Category Archives for St. Patrick’s Day

Irish Cream and Coffee Muffins

Here is a lovely muffin recipe to get your St. Patrick’s Day started off right.  It’s my adaptation of one I found on Food.com.

Irish Cream and Coffee Muffins


Ingredients:
2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 packet Starbucks Via instant espresso
1 tbsp hot water
¾ cup brown sugar
¼ cup canola oil
½ cup Irish cream
½ cup milk
2 eggs
Powdered sugar, to dust tops


Directions:
Preheat oven to 400°.  Spray a muffin tin with baking spray and set aside.


Place flour and baking powder in a small bowl.  Set aside.


In a large mixing bowl, dissolve instant coffee in the hot water.  Add the brown sugar, oil, Irish cream, milk and eggs.  Stir to combine.  Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just incorporated, being careful not to overmix.  Batter will be lumpy.


Spoon mixture into prepared muffin tin and bake for 12 – 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Remove from oven and dust with powdered sugar.  


Makes 12 muffins.

These are some tasty muffins!  The amount of Irish cream is just right, giving them a lovely flavor.  And I love  the powdered sugar on top.  I’ve never done that with muffins before, but it’s just right for these.
I always use decaf Via in my baked goods so that no one is restricted from eating them, (I am making three dozen of these babies for church tomorrow), but use regular if you want a nice little pick-me-up in your muffin.
Here are some of my other St. Patrick’s Day recipes for your enjoyment.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!


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Corned Beef and Cabbage Soup

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up this weekend.  Are you ready?  I think it’s so fun to cook according to seasons and holidays. It’s a really great way to mix things up and make dinner a little bit more interesting.  That’s why I was so excited when my friend, Joan of Chocolate, Chocolate, and More invited me to be a part of her St. Patrick’s Day Blog Party today.  It’s just seven food bloggers all getting together and posting some kind of St. Patrick’s Day related recipe at the same time.

Before I get to my recipe, here’s what everyone else has to share with you:

Kimiko at Beachside Baker made a Shamrock Shake

I can’t wait to check out all this yummy Irish and/or green food! 🙂

As soon as I got Joan’s email, I knew what I wanted to make.  I saw a recipe for Corned Beef and Cabbage Soup in the March issue of Food Network Magazine.  It looked pretty simple and I couldn’t wait to try it.  I made a few changes to the original recipe (of course!), and I think my version is even more simple.  Here’s how I made it.
Corned Beef and Cabbage Soup
Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 cup matchstick carrots
¼ tsp ground allspice
1 (15 oz.) can petite diced tomatoes, drained
3 cups low-sodium beef broth
4 cups green cabbage, chopped (about ½ small head)
½ lb. potatoes, peeled and diced
¾ cup quick-cooking barley
4 cups water
½ lb. cooked corned beef, cut into thin strips and chopped
Kosher salt
Directions:
Heat oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat.  Add the onion, carrots, and allspice and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are slightly softened, about 5 minutes.
Add the tomatoes, beef broth, cabbage, potatoes, barley, and water; cover and bring to a boil. Uncover, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the potatoes and barley are tender, about 20 minutes. Stir in the corned beef and season with salt.
Makes 6 servings.
This is one hearty soup!  I love how it is packed with four different veggies AND potatoes and barley AND the corned beef.  It’s a complete meal in and of itself.  Although that didn’t stop us from enjoying some freshly baked rolls with it! 
The original recipe called for pulsing the veggies in a food processor before adding them to the pot, but I don’t have a full-sized food processor, so I just diced my veggies and added them that way.  Again, I highly recommend the convenience of matchstick carrots.  They are so perfect for soups.  
The original recipe said that this makes 4 servings, but I think it makes WAY more than that.  I put down 6, but it could very easily be even more than that.  It would be a great soup to make for a crowd.  Also, the barley and potatoes will soak up some of the broth when you put the leftovers in the fridge, so keep that extra 1 cup of beef broth to add to it before reheating.
This would be a great soup to make the day after St. Patrick’s Day if you have made a nice corned beef roast, since it calls for cooked corned beef.  I bought a roast, and cooked it simply according to the package, then sliced it up.  The original recipe called for only ¼ lb. of meat, but that didn’t look like very much, so I doubled it.  Glad I did because it was perfect.

So if you don’t have any plans for what to make on St. Patrick’s Day, check out the blog posts listed above for some great recipes.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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Irish Cream Brownies

This is the dessert I made on St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not usually a fan of frosted brownies (they remind me of school cafeterias), but the only irish cream brownie recipes I could find had frosting. I got this recipe from Food.com.
Irish Cream Brownies

Ingredients:
1 box brownie mix
¾ cup irish cream, divided
½ cup oil
2 eggs
½ cup butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar

Directions:
Heat oven to 350°. Grease the bottom of a 9×13” baking dish.

In a large bowl, combine brownie mix, ½ cup irish cream, oil, and eggs. Beat 50 strokes with a spoon and spread in greased pan. Bake for 20 minutes. Do not over bake. Cool completely.

In a small bowl, beat butter until light and fluffy. Beat in powdered sugar and remaining ¼ cup irish cream. Add more irish cream if too thick. Spread over cooled brownies.

Makes 20 brownies.
They aren’t very pretty, but they taste pretty darn good. I don’t think I had ever actually had irish cream before. I’ve had irish cream flavored coffee creamer, but not the real thing. I didn’t buy the Bailey’s; it was too expensive. I found another brand (still imported from Ireland), for about half the price.
The original recipe called for a chocolate drizzle on top, but I didn’t think it was necessary. They’re pretty rich enough as it is!
I made these after enjoying a lovely dinner of corned beef and cabbage.

Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage

This is the result of my first ever attempt at corned beef and cabbage. I think it turned out really well. I used a slow cooker recipe because my daughter has gymnastics on Thursday evenings and I have no time to make dinner. I found this recipe on Food.com.
Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage

Ingredients:
3-4 lbs. corned beef brisket
7+ onion, chopped
¼ cup cider vinegar
¼ cup brown sugar
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
¼ tsp ground cloves
1 medium head of cabbage, cut into wedges
1 apple, sliced
¼ – ½ tsp caraway seeds (optional)
12 oz. dark beer

Directions:
Place corned beef brisket and any seasonings included in your slow cooker. Top with onion. Whisk together the vinegar, brown sugar, mustard, and cloves and pour over top. Add the cabbage wedges and apple slices and caraway seeds if using them. Pour beer over top.

Cover and cook on low for about 7 hours or high for about 4-5 hours.

Makes 6 servings.
It turned out really well. Since I had never made corned beef before, I had no idea how to know when it was done, especially since it is red even when fully cooked. I put mine on high because I didn’t get it into the slow cooker until around noon. I checked it at 4:00 and the cabbage was in good shape (cooked, but with a little bite left to it), but I had no idea if the beef was done or not. So I turned it down to low and it cooked another 2 hours that way. At 6:00 the cabbage was slightly more done than I like it, but still edible. And the corned beef was perfect.
I didn’t have the caraway seeds so I left them out.
This is the beer I used. It was super dark, and I don’t like beer, so I honestly thought that I wasn’t going to like this dish. But it didn’t taste like beer at all. I was really surprised.
I heard that it’s traditional to serve corned beef and cabbage with potatoes, but I didn’t really know how to prepare them. I peeled them and cut them into large chunks and boiled them. Then on the serving platter, I poured some of the liquid from the slow cooker over them. That worked out well.
After Lena went to bed, Jim and I rounded out the day with Irish Cream Brownies.
I’m sure I’ll be making this again next St. Patrick’s Day!