Irish Stew & Shamrock Canvas Painting

Hello, friends! I haven't posted through the weekend due to hardly being home. Friday and Saturday were spent out at a friends house. I did manage a small craft with my kids and her daughter. It was very easy, very messy, and very fun!

Things you need:

canvas
shamrock cutouts
tape
paint
paintbrushes (but we used a lot of hands mostly)

Tape your cutouts to the canvas. I doubled my tape over and just put it on the back, so that there weren't outline of the tape. Paint all over using hands, brushes, a dog, whatever is nearby. Okay, don't use the dog. Peel off the cutouts. Admire your masterpiece.

Being that it is now St. Patrick's Day, we've accomplished the sharing of our delicious mint chocolate fudge, eating green pies, making leprechaun hats, creating a free printable, enjoying soda bread, and making the canvas. Today the kids donned the green and had some fun party hats. We made a delicious stew with roasted cabbage for dinner.

Stew Ingredients:
1.5lbs of cubed lamb or stew meat
4 cups beef broth
1/4 cup of flour
about 3 Tbsp EVOO
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium onion, sliced
2 medium potatoes, cubed
2 large carrots, cut in 1" pieces

1 tsp thyme 

1/2 tsp pepper

salt, if desired (but honestly, the broth is salty enough for us)

Roasted Cabbage Ingredients:
1 large head green cabbage, cut into wedges

EVOO

sea salt

From start to finish, it took approximately 2 hours. Place the flour and meat in a large ziplock bag and toss until covered evenly. I browned the meat in 3 separate batches, using 1 Tbsp of EVOO each time. I used one pot for the entire stew process, but you're welcome to use multiple cooking items. Put 1Tbsp of oil into your pot and heat on medium. Add in the first batch of meat and brown on all sides. Place meat onto a plate lined with a paper towel, or regular towel, whatever tickles your fancy, to soak up the excess grease. Repeat process for the other 2 batches. Using the oil left in the pot, saute the onions until tender. Add in the garlic and saute for another minute or so. Pour the beef broth in and return meat to the pot. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 1 hr. The last 15ish minutes of this, I chopped my carrots and potatoes. Once the hour is up, add to the stew. Cover and cook for an additional 30 minutes. Towards the end of this, I prepared my cabbage. Preheat the oven to 450F. Line a baking sheet with foil. Spritz the cabbage thoroughly with EVOO and sprinkle on sea salt. Once the timer goes off, add the thyme, pepper, and salt to the stew. Cover and cook an additional 20 minutes. During this time, put the cabbage into the oven. 10 minutes and then flip and cook for an additional 10 minutes. Everything should be done around the same time this way. Seems complicated, but it's really not. 

I apologize for the less than good looking shot of the food, but hungry babies means fast plating. We had a super great week long celebration for St. Patrick's Day and loved sharing it with you all. Stay tuned tomorrow for a great outdoor craft that we also accomplished over the weekend!

"Shamrock" Pies

Who doesn't love pie?
We made a basic pudding pie, but added some green.
Festive enough for the holiday, delicious enough to eat. 

Ingredients:

Jello Vanilla Pudding
3 cups almond milk

green food coloring
mini pie crusts 

Use the package instructions to make the pudding. Add 3 cups of milk to the pudding mix and bring to a boil on medium heat. Stir the entire time. Add in food coloring until it is the green you want. Let cool for 5 minutes. Pour pudding mixture into the pie crusts. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours to let it set. Since I used almond milk, it set looser than usual. Still worked out, though!

FREE Irish Blessing Printable

Post 2/2 and now we are caught up with our week long celebration of St. Patrick's Day! I was going to do another craft with my kids, but I didn't want to bore you all with a bunch of kid things. Instead, I made a printable for you! 

You can find the printable here. 

Irish Soda Bread

This is the make up post 1/2 to make up for the day that I missed. I've only ever made this bread once before. This time, since my boys have issues with dairy, I attempted to use almond milk. I'm not sure if that is what caused the issue, but it was TERRIBLE. I decided to redo it, using the most basic, traditional recipe I know. 

There is literally nothing fancy about this bread. It was not originally intended to be beautiful, hopped up with raisins and a ton of other ingredients. It was meant to be made with items on hand. Note: Many people make it with fruit and such. Technically, there is no "traditional" white soda bread. 

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used gluten free)

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

That's it. Really. Preheat oven to 425F. Lightly flour a baking sheet. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking soda. Slowly add in the buttermilk until it is clumpy and moist. On a lightly floured surface, knead just until it will hold together. Do NOT over handle the bread. Come to think of it, that was probably my problem the other day, not the almond milk. Anyway, once you can form it, make a circle. You want it to be about 2" thick. Cut a deep "X" in the top, at least an inch down, or it won't bake well in the center. Transfer to the baking sheet. Bake for approximately 35-40 minutes. Leave it on a rack to cool before handling. 

Now the butter comes in. Get yourself a nice helping of butter, because who doesn't love butter, and spread it on that lovely bread. Savor. There you go! You've just made (un)traditional Irish soda bread.

Leprechaun Hats

So, I am a day behind in my week long St. Patrick's Day celebration posts. My little thing for yesterday flopped. Tomorrow I will get the ingredients needed and make 2 posts to catch up.

This evening we did a little craft. We made leprechaun hats! Super easy to make, adorable as decorations.

Things Needed:

mini clay pots

green paint

black ribbon

paint brush

gold glitter glue pen

tacky glue

Paint the pots green. Allow to dry. Cut a piece of ribbon to fit the pot, just above the rim. Wrap ribbon and glue one end to the other. I overlapped mine just a bit to do this. Draw the buckle with the glitter glue pen. Allow that to dry and tada! Leprechaun hats!

Mint Chocolate Fudge

My favorite holiday, St. Patrick's Day, is fast approaching. Most people celebrate for a day, I celebrate for a week. Yes, a full week! Irish food, St. Patrick's Day crafts, green EVERYWHERE. Possibly an Irish carbomb or three. 

My spring break conveniently starts on St. Patrick's Day. To begin this celebration, I thought I'd try my hand at fudge for the first time. It's one of my favorite sweet treats, I've just never made it myself. I knew I wanted two things: 1. Green and 2. Mint. Because mint is delicious and goes perfect with chocolate.

I found a super simple fudge recipe and added a few alterations to create this beautiful (and delicious) piece of art. It's seriously so easy. I tried to do the cool swirly thing to mix the colors and, well, I'm not advanced enough in the art of fudge making for that to have worked. Instead, I got a layered look. Good enough!

Ingredients:

1.5 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1.5 cups white chocolate chips

14oz sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp mint extract

green food coloring

If you have the fancy pots to melt chocolate, you can used those. I am not sophisticated enough for that, so I just used 2 microwave safe bowls. Line a 8x8 baking dish with foil, to where the foil is hanging over the edge. Melt chocolate (each in their own bowl) by microwaving 10 seconds at a time. You don't want to burn the chocolate. Once it is melted well, split the 14oz can in half, 7oz for each bowl. Stir well. In the white chocolate, add in 1 tsp of mint extract (more if you like it super minty) and a few drops of green food coloring. Stir and continue adding food coloring until it is your desired shade. I used 7 for the mint color. Pour one bowl into the foil wrapped dish. Use a spoon to gently move the chocolate evenly over the bottom. Pour the second bowl over that. I used a separate spoon (since I was stirring each on it's own) to spread that over the top. To get the swirly pattern, you're supposed to use a butter knife to gently swirl. As you can see, it didn't happen for me. I think I was just too scared to put the knife too far in thinking I'd rip the foil. The directions for the regular fudge I found said to let it sit in the fridge overnight, but I let mine sit for 5 hours and it was fine. I'm impatient. Lift the foil out f the dish and gently pull it away from the fudge. Cut into small squares. This fudge is SUPER rich, so you don't want the squares too big. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for future eating. :)

One Pot Spaghetti

Hello there. I'm back to share a new recipe with you all. We've been trying to focus more on food for the boys. With Lucas being MSPI, it gets a little tough, and I will be the first to admit that I give him things he really shouldn't have. Since I volunteered with Bountiful Baskets this afternoon, we needed something quick. Shout out to all the parents who hate making spaghetti sauce (me). Here it is. Feel free to switch up your seasonings. Add in a can of diced tomatoes if you like that. My family doesn't, so I excluded it.

Ingredients:

1/2lb angel hair pasta

3 1/2 cups of water

6oz tomato paste

1/2lb ground beef

a clove of garlic, minced

small onion, diced

pepper

salt

basil

oregano

italian seasoning

In a large pot, cook the beef, onion and garlic until the beef is done. Do not drain. Add in water, tomato paste, and seasonings. Bring to a boil. Stir in the angel hair pasta, broken in half. Return to a boil and then reduce heat. Simmer for approximately 15 minutes, or until the noodles are cooked and the sauce is the consistency you like. That easy!