Our Belated St Paddy’s Meal

The women got back from the beach Wednesday all tanned and relaxed, and I’d planned to have a traditional Irish meal on Thursday, but for a variety of reasons, we didn’t get to it until Saturday. The menu was:

Homemade corned beef cooked with carrots
Colcannon using the recipe from A Spoon Full Of Thyme
Irish soda bread using a recipe from The Society For The Preservation Of Irish Soda Bread.

For the corned beef, we just covered it in water, added some additional spices, and cooked it in the crockpot all day, adding the carrots mid afternoon. We ended up getting it a little over done but it was still delicious. Bev always likes her roast type meat falling apart tender so it was perfect for her.

I just followed Kate’s recipe for the colcannon. The local Irish TV chef put some kale in his, which made it much greener. I would have done likewise had I had some. We’ve eaten boiled potatoes and cabbage over the years, but the addition of the bacon, garlic and onions gave this a flavor I really like and we have plenty of leftovers.

Our plan was to have traditional Irish soda bread, but Bev had a stick of butter laying out to soften for the mashed potatoes, but she put it in the bread by mistake. The bread did not get as airy as we expected and I assume it was the butter – kinda like a cross between bread and a heavy biscuit. So if you're considering making this bread and wondering how it would be with a stick of butter added to it - I can say don't do that :). While it was pretty dense, I liked the flavor and since it’s so easy to make, we’ll have to try it again soon. Bev said the flavor reminded her of cornbread.


Her's a shot of my plate and it was plenty good.


Have a great day.

Larry