Celebrating Irish

We love any chance to celebrate a holiday.  St. Patrick's Day is one of our favorites.  Leprechauns come at night to play tricks, Lucky Charms for breakfast, and a hearty Irish dinner.

This year those tricky leprechauns built the largest couch cushion fort our house has ever seen.  The boys didn't have time to build tiny leprechaun houses per tradition, as we just returned from Maui.  Those kind leprechauns built the boys a house instead, complete with a rainbow path leading the way to it.  We left it up all day of course. 

I baked this Soda Bread:

• • 1 tablespoon unsalted organic butter, cut into small pieces, plus more for pan
  • 3 tablespoons rolled oats
  • 3 cups flour, plus more for pan
  • 1 cup unprocessed oat bran flakes [Bob's Red Mill]
  • 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups sour cream
  • 1/2 cup unprocessed organic cane sugar, plus more for sprinkling
  • 3 tablespoons canola oil
  • 3 large eggs from our chickens

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray two 9-by-5-inch loaf pans.
2. Mix together wet ingredients.  Add the dry ingredients until just barely mixed.  Divide batter evenly between prepared pans. Top each loaf with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons oats, dot with butter, and sprinkle with sugar.
3. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean, about 40 minutes. 

We ate braised brisket and cabbage along with Tyler Florence's recipe for colcannon (mashed potatoes with bacon and cabbage mixed inside).  I substituted white sweet potatoes to make it a bit healthier of course.  It was all delish.

The night ended with a Family Home Evening lesson about Tom Doherty, my great-grandfather who emigrated to the United States from Ireland as a young teen.  

Here is a photo of Tom and his new wife Marie on their wedding day in San Francisco.

We are thankful for our family members that came before us, and for their lives.  Our little family owes everything to each one of them, and we hope that we honor them by our work, thoughts, values, actions, love, goals and dreams.