St. Patrick's Day

Chocolate Mint Irish Coffee

I had planned on a huge post for today but after a weeks worth of cooking I am about beat. LOL And sadly I haven't had a drink yet and it is already past dark! Yeah, major St. Patties day foul there. Okay, well I hadn't had a drink at all until the hubby broke out the Whiskey and the Baileys and started making Irish Coffee. Different versions actually. And after all was said and done and all pictures taken I threw together a new little twist on the Baileys version and am on my 2nd cup right now with plans of many more. LOL

Irish Breakfast Essentials

But anywho, little sum up of this week. As you have seen I have been making a lot of food. In fact I am having to flip back through everything to see what I have posted about and what I have not. In looking at all this I find I have finished up a few things I did have planned...So you will probably see cookies decorated in Irish Themes over the next week that I should have posted by today but didn't...Oh well. And I just have to do them because I had some of the coolest ideas for cookies I have had yet so I am doing these comma damn it exclamation point. I'm Irish so I can post Irish stuff any day of the year. :P (Yes, I played the Irish Card. I don't use it for fights or drinking so I can throw it down now.)

A Full Irish Breakfast

Anywho, all over the place with this post. Can you follow this? I hope so. Let me see if I can stay focused enough to finish this..... Today started out the perfect way for an Irish Family on St. Patrick's Day, probably a perfect way for everyone out drinking tonight to start tomorrow. The Full Irish Breakfast, or at least as close as I could get out here in the States and trust me I tried! Oh my god this is a lot of food and really sticks with you. In fact most of the family didn't eat anything else for the day except to pick at things here and there. I can understand now why Irishmen were able to build the skyscrapers and railroads decades back. Starting out with this breakfast will enable anyone to take on the world. That or put you in a food coma. Either way it is all good.

Irish Scones & Shortbread

What all is in a Full Irish Breakfast? Well that differs from area to area in Ireland and here in the States, as well as just home to home. So, I will just go with what is in the Gibsons Full Irish Breakfast.

• Fried Eggs
• Bacon
• Beef Sausage Links
• Pork Sausage Patties
• Stewed Mushrooms and Tomatoes
• Boxty
• Traditional Irish Shortbread <--Recipe
• Traditional Irish Scones <-- Recipe
• Irish Breakfast Tea
• Irish Butter
• Red Current Jelly

Yeah, like I said, it is A LOT of food. Really wish our friends from back in Ga had been here this morning. Every time I cook like this it just isn't the same without them. Okay, traveling down memory lane and need to hop back onto the blog post turnpike. lol

Big breakfast and well it was pick at that all day and dive into the numerous left overs we have right now since there has been so much cooking here this week. One of those left over is, of course, Corned Beef and Cabbage. 

Granted there was not a lot of that left over since it is my youngest sons all time favorite meat. (As you can probably tell from the picture. Soon as he saw the platter he tried to take it and run off with it. LOL Poor thing it weighed about as much as he did so we had to set it down and let him pose with it. It was that or he was going to hold it hostage.) 

And THAT brings us to tonight, well doesn't actually but covers enough ground to where I can get on with it. Tonight in the Gibson home was Irish Coffee, 3 different versions, and Irish Whiskey Coffee Cake. (<-- Recipe) The Hubby, over at Cynical Cuisine, took cake of 2 of the coffees and I took care of the 3rd and the cake. All were nummy nummy. If you want to try the cake, the recipe link is provided above and the hubby will be posting about the coffees shortly, so here, Cynical Cuisine, there is the link. You can shot on over there and check it out. 

So, quickly - Cake - Yummy! Hubbies two versions of Irish Coffee and then mine, yummy! (Want to make mine? Simple, standard Baileys Irish Coffee and stir in Mint Chocolate Ganache. OMG! So, having said that, time to get another glass. See you tomorrow! (And yeah, seriously, the Full Gibson Irish Breakfast to battle your hang over tomorrow!)

Irish Coffee and Whiskey Cake

Read More

The Yummy Of The Irish

St. Patties Cupcakes

Top of the mornin' to you! Or evening, as the case is for me currently. It is about 10:30P.M. out here on the west coast and I am just not finishing up another long day of cooking Irish Style. That's right my paddies! Okay, just gonna stop now. I sound like an Irish "Brutha" (thanks Turk) and I should really stop. I make a snow flake look tan. Anywho.....

Potato Champ

So yeah, here it is late at night and my kitchen is in shreds and I doubt it is getting clean anytime soon. Granted the poor hubby has been trying to keep up but it just isn't working. He spent all day cooking some wonderful Irish dishes and well me? I was making cupcakes!

Irish Beef Stew

Yes, nummy, nummy cupcake. Chocolate Boiled cupcakes with mint ganache injected into them. They didn't take long to make, it just took all freaking evening to decorate them. Would have taken longer if the hubby hadn't come to the rescue and started assembling them with me. Dozens of cup cakes with Clouds and grass and rainbows and even a pot of gold at the end for my sons 1st grade class. ^_^

Braised Irish Lamb

Why? Well duh, St. Patrick's Day. For many it is a day of drinking, Boondock Saints and crappy impersonated Irish accents but hey! That's okay! On St. Patrick's Day everyone is Irish!!!!! But things are different in the Gibson Home. Don't get me wrong, there is drinking. This is an Irish home, Catholic Lite. I think if there wasn't someone might run a cat scan on us.

Colcannon

But you see, even though we are an Irish home, we are also a foodie home. I have all my nummies you see constantly and then there is the hubby, a chef. So, what does an Irish Foodie home do for St. Patties Day? We turn it into a Christmasesque Irish Cooking Extravaganza week! Started earlier and will continue to St. Patrick's Day. ^_^

Irish Soda Bread

Yeah, yeah. I know what you are thinking. Irish cuisine? Laughing your balls off right now aren't ya? Well trust me there is more to it than Corned Beef and Cabbage and Whiskey and Beer, granted we don't need more but there is more. ^_~ It started with the Irish Lace Cookies, went onto Irish Soda Bread on Surreal Fare and has kept going!

Irish Lace Cookies

From Irish Beef Stew to Potato Champs to Braised Irish Lamb and Colcannon! And we have not finished yet! So many yummy delights to share with not only our family but yours!

And that beings me to something new! Well not new for me but new for the hubby! He is kicking off his food blog tonight! And sharing a recipe from our kitchen to use in your own. Go see it at his page - Cynical Cuisine!

So to celebrate that I am sharing one more Irish Sweet Treat recipe for you all! Traditional Irish Shortbread! This rich shortbread is beyond amazing. Salty and sweet, it melts in your mouth like butter and it better considering just how much butter is in it.

Now this recipe is NOT mine. It is an adapted recipe from Kerrygold that I found on the net and fell in love with. Yes, I am so for changing up recipes but some recipes are so wonderfully perfect you dare not change a thing and just keep cooking. This is one of those rare moments.

Now, before I begin with the recipe, please take note....USE IRISH BUTTER!!!!! Seriously, it is a whole different animal compared to American Butter. It is a darker yellow butter than is so deviously rich you may have a yummygasm just by tasting it by itself. I recommend Kerrygold and it can usually be found in most grocery stores. I found mine in Safeway. It is very pricey but it well worth it. (Double the price + of American butter.) If you use any other butter I will not be held responsible if the Saints decide you have crossed a line.



Now, onto the recipe!

• 1 1/4 Cup All Purpose Flour
• 1/2 Cup Cornstarch
• 1/4 Teaspoon Sea Salt, fine grain
• 1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar
• 1/2 Pound Salted Irish Butter, chilled and cubed
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1. Preheat the oven to 300 F.
2. Spray down a 9 inch cake pan with nonstick cooking spray. 
3. Sift together the flour, cornstarch, salt and sugar.
4. In a large mixer add the salt and with a paddle attachment mix on low until the dough becomes "grainy." Kind of like pie dough does.
5. Add in the vanilla and mix until incorporated.
6. Place into the cake pan and take press it out flat. I use another cake pan and press down to flatten it out evenly.
7. Take a fork and poke the dough all over.
8. Bake 1 hour in the oven.
9. Remove from oven and quickly cut into desired number of slices. I do 12.
10. Let cool fully!
11. Carefully flip out, it breaks super easy. Might be easier to take 1 piece out, let that crumble, taste to make sure it is good. >.> lol And then take out the rest a slice at a time.
12. Serve as is or with jam and enjoy!

This is said to keep up to 2 weeks in an air tight container and up to 2 months of frozen....I have no idea. We can't keep the stuff in the house for 24 hours so I honestly cannot comment on the shelf life. 

Traditional Irish Shortbread

Anywho! I will be posting more Irish themed pictures over the next couple of days but I hope you enjoy this! Now, hop on over to the hubbys blog and see what he is up to! Watch him, fav him, like him, pass him around like a cheap woman if you will. Once again - Cynical Cuisine

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all and to all a good drink! 

Read More

Irish Lace Cookies

 Saint Patrick's Day is right around the corner and you know what that means? Every drunken stereotype is going to be out in droves, mostly found in bars all over the world. It is a day of friends, frivolousness and frankly drinking. lol Oh how I love the Irish. More so lately since I am married to an Irishman and he is very keen on his families history and heritage. Which in turn made me want to learn more about mine and yeah,...I found out I am Irish. Mostly! Funny how that works out. LOL

That made me want to do a little something more than the usual St. Patties day themed goodies this year. Don't worry, there will be plenty of the typical as well but I do want to start out on a good note. What better way than what is probably the most delicate cookies around - Irish Lace! Yes, you can see right through them!

They are everything Ireland is sans the whiskey and Guinness, yes there is more to Ireland than that! Made from butter, brown sugar and steel cut oats, these cookies take a very basic base and turn it into something delicate, beautiful and packed with such candy like goodness you would think Willy Wonka had made them. I wonder if he was Irish, lol.

Now, this was the first time I had ever made these cookies. I simply found a recipe online and went with it. Granted I did change a couple of things. >.> It's what I do. These came out wonderful and my husband just kept tearing through them!

What I love most about these is that even though you cannot really shape them into much before or while they are cooking you can after. Let them cool for about a minute and you can roll them up, bend them and shape them! I did everything from rolling them up on the end of a wooden spoon to curving them into bowls, pushing them around to make a heart, covering them in chocolate and even bending one into a butterfly!

So let us get started!

Irish Lace Cookies:

• 1/2 Cup Salted Butter, room temp
• 3/4 Cup Light Brown Sugar, packed
• 2 Tablespoon All Purpose Flour
• 2 Tablespoon Milk
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1 3/4 Cup Irish Steel Cut Oats - NO INSTANT!

1. Preheat your oven to 350
2. Place your cookiesheets in the oven now! 
3. In a mixing bowl cream your butter and sugar.
4. Add in everything else minus the oats and mix until well combined.
5. Fold in the oats.
6. Grab a teaspoon measuring spoon, fill and level off.
7. Drop onto a parchment lined HOT cookie sheet. 
8. Keep doing this until the sheet is full - keep them at least 3 inches apart. They spread a lot. I usually only get 8 on my largest cookie sheets!
9. Bake 8-11 Minutes. 
10. Remove from oven but keep on cookie sheet for 1 minute.
11. Then remove to cooling rack to cool fully. If shaping do this now and quickly!
12. Be careful! They break easy!
13. Serve and enjoy! Or wait till they are all the way cool and brush with melted chocolate.

Read More