Sunday, March 27, 2011

Late St. Patrick's Day Dinner

We managed to have our late St. Patrick's Day dinner last weekend.  I was crazy sick the whole week before.  Luckily, I was on the mend in time to disinfect the house and get the corned beef, root vegetables and dessert parfaits together.  Our friends brought over an insanely beautiful bouquet from the farmer's market in downtown Wiesbaden.  If you're curious about Alton Brown's corned beef that I blogged about making here, I thought it turned out great!  We didn't have the salt peter necessary for the nice, pink color that most corned beef has, but the flavor was great!  I also served root vegetables with a garlic herb butter.  I had never tried parsnips before.  They're kind of like a mild carrot.  Interesting stuff.


My favorite part of the meal *because I'm a sugar junky* was the mint fudge brownie parfaits.

YUM!  I found the recipe at Confessions of a Cookbook Queen.  It's a great blog!  I searched a ton of stores (a friend did a lot of searching for me, too) for cute jars to make these guys in, but it didn't work out.  Apparently caning/jarring isn't super popular in Germany in early spring.  Hopefully I'll manage to snag a few dozen during the summer months.  I even had some cute green ribbon to tie around the jars...next year!  This year I had to make due with regular glasses.  I think they turned out pretty cute :)

Thanks to a friend we even had some delicious Irish Soda Bread. She brought it pretty much straight of the oven and it was amazing.  Here's a picture.

*****EDITED TO ADD*****
Meredith's Irish Soda Bread Recipe!
Irish Soda Bread
prep time: 15 min / cook time: 50 min
Ingredients
    •    4 cups all-purpose flour
    •    4 tablespoons white sugar
    •    1 teaspoon baking soda
    •    1 tablespoon baking powder
    •    1/2 teaspoon salt
    •    1/2 cup margarine, softened
    •    1 cup buttermilk
    •    1 egg
    •    1/4 cup butter, melted
    •    1/4 cup buttermilk

Directions
    1.    Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease a large baking sheet.
    2.    In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and margarine. Stir in 1 cup of buttermilk and egg. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead slightly. Form dough into a round and place on prepared baking sheet. In a small bowl, combine melted butter with 1/4 cup buttermilk; brush loaf with this mixture. Use a sharp knife to cut an 'X' into the top of the loaf.
    3.    Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, about 30 to 50 minutes. You may continue to brush the loaf with the butter mixture while it bakes.
 *****End Edit*****

Another friend brought over a really great cake with berries baked into it.  I didn't manage to get a good picture of it but it was lovely!

I'm sorry that this post wasn't super exciting.  I'll be posting new pictures of our house and of course silly stories about my kids this week.  :)

2 comments:

  1. Mmmmmmmmm, I so wish I spent a late St. Patrick s Day with you!! It all looks so good!

    ReplyDelete