Spring is Here: Breakfast on the Grill

Future Women's Irish National Team players

Isn’t it great when the good weather finally arrives? In Chicago we really have to wait for it, but we are so, so grateful when it comes. I hate that the kids are cooped up for so many months and that I feel like I’m on a never-ending hunt for indoor activities that do not involve technology. Our backyard is a postage stamp and in the five years we have lived in our house we have managed not to fix it up at all, despite our best intentions. Still, we’ve got a small garden, a sandbox and a soccer goal.  What more could you ask for? Awesome neighbors. Yep, we’ve got those too, so we’re good.

This weekend wasn’t super warm but it was sunny, and nice enough to be outside for most of the day.  Our Cousins returned home to Ireland on Saturday and we were sad to see them go. The morning after they left, immediately after Isla woke up she ran downstairs to find them.  She came back up in tears after realizing that they were really gone.

But, before they left we had a big Irish breakfast courtesy of my father-in-law and the Irish Boutique. Winston’s sausages, Irish bacon, white pudding, black pudding, eggs, beans, hash browns, and pancakes and strawberries.  Paul was inside making the pancakes and because it was nice out, I decided to do all of the meats and the eggs outside on the grill. Recently, we’ve been using our grill for more than just your typical burgers and sausages. Grilling whole chickens, a turkey breast and now, breakfast. I haven’t tried it yet but I want to make fried chicken on the grill too, since I refuse to deep fry anything in the house.

I love the days when we can eat dinner (or breakfast) outside and stay out until bedtime. I love not having to clean up the stovetop - because I’m I freak about making sure the stovetop is always clean (even though nothing else is). I also love how cooking outside gets the kids outside and gets us all talking and playing and moving more. It may be a little premature but I’m already thinking about ice cream weather and what flavors we should make this year.

She likes black pudding! 

Soda Bread Muffins with Jumbo Raisins

We got a bunk bed. Woo hoo! In preparation for a visit from our relatives from Ireland we went ahead and bought a bunk bed. The plan is to let our cousin's kids use it while they are here and then eventually move it upstairs for Emmett and Isla.  At least that was the plan, until I decided that I am never going to take it apart and put it back together again because the entire thing needs to be assembled with one of those little allen wrenches (I tried to use a power drill with a head that seemed to fit the slot on the screws, but none of them budged).  While assembly was straightforward enough, I NEVER want to see an allen wrench again. Oh well, at least we have a bunk bed downstairs, just in case. Isla loves climbing up there but doesn’t understand how to get down quite yet. Her method is to catapult herself off the top bunk face forward and hope she doesn’t hit the ground too hard. It’s a short distance down so this isn’t the worst thing. It’s actually pretty funny.

This last week everything was a little off kilter with me being sick and then Eve and all of us with our plans, plan, plans. I don’t even want to imagine what your calendar looks like when your kids are older than my little tots. Don’t tell me. It makes my head spin. Still, we ran out of muffins, and I was craving soda bread because St. Patrick’s Day came and went and I never had a slice. This state of events, led to google, which led to soda bread muffins. Which totally hit the spot, and, embarrassingly, were the only form of sustenance on which I single-handedly completed the assembly of the above-referenced never-to-be-disassembled-bunk-bed. Yep. These are powerful little nuggets of soda bread deliciousness.

The funny thing is, and if you’ve got kids you can probably totally relate, I bought these gorgeous multi-colored jumbo raisins at Trader Joe’s because my kids are crazy for raisins.  I put a whole bunch of them in the muffins and wouldn’t you know it, they HATE that there are raisins in the muffins. I’m obviously an idiot for thinking that a kid who gobbles raisins by the handful from a bag or little cardboard box would like them cooked, in muffins. What was I thinking?

Then again, maybe it was genius, maybe I want these muffins all for myself. Mwahahaha (evil laughter).

Soda Bread Muffins with Jumbo Raisins

Adapted from a recipe by King Arthur Flour

1 ½  cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

¾ cup White Whole Wheat Flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼  teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

⅓ cup granulated sugar

1 ½   cups jumbo raisins

1 large egg

1 cup full fat greek yogurt

⅛ cup water

7 tablespoons butter, melted;

sparkling white sugar, for topping

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Lightly grease a standard muffin tin.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, yogurt and water.

3. In a larger mixing bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar and raisins.

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, stirring with a large spoon. Don’t overmix. It’s ok if the  batter is a little bit crumbly.

5. Spoon the batter into the muffin tin and top with sparkling white sugar, if desired.

6. Bake the muffins for about 20 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove them from the oven. To prevent the muffins from getting soggy bottoms remove them from the pan and allow them to cool on a wire rack.

5 Things About Saint Patrick’s Day

So as it turns out, there are a lot of things that I didn’t know about St. Patrick’s day.  Here are five facts about the Holiday that you might not know. 

#1 St. Paddy’s v.s. St. Patty’s

In Ireland, Patty is short for Patricia and Paddy is short for Patrick, technically short for Pádraig, a variant of Patrick.  I did know that Paddy is short for Patrick as this is my father-in-law’s name, but I didn’t think about it in relation to St. Patrick’s Day - which I’m sure I have referred to as St. Patty’s a millions times - probably right here on this site. Apparently, a few years back,  the Dublin Airport even issued a statement regarding this in an attempt to banish the term St. Patty’s as a reference to March 17th festivities.  I will try to remember this one and call it St. Paddy’s Day from here on out.

Clapping to the rhythm during an Irish dance performance. 

#2 St. Patrick

Do we even know what we are celebrating on St. Patrick’s Day? Green beer? I learned a little bit about St. Patrick just the other day from a friend.  St. Patrick’s Day is cultural and religious holiday that takes place on the traditional death date of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. St. Patrick was thought to have used the three-leaf clover to explain the Holy Trinity to Irish pagans. St Patrick's Day parades began in North America in the 18th century and did not spread to Ireland until the 20th century.   St. Patrick’s Day has been recognized as a national holiday in Ireland since 1903.  Today, St. Patrick’s Day parades are held across the world. Paul and I even went to one in Japan when were were there in 2012.

#3 Leprechauns

So far as I can tell, these little fairies, who, as a part of Irish folklore, are usually found mending shoes and searching for the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, have nothing to do with St. Patrick’s Day, except of course that they are Irish.

#4 Corned Beef

So this one I knew. Corned beef is an Irish-American thing. Corned beef and cabbage is the Irish-American variant of the original Irish dish of bacon and cabbage. Some say that, in America, Irish immigrants weren’t able to obtain the cut of bacon used for boiling bacon which led to using cured brisket as a stand in. In New England, the proximity of Irish and Jewish communities may have led Irish immigrants to start using brisket, introduced to them by their Jewish neighbors, for this dish as it most closely approximated the taste and texture of Irish bacon.

#5 What do you do when March 17th falls on a Friday?

According to the archdiocese of Chicago, Chicago’s Irish-Catholics MAY eat corned beef today, as long as you substitute another form of penance. Whew. Just kidding. I made this corned beef on Wednesday so we could eat it before St. Patrick’s Day and again after since it’s even better a day or two later. It was my first time EVER making corned beef. And well, I didn’t really make it. I was planning on getting all of the ingredients to cure my own a couple of weeks ago but when I ran into our local market for a gallon of milk, the pre-cured ones were right there in front of me and I couldn’t help myself. Maybe next year I will cure my own, but this first time all I did was buy it, rinse it off and throw it in the slow cooker.  It was GREAT.

Here’s how I made it.

Open the package of corned beef.

Rinse off the meat under cold running water. 

Throw it in the slow cooker with enough water to go ½ to ⅔ the way up the sides of the meat.

Turn slow cooker on low for 7 hours.

At the 5 hour mark, turn the meat over and throw some cabbage, carrots and potatoes in with the brisket.

Once the timer goes off, remove and slice your corned beef.

Remove the vegetables from the pot leaving the cooking liquid.

Place your vegetables on a large serving platter and lay slices of corned beef on top.

Add 1 tablespoon of dijon mustard to the cooking liquid and boil the liquid for about 10 minutes until it is reduced slightly - tasting to make sure it’s not reducing too much (i.e. getting too salty).

Pour the cooking liquid over your meat and vegetables and serve.

Happy St. PADDY’s Day!!!