St. Patrick's Day Menu and Irish Soda Bread

I won't be home Tuesday night, so we had out corned beef and cabbage dinner tonight. Very yummy. Corned beef, cabbage, mashed potatoes and soda bread.

St. Patrick's Day has always been important in my family, but it's funny how I have modified the menu over the years. Growing up, Mom always bought the pink pre-corned beef at the grocery store. She cooked it and then added in the cabbage. We always had the "new" potatoes, which were always red and if we were lucky then they were small. For dessert there might have been green jello. I don't remember there being anything else.

Now that I am an adult I have figured out that I do not get along well with the chemicals in store bought corned beef. They give me headaches and a general sense of malaise. Not pleasant feeling at all. So, several years ago I started seasoning a beef brisket myself several days in advance. This year I tweaked the seasonings and I think it made it even better. Then I proceed with the cooking just as Mom always has. I do the cabbage the same as Mom. Joe doesn't like boiled new potatoes and I'm still working on establishing "our" traditional potato dish, so this year I made mashed potatoes. That leads me to the soda bread. Some years I've made a quick bread variant that was ok, but Joe was never crazy about it. This year I tried something made from yeast. It's really more of a raisin bread, but it's great. Soft. Would probably make a good sandwich bread.

Last year Mom sent me one of those magazine/cookbooks that they sell by the register at the grocery store. It was called Taste of Home Irish Food & Fun. The original recipe can be found on their website here. My comments below are italicized.

Irish Soda Bread

SERVINGS: 10

CATEGORY: Breads

METHOD: Baked

TIME: Prep: 30 min. + rising Bake: 30 min.

Ingredients:

• 1 package (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup warm water (110° to 115°) (I will admit that I do not precisely measure the temp. I microwave 8 oz of liquid for 30 seconds in a Pyrex measuring glass. Less liquid for less time; more liquid for more time. I then check it by sticking my clean finger in it. Totally scientific, huh?)
  
• 3 tablespoons sugar, divided
• 1 cup warm buttermilk (110° to 115°) (I used the powdered buttermilk and reconstituted it per the package)
  
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3-1/2 to 4 cups all-purpose flour (I needed more)
  
• 3/4 cup golden raisins (I used regular raisins that I soaked in hot water until plump. I drained off the liquid after soaking.)
  

Directions:

In a large bowl (I used my Kitchenaid stand mixer with the flat beater here), dissolve yeast in warm water. Add 1 tablespoon sugar; let stand for 5 minutes. Beat in the buttermilk, butter, salt, baking soda, 1 cup flour and remaining sugar until smooth. Stir in raisins and enough remaining flour to form a soft dough.

Turn onto a floured surface (I kept in my mixer and switched to the dough hook.); knead (I used Speed 2 and added flour as necessary to keep dough from sticking to sides of bowl. The bowl did have a little bit of dough sticking at the bottom.) until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes (At this time the raisins were pretty beat up, so there were little bits throughout the dough. May want to consider adding in the raisins near the end of kneading if you are concerned about keeping the raisins intact).

(After kneading, I cut the dough in half and froze one half for later use. Note to self: the yeast will be groggy upon awakening so be prepared for extended rise times.)

Place in a greased bowl (I used the same mixer bowl), turning once to grease top. Cover (I like a clean kitchen towel, but plastic wrap will allow you to see the progress) and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 40 minutes. (If your kitchen is cold, try this trick: turn your oven to the lowest possible setting (mine is 170 F) and a timer for exactly 1 minute. When the timer goes off, turn off the oven and put the dough inside.)

Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; knead for 2 minutes (This I do by hand and I stop when the dough becomes difficult to fold over itself). Shape into a round loaf. Place on a greased baking sheet (I used parchment). With a sharp knife, cut a 1/4-in.-deep cross on top of loaf. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.

Bake at 350° for 30-35 minutes (even the half loaves) or until golden brown. Remove from pan to cool on a wire rack. Yield: 1 loaf (or 2 small loaves).

Wilton 1

As you may remember, Samantha's First Birthday cake was the first cake I had ever decorated. I enjoyed making it, but didn't do any other cakes until her second birthday.

The Crown cake was what I made for her second birthday. It was hard and I was sweating. The directions called for 5 cups of icing, but I only had enough powdered sugar to make 4 cups. I stretched it, but only barely.

For Christmas I asked for a set of cake decorating tips. Joe obliged and bought the large set with lots of tips that I had no clue how to use. I saw that Hobby Lobby had Wilton Method classes in January for 50% off, so I headed over there one day to see what it would cost me. "Only" $17.50 for a 4-week session with classes one night a week. I signed right up for Wilton 1.

The first week my instructor Melissa showed us around the cake decorating aisle at the store. So many tools to make the experience more enjoyable because the class kit ($24.99 then) contained only the bare minimum to get through class. Then she made up a double batch of buttercream icing and flavored it with equal parts of vanilla, almond and butter flavorings. (I concluded right then and there that I'm not crazy about the butter.) She left us with a list of things that we needed to bring to the following class including a cake and icing. We had two options for the cake. We would either need to bring a "character" cake (such as the shaped crown pan above) or we would need a pattern to transfer onto our cake. I chose the transfer cake option.

I scoured Samantha's coloring books looking for a suitable image that I could transfer onto my cake. She was crazy about Happy Feet at the time, so I thought a penguin would be good. The night before class I laid out my plan step by step so that I would do it all in order. The next day I got a phone call from Melissa. Class was canceled because we were expecting bad weather that evening. I decorated the cake at home and the Penguin Cake is what I made. Looks ok, but the mouth is goofy.

The following week I wanted to again make a transfer cake, but I wanted to do a different cake than before. I found a rubber duck online and printed it out. Ducky Cake used stars and outlines and the transfer method.





In Week 3 we learned how to make clowns. In real life I think clowns are scary, but made from icing they're kinda cute. They use up lots of icing though. We also learned drop flowers that night. This picture doesn't show a very good drop flower. The other cupcakes I was just messing around trying different techniques on. They're not worth mentioning.


Week 4 we were given the task of choosing any cake in our book and replicating the concept. I really liked drop flowers, so that's what I knew I could do. One bonus was that we made them ahead and allowed them to dry. In class all I had to do was add the bottom shell border and place the flowers wherever I wanted. While a drop flower border is great for covering up a lousy shell, this cake was one of my best shell borders.

Wilton 1 teaches the "Wilton Rose", but I haven't yet mentioned it because during this class I wasn't very good at it. They're ok, but not my favorite flower.

Sauerkraut Again

Last week one of my grocery stores had cabbage for 19 cents a pound. I'm making corned beef and cabbage tonight. That will meet Joe's monthly quota for cabbage, but at such a great price I bought extras so I could make sauerkraut. Yummy sauerkraut.

A year and a half ago I tried my hand at homemade sauerkraut and it was delicious. Here's the recipe I used back then. I've since found the juniper berries that I omitted back then, so the new batch has juniper berries and caraway seeds.

It's crazy cheap to make homemade sauerkraut. I paid $1.49 for 3 heads of cabbage. Two heads went to the sauerkraut and the other is for the corned beef. That's roughly $1.00 for enough cabbage to make 12 cups of sauerkraut. I already had the salt, juniper berries and caraway seeds in my pantry, so I don't know what cost they contributed to the recipe, but it wasn't much.

For comparison, I bought a 32 oz jar of sauerkraut for $1.84. I needed it for the reubens we'll be making with the leftover corned beef tomorrow night. Too bad we couldn't wait 4 weeks for the homemade batch to be ready for consumption. That jar has a third as much as the homemade, but cost more.

Happy New Year!

We are in California visiting my parents right now.  Samantha adjusted immediately to the three hour time difference.  I figured she would be going to sleep at 4 pm local time (7 pm Ohio  time), but she stayed awake until 7 or later.  Each morning she has been waking up at 6 or 7.

Last night some people came over.  We played UNO and had a good time.  Samantha refused to go to bed.  At home when she gets sleepy, we just lay her in her crib.  She usually talks and plays for a few minutes and then she falls asleep.  Last night when we tried to lay her down, she would start crying even before we let go of her.  After 11 but before midnight, I put her in bed and let her scream.  I'm not used to making her cry herself to sleep, so it was difficult for me to listen to.  The alcohol helped me but nothing helped her.  Eventually she wore out and gave up.  She was up bright and early at 7 this morning.  Way too early.

Disconnection

They're shutting us off! I opened up a notice from the water company which states that our payment is late and so they're shutting us off December 26. (How nice of them to let us have water for Christmas.)

I figured that I must have forgotten to send them a check. (Yes, I still pay my bills with paper checks.) I grabbed my checkbook and wrote out a check. It wasn't until I went to record the check that I saw that I had just sent them a check on November 28. The notice was dated December 10. I know that companies sometimes send out statements that don't have the most recent payments credited to the account yet. I called the water company. The woman said they haven't received anything since my previous bill back in September. She said that she would note my call in her computer. She suggested I call my bank and then call back.

It's a Thursday night. I bank with the local hometown bank. I'll have to wait until morning before I can talk to anyone. But they do have online banking (I just don't use it to pay my bills), so I went online to see if the check had posted. It hadn't. Funny thing though. I wrote four checks on November 28. Three of them posted on December 3. The last one is still missing. I don't know where it could be.

I'm not sure if I should stop the check or not. That will cost $30. If I don't pay, then it will cost $41.65 to reconnect plus the overdue amount. We'll be gone to California for a week. We won't need water while we're gone. We also won't be using any during that time either. That would almost make it worthwhile to not pay the water bill. However, the mark on my credit would not be worth it.

Cake

Mom decorated cakes when I was little, but I never learned how. I tried, but I wasn't very good at it controlling the flow of the icing out of the bag. It was too frustrating.

But something made me want to try. Or perhaps I should say someone. Tomorrow is Samantha's birthday party. I decided to make her cake rather than buy one. Very scary thought. I went to the store and bought a cake decorating set that came with some tips, couplers, bags and icing color. I also picked up a beginner's guide that included pictures and directions for several basic cakes.

I've baked many cakes, but somehow I never made the icing. I guess it's because the stuff in the tub is so much easier. Mom always made her own from scratch. There were points during the process when I wondered whether I was doing it right. The directions said to mix in all the powdered sugar into the shortening before adding the water, so that's what I did. It went from a stiff paste to a wet gloopy mess. I don't remember mom's icing ever looking like that. I kept beating it and eventually it turned light and fluffy.

For my first cake, I don't think it looks too bad. What do you think? As you can see, I'm a bit of a minimalist. I could have kept going with the flowers, but I reached this point and the little voice in my head said that the cake was done. I did a white zigzag with pink dots at the base of the cake. The top edge has white stars. The little pink drop flowers have a white center and green stem.

Pouting Chair

Samantha's pouting chair arrived today. Woodworking was one of my grandpa's hobbies. He made the chair before he died several years ago. That was back before he had any great-grandchildren to sit in one of the chairs. Mom sent the chair here so Samantha could have it. Doesn't she look cute sitting in it? It's a perfect size for her except for her feet not touching the ground.