Irish Week

On St Patrick's Day, I forgot to wear green and had Mexican food for dinner. But I think I made up for it with Irish Week. Beginning March 12, Chad and I had an assortment of Irish foods and beverages to celebrate the holiday. Grab some Paddy and Pink and read on about our adventure. (About that Paddy and Pink... it's good! I think I like it better than my beloved rum and Coke.)

The first night I was in Ireland, I had a plate of cold cuts, cheeses, fruits and veggies. So on our first night of Irish Week, we started off on a similar note. Instead of cold cuts, we had steak and potatoes. Well, half a steak. The cheapest steak we could find cost $9.99/lb. So we had half a steak and then overcompensated with Irish cheese, crackers, fruit, and salad. I was stuffed!

The next night was a complete experiment -- seafood chowder. A few years ago, we went to an oyster bar. I ordered 1 oyster, stared at it, and got the heebie-jeebies. Chad ate my oyster. Since then, I've watched many, many programs on the Food Network featuring a recipe with mussels or clams or whatnot and became convinced I needed to try to eat shellfish again. We had no idea how to make seafood chowder. On the Food Network, they always put the whole shell into the pot, but our recipe didn't really go over that. So we just made it up as we went. I was really excited when all the shells started to open until I could see the mushy bits inside! When it was time to try the chowder, my guts started to churn, I felt flush, and I started to regret the whole $6 we spent on the shellfish. But clams and mussels are actually good, if you can get past the whole mushy, slimy, chewy, tubey, internal organ explosion thing happening in your mouth.

The star of Irish Week was to be corned beef and bread pudding. I blew up my bread pudding pan in an unfortunate bread-making incident so, after an emergency Target trip, we set to work. I bought some Irish soda bread from Franklin Street Bakery that looked really good, but in hindsight, was probably way too dense. The stupid bread did not absorb the custard and the result was extremely dry, crispy crouton pudding. Well, it was either the bread's fault or mine. A few Paddy and Pinks probably didn't help matters much.

The corned beef turned out really well. We splurged on the nitrite-free one from Trader Joe's. To accompany it, I made "champ" which is an Irish word for mashed potatoes. To be extra fancy, I mashed them with my antique potato masher. We found an old, moldless piece of cabbage in the fridge and steamed it to death and poured a mustard cream sauce on top. Just in case that wasn't enough, we topped it all off with a piece of super dense, raisoney Irish soda bread.

The next meal was Guinness pie, or something or other. I got the recipe from Jamie Oliver who is technically British, but since the most important ingredient was Guinness I figured I could let that fact slide. I dumped all the grotesque bread pudding into a ziplock and kept my fingers crossed that the new pan wasn't cursed. Chad cut up a 5 Buck Chuck roast, I caramelized some onions, and stirred in some carrots, mushrooms, and garlic. Dumped a can of Guinness in, baked for a few hours and I had beef stew! Just in case that wasn't yummy enough, I stirred in a big handful of shredded Irish cheddar, poured it into a puff pastry-lined pan, topped with additional cheddar and a patchwork crust. There are no words to describe this meal! I'll try "super good." The English way to eat this was with peas, and obviously, a pint of Guinness.

Last but not least, potato-oatmeal-leek soup and homemade bread. This is really tasty stuff too. It's exactly what it sounds like: potatoes, oatmeal, and leeks. You boil the ingredients in chicken broth and milk, stir in some parsley, and it's done. (I topped with some cream since we had it in the fridge.) A happy end to a very good Irish Week!