation. We ordered the dirt on Sunday with a planned delivery of Monday afternoon. In our excitement to fill in our beds and get to planting, we didn't think about the fact that the weather forecast was calling for rain on Monday evening, Tuesday and Wednesday. Once we got home and realized our foolishness, we decided we'd just have to set straight to work the second we got home Monday to get the dirt into the beds before the rain. Even though the wheel barrow had a flat tire, Jeff managed to get the largest raised bed filled up during his lunch break. When I got home I grabbed a couple of five gallon buckets and shuttled dirt from the driveway to the beds while Jeff fixed the tire. It sprinkled on us a bit, and for a while I felt like Dorothy as the wind picked up speed. Luckily it only took us about an hour working together to get all the beds in the front yard and the wine barrels on the side of the house filled up. It made our pile small enough that we could cover it with a tarp and then we headed inside for some hot showers and a warm meal.

Getting dirt delivered in bulk is definitely the way to go. It cost us a little under a dollar for a cubic foot instead of $1.95 for 3/4 of a cubic foot at Wal-mart, and the place we ordered from was just up the street so there was no delivery cost. That cost difference is a big deal when you're ordering 100 cubic feet of dirt! We will be ordering some bark from the same place in the next couple of weeks to fill in around the raised beds.

Some good things to know before you go shopping for dirt: know exactly how much you need and take a calculator. I had calculated how much we needed in cubic feet, but they sold it by the cubic yard. Jeff and I felt quite silly when we were trying to figure out the math and originally thought that there were only nine cubic feet in one cubic yard and left because we thought the landscaping company was a rip off. Oh did I feel ridiculous in the car on the way home when I realized how wrong we had been. In case you are wondering, there are 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard, not nine. Math is not my strong suit alright, but at least we got it all straightened out in the end. I felt extra silly though when we had to return to the place five minutes after we just drove off.

Easter Banner

Coming later this week I will fill you all in on the exciting construction projects and births that have been happening in our home for the last couple of days, but for now, I'd like to share a cute craft project with you. Since the window of decorating/prep time between St. Patrick's Day and Easter is only two weeks this year, I decided not to go overboard on trying to get the house decorated for Easter. By the time I purchased/made everything I'd need and put it up I'd be broke and then probably have to take it down the next day because the holiday was over. One of the few things I have purchased for decorating this year were these cute little bunny clips from Cost Plus for $2.99. That's all I spent on this project. Everything else was just stuff I had lying around the house. If you guys have any fun Easter craft ideas feel free to share.

Ingredients

1 sheet of Eastery colored construction paper

scissors

twine

magic markers, colored pencils or crayons

hot glue gun

2 push pins

mini bunny clothes pins

Cards:

1) Cut 8 rectangles that measure 3 inches by 4 inches out of the construction paper. Then trim the longer sides so that the rectangle becomes a parallelogram. Don't worry about being precise on your measurements, the differences is size/shape will just make it look quirky and fun.

2) Practice how you are going to write out Easter on a scrap sheet of paper. Once you like the way it looks, write out one letter on each piece of construction paper.

3) In different colors, add little decorations to the corners of the cards. I picked swirls and polka dots.

4) With your two remaining cards, draw an Easter related picture such as eggs, bunnies, etc. Clip these into your first and last spaces.

Garland:

1) Plug in your hot glue gun to let it start heating up.

2) Measure out 15 inches of twine before you start attaching your clothes pins. Starting at 15 inches, place them every three inches, attaching them with the hot glue gun. After you attach your last clothes pin, measure out another 15 inches and cut the twine.

3) Once the glue is completely cooled, tie a loop on each end of your garland, and attach to wall with push pins.

Notes:

-Instead of writing Easter our by hand, you could also do it with a printer and a cute font. My color cartridge is empty, otherwise I would have chosen that way.

-If you don't live near a Cost Plus, you could also use plain mini-clothes pins which are available at most craft stores.

-When writting the T in Easter, be warned that doing curly swirls on the top or bottom may turn you word to "Easfer" or "Easjer." Just add your swirlys to the bar of the t, instead of the body, to avoid the frustration of redoing your t three times.

Irish Lamb Stew

Dear friends, we have come to the last day of Irish week and will resume regular posting come Monday. For my final post I've saved one of the main courses, traditional Irish stew. We also had corned beef and cabbage of course, but I can explain the makings of that in about 30 seconds. If you need it, give me a call. Irish stew, however, is more of an evening event that, while its not difficult, takes some time. For this recipe I chose to use lamb since it's the traditional choice and some of our friends don't eat beef. Beef is cheaper and more readily available, so feel free to substitute that if you like. I also think this recipe would be awesome with some herby or cheesy dumplings cooked on top!

Irish Lamb Stew

2 lbs. lamb shoulder
½ cup of flour
salt and pepper to taste
4 Tbsp. olive oil
2 bottle of Guinness Draught
2 cups of red wine
10 cups of beef stock
4 Tbsp. dried thyme
5 bay leaves
4 Tbsp. ketchup
6-7 medium sized red potatoes
6 large carrots, peeled
2 yellow onions, peeled
4 Tbsp. butter
2 large handfuls of chopped parsley

Chop lamb into bit sized pieces, removing any tough bits. In a bowl mix the flour, 1 Tbsp. of thyme and salt and pepper until well combined. Add the lamb to the flour mixture and stir to coat it. Heat the oil on medium-high heat in a large stock pot then add the meat. Cook the meat for several minutes on each side until all sides are nice and brown.

Once your meat is well browned, add the Guinness, red wine, beef stock, remaining thyme, bay leaves and ketchup to your pot. Stir well, bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and place a lid on the pot. Let simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

While your pot is simmering, chop your potatoes and carrots into bite sized pieces, and finely chop the onion. In a separate pot from the meat, melt the butter on medium-high heat and add the potatoes, carrots and onion. Cook the veggies for about twenty minutes, stirring every few minutes. Try to time it so your veggies are done at the same time that your stew is done simmering (but remember its stew not rocket science, going a little over on the simmering time won’t hurt anything).

Once the veggies are done, add them to the stew pot. Simmer the ingredients together for another 20 minutes to combine the flavors. Ladle the stew into bowls and sprinkle with the chopped parsley.

This dish is really better eaten the next day, so make this up the night before and just reheat before serving. If this is more stew than you think your family can eat, the recipe is easily cut in half, or freeze the extra portion to have as a quick dinner for another day. The original recipe I based this one on came from a beef Irish stew recipe from dianasaura dishes.

"Irish" Sweet Potato Bake

We have a new guest blogger with us today!! The lovely Miss Helen from Vacaville kindly agreed to share a post with us about the delicious sweet potato bake she brought to the St. Patrick's Day party. Unfortunately, Helen had to leave before we all sat down to dinner, so she missed most of the guests asking who made the sweet potatoes, followed by, "Tell Helen her sweet potatoes are amazing!" This dish would also be great as a substitute for the traditional candied yams when the Holiday Season rolls back around.

It was my great pleasure to attend the completely delicious St Patty's day party held by my dear friends Jeff and Robin last Saturday. Given that it's a party, especially one given in honor of a dude who drove snakes out of Ireland a la Samuel L. Jackson, how can one not bring food?I decided from the get-go that I wanted to make something different. Something homey and delicious, but devoid of potatoes since I knew they'd be prevalent (this comment should not in any way be construed as "oh look at me, I don't eat potatoes" because that simply isn't true. In fact, I'm eating a potato right now. Raw). But I still wanted to maintain the ethnicity in some way, which meant that my typical dates-stuffed-with-goat-cheese appetizer (ooooh that's a post all its own!) was out. Eventually after googling Irish side dishes I stumbled upon a recipe for a Sweet Potato Bake. I know I'm not alone in saying "I LOVE sweet potatoes!!!"

You may be asking yourself "how are sweet potatoes Irish?" Well, dear reader .... they're not and I was just as baffled as you are as to what about them would make them Irish. Sweet potatoes themselves have their origins in South America, so my guess is that it's more about the preparation and less about the main ingredient; this recipe calls for butter, flour, heavy cream, milk, all ingredients that one may find in scalloped potatoes, which *may* have an origin in Ireland. That's my most educated guess.

Another neat little tidbit is that sweet potatoes are high in complex carbs, fiber, and loads of other goodies the translation of which is that they are extremely good for you. How good for you they are after drowning them in whipping cream and butter isn't important right now. The point is that the decision on what to bring was made, and delicious consequences ensued.

I found this recipe at littleshamrocks.com. More specifically here: http://www.littleshamrocks.com/Irish-Side-Dish-Recipes.html#IrishSweetPotatoBake

8 c. sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced very thin

6 tbsp. butter

1/2 c. flour

2 c. heavy cream

1 c. milk

1/2 c. brown sugar

Oven 350 F

Place potatoes in 3-4 quart casserole. In saucepan, melt butter, stir in brown sugar until dissolved. Stir in flour, then gradually add cream and milk. Bring to a boil over medium heat until thickened. Pour sauce over potatoes. Place casserole on a cookie sheet and cook covered at 350F for 1 hour. Remove cover and cook for another 30 minutes. Remove from oven. Yield: 12 servings

I was amazed at the amount of sweet potato it actually took to come to 8 cups; only two huge potatoes! I'd bought and peeled five just to be safe, so I had plenty of extra which I froze until such time as the world (or more importantly my sweet tooth) needs them. The preparation was remarkably and blissfully easy using the blade feature on my trusty food processor (I'm not a fan of chopping...I just don't have the knack!). It got the potatoes to the perfect width and took all of 15-20 minutes including the peeling and cutting pieces to fit through the portal, so I'd say this is definitely the way to go.

I followed the recipe exactly regarding the cream mixture and I would say that constant stirring is essential. There is an odd satisfaction with working with whipping cream since there is a moment when it is liquid, and then suddenly it isn't; the moment of "catch" as it were. I'd say immediately after boiling, it must be removed from heat and poured over the potatoes. I've only done this once, but the burn probability seemed extremely high. At first I was a little concerned since the cream mixture just sort of sat on top, but of course it was all for naught. As it baked, everything sunk in perfectly and away we went.

I had to run for a few hours, so I didn't get to see the initial reaction of the beloved masses as they sunk their teeth into the concoction, but I have it on good authority that it was well received :-) Oh, and it's great for leftovers. It doesn't need much heating up, and it's also pretty good cold!

Much love,

Helen

Easter Eggs

I know I said this week would be about highlighting the fun foods I made for our Irish night, but I figured maybe I should throw in something about Easter, since that is a holiday you still have time to prepare for! I read an article today from Mother Earth News that I found very interesting about using natural plant dyes for your Easter Eggs that seems easy, fun and educational.

Eggs done with natural dyes.

Picture from MEN's website.

My mom never seemed too big a fan of doing Easter eggs. Perhaps the idea of trying to control the chaos that can ensue when you hand dye over to a couple of rambunctious prone to fighting kids wasn't her idea of a good time. I, however, love doing Easter eggs every year and even as a high schooler would sometimes do a little basket of them just for fun. I did experience a bit of the fear I imagine my mother felt last year when I dyed eggs with small children for the first time. Watching those little cups of dye teeter tottering on the table top as the parents tried to focus the little ones on gently dipping their eggs in them was...a bit scary to say the least. That's not to say I'm not looking forward to dipping a few eggs with the same family this year, I'll just be a bit more prepared for what's in store.

Like many mothers who hear the, "when I'm a mom I'll..." stories and chuckle with the knowledge of what motherhood is really like, I think the mother of the children mentioned above gets a kick out of many of my future child rearing schemes (cloth diapers being a prime example). This natural dye thing might be added to that list, but I think it sounds easy enough to replace the store bought dye sets. If you have a range of kid ages, it can also give the older kids something to contribute by letting them take the reigns/assist in the dye making process.

I could rewrite the basics of the Mother Earth News article, but honestly, theirs was pretty awesome. You should just follow this link and check it out for yourself. It teaches your how to easily make the three primary colors, then you can mix them from there (also educational). Enjoy!

Soda Bread

When I saw that stew and corned beef were on the menu for our St. Patrick's Day festivities, I new right away that an Irish Soda Bread was in order. Then I got to thinking, if one soda bread is good, then two soda breads must be great! I did a quick search online and came up with a pretty basic herby soda bread recipe. For the second bread, I left out the herbs and added giant handfuls of shredded cheddar cheese. I think the cheesy one was a bit more popular, and beautiful, but next time I would opt for a sharper cheddar and perhaps a head of roasted garlic thrown in as well. Whatever you do to modify this bread with add ins, mix them with the dry ingredients before adding the buttermilk/oil. Also, my food processor did a decent job at mixing the dough, but eventually it just became too much for it. I simply kneaded the bread a bit longer to make sure the ingredients were all well combined.

Basic Soda Bread

Ingredients:

4 cups bread flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon water

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 325°.

1)In your food processor or mixing bowl, combine 4 cups flour, the chopped herbs, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Mix for 1 minute. If you are adding any extra flavorings, add them now.

2)Whisk together the buttermilk and vegetable oil in a bowl. Gradually add the buttermilk mixture to the combined dry ingredients while mixing on low speed and continue to mix until the dough forms a ball, about 30 seconds.

3)Scrape the dough away from the sides of the food processor and turn the dough ball over. Mix on low speed for about 30 seconds longer.

4)Transfer the dough ball to a floured surface and knead until smooth, about 2 minutes. Form the dough into a round loaf, pinching and twisting the bottom a bit to make the loaf taller. Place the loaf, pinched side down, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a nonstick silicone liner.

5)Whisk the egg yolk with 1 tablespoon water, then lightly brush the mixture over the top of the loaf. Score the loaf by cutting a 1/4-inch deep "X" into the top.

6)Bake the loaf in the preheated 325° oven for 55 to 60 minutes. The bread is done when a hollow sound is heard when the bottom is tapped with your finger. Allow the bread to cool to room temperature before slicing.

Notes:

-For an Herby Bread add 1 heaping teaspoon of dried dill and thyme (one 1 heaping tablespoon of fresh) plus about four shakes of garlic powder. The original recipe also said to add an equal amount of tarragon, but I didn't have any on hand so I left it out.

-For a Cheesy Garlic Bread add about four giant handfuls of coarsely shredded cheddar cheese and one head of chopped roasted garlic. For roasting instructions check out this blog.

You can find the original recipe I used here.

Creamy Stuffed Strawberries

I know this isn't the best pic, but I was literally holding a friend back from eating one at the time!

As I said in my last post, this weekend was filled with Irish goodness as we had a group of friends over for an evening of Guinness and savory foods from the Emerald Isle. While I’m not sure if stuffed strawberries are very Irish (hey I had made a loop hole for it by saying the savory foods were authentic), they are very delicious, so I threw them in with the appetizers. These are simple to make, impressive to look at and will quickly disappear once placed within reach of your guests. These would also make a great dessert for an at home romantic evening.

While I made up how to make these, the idea was not originally mine. An old friend of mine used to make a similar dish for potlucks and guarded the recipe with his life because he didn’t want anyone else to start bringing them. I had always respected his secrecy, until we stopped hanging out regularly and having said potlucks. One day I decided that I could probably guess the basic ingredients and gave it a go. Honestly, with these ingredients, it would be hard to make something that wasn’t to die for. Enjoy!

Stuffed Strawberries

Stuffing:
One 8 oz. package of cream cheese
¼ cup of powdered sugar
a few shakes of vanilla extract

several splashes of milk

2 small packages of strawberries
½ cup of chocolate chips, or dipping chocolate

1) Wash strawberries and remove their tops and the white insides. Make sure strawberries are completely dry before moving forward.

2) Use a hand mixer to combine the cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla extract. Add the milk a splash at a time until the mixture is completely smooth and just thin enough to squeeze easily through a piping bag. It should be similar to a thick frosting.

3) Use a piping bag or make your own out of a Ziploc bag to fill each strawberry with the stuffing.
4) Melt the chocolate either by following the instructions on the bag (if it’s melting chocolate) or using a double boiler.

5) Either dip stuffed strawberries in chocolate and place on wax paper to dry or use the piping bag method again to do some swirls of chocolate on one side of each strawberry. The second method is quicker and less messy, but it’s really a matter of personal preference and time.

6) Refrigerate the strawberries for half an hour to make sure the chocolate sets.

Notes:

-I bought three packages of strawberries and picked out the bigger ones and had about one package left over of smaller ones. They became part of a fresh fruit salad the next day.

-If you don't have a double boiler, fill a small pot a couple of inches with water and place a glass measuring cup with your chocolate in the pot. Presto! A homemade double boiler. Just be very careful not to get any water in with your chocolate.