Our St. Patrick's Day

Our St. Patrick's day was cold and snowy, but since we are Irish here, we couldn't let the day go by without celebrating a bit. We found the best place to start was in the kitchen. 

A week ago, Gina at Kleinworth & Co. posted beautiful photos the of Irish Soda bread she baked and the recipe she used. I thought it was something I would do some day, and even pinned it on Pinterest. But she really caught my attention when she told me it took her only about 35 minutes from start to finish! That did it for me.  

The recipe is so easy, uses minimal ingredients that most people have in their kitchen routinely, and truly didn't take long at all. The loaf was absolutely beautiful when it was all done. It looked rustic and like it came right from the bakery. And ... it tasted as good as it looked! We enjoyed it with a hearty potato soup for dinner and then toasted it the next morning for breakfast. I added a little butter and a spot of honey to mine. If you follow me on Instagram, you saw my toasted bread this week. If not, you can see it here. 







We also had to have a little St. Patty's Day treat. So we decided to make our own Shamrock Shakes. This too was very simple. I did a brief internet search and found several variations. We opted for a more traditional shake. 

Shamrock Shakes

2 cups vanilla ice cream

1 cup milk

1/4 teaspoon peppermint (or mint) extract

10 drops green food coloring

Blend all ingredients together for two minutes. 

Enjoy! 

We sure did! :) 

(And yes, you must wear green on St. Patty's day. Morgan is sporting her Dublin shirt my husband brought us when he visited Ireland with his dad in 2010. While there, they spent some time in County Clare, the region of Ireland where their family is from.) 

Hope you all had a great weekend and a fun St. Patty's Day. 

Happy WW! 

tish