St. Patrick's Day Meal With A Twist From Tradition!

     

 

     In Newport, RI the town I grew up in, the St. Patrick's parade day is a major holiday steeped in traditions that goes back 64yrs. Their large parade goes on rain, snow or shine and draws participants from near and far. This was the first year in the parade's history that it was forced to cancel.

     On parade day, the Irish Fifth Ward is a bustle. Extended families gather like the generations before them with their family name proudly displayed to honor their heritage. The local college students fill in this end of the parade route as well and it gets pretty wild early in the day. Downtown along the upper part of the parade route streets are lined early with locals and out of towners who flood the city to enjoy the festivities. The party doesn't end when the parade wraps up, many visit various establishments for drinks and food for the remainder of the day, and the party rages on. I'm sure I have some Irish somewhere in my family tree but on this day it doesn't matter, everyone in Newport take on some Irish heritage by association.

One of the many Irish bagpipe bands that help set the mood!

     I've marched in a few parades when I was younger with the high school band or other groups I was in at the time. After high school I moved away for a while. There were parades in other places that I lived but none had the same feeling as the Newport parade.

I participated marching with the high school band

After getting married and deciding to start a family my husband and I move back to Newport. One of the many things I was excited to share with my kids was parade day. As you can see from the pictures below we always had fun, they got dressed up and were thrilled to meet up with friends to watch all the excitement. 

 

     Along with watching the parade I usually cook a traditional corned beef and cabbage meal. As a kid we'd do this traditional type meal once a year around St. Patrick's day, it was boiled and in my opinion it was mushy and not the most flavorful. 

(Stock google image of a traditional boiled corned beef and cabbage dinner)

As an adult, cooking is one of the things I love to do for fun. As I've honed in my cooking skills I've gone from making the traditional boiled dinner to one that is mainly roasted. This keeps things crisp and flavor packed. It might not be traditional but it's delicious! Below are images of this years dinner plated up and the Irish soda bread that I made. I've done lots of recipe searching and testing, and altering over the years and this was the first year that all aspects of my meal were on point.  I'd love to share with you what I did to pull this meal together. 

I started this year by making Irish Soda, this recipe comes straight from Ina Garten no need to reinvent a great recipe! I will tell you that the currants I had on hand were too old to use so instead of making an extra trip to the store, I took raisins I had on hand and cut them in half to make them more the size of a currant, this worked well. 

     My friend Tami over at Newport Sea Salt made Ina's Irish soda bread as well and created her own  whipped Irish butter with sea salt an orange zest to top it with. I cheated a bit on the butter and just buttered my bread and sprinkled it with their sea salt and zested some orange zest on top and it was delicious.  

     With my bread made, I turned my attention to the corned beef, as this would require the most time to cook. I love my Instant Pot so I decided a few days before that I would use it to cook the corned beef. I watched numerous videos and read through a bunch of recipes. I ended up using a recipe posted by  Easy Instant Pot Fun  I chose a flat cut corned beef from my local grocery store, a Guinness stout beer to help enhance the flavor and followed the reset of the instructions in the video exactly. It took about 10min for my Instant Pot to come up to temperature, 75min cooking and about another 30min for the natural pressure to release on it's own. The whole process took just over two hours from prep to finished. The roast came out fork tender and was moist and flavorful. In the past I had used a crock pot which takes 8-10hrs. My Instant Pot will be my go to method for making this going forward. 

 

     While the corned beef cooked I began prepping the roast potatoes. I set the oven to pre-heat at 500º. I took 2 pounds of Yukon gold potatoes washed and peeled them and cut them into 1" disks and placed them in a bowl. In a separate small bowl I combined 3tsp of Newport Sea Salt Rosemary and Thyme salt (if you don't have their salt you can mix together 1tsp of chopped rosemary, 2tsp of chopped thyme and 3/4 tsp salt), 2 tablespoons of butter, melted and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Once mixed I poured it over the potatoes in the bowl and tossed them with my hands to combine. I transferred them to a metal baking sheet and tossed them in the pre-heated oven. Set the timer for 15 mins, then flip and bake for 15 mins more. The potatoes turned out nice and crispy on the outside and fork tender on the inside. 

     While the potatoes started roasting I quickly prepped the cabbage to roast at 500º as well. I only used half a head of a large cabbage because I didn't think the cabbage would be a big hit with my kids. To my surprise my daughter loved it! I removed a few outer leaves, then cut the cabbage into 1/2" slices and placed them on a well oiled baking sheet. Drizzle a generous amount of olive oil on the top of each cabbage slice, sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper and chopped fresh garlic. Then sprinkle with red pepper flakes to your taste. Place them in the oven below the potatoes and roast 12 mins then flip and roast 12 mins more.

While the potatoes and cabbage roast it's time to prepare the carrots on the stove top. I used 5 large carrots, peeled them, cut them in half, I cut the small end in half one more time and the fat end I cut 

into quarters. In a large frying pan, I melted 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter over medium high heat. Add the carrots and toss to coat in the oil/butter mixture. Cook tossing occasionally for 7mins. Add 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and season with salt and pepper to taste and toss to combine. Continue cooking for about 3-5 minutes while the brown sugar glaze caramelizes and reduces. 

Now that everything has completed it's time to plate it all up!

This mainly roasted corned beef and cabbage meal was delicious, full of flavor and a hit with my family. This version will be on the menu again next St. Patrick's day. In the mean time I'll enjoy adding these roast vegetables to some of my regular weeknight meals. 

Hope you have a wonderful St. Patrick's Day tomorrow!

Strawberries, Farm to Table!

One of the many memories I have of my grandmother is going with her to pick strawberries at Quonset View Farms in Portsmouth, RI. The rows of red juicy berries just waiting to picked seemed to be endless in my eyes at that age. I would gorge myself on these sweet treats, more going in my mouth then in our basket. When we were finished picking we'd bring the berries back to her house and go into her garden and gather fresh rhubarb and together we'd make strawberry rhubarb desserts in her cozy kitchen. 

Thirty Five years later not much has changed about the farm. There is still row after row of berries that are the sweetest strawberries you'll ever find and they still only accept cash at their rustic farm stand. What has changed is that I now live 2000 miles away in Denver, Colorado. My kids and I are very fortunate to be able to return to the island of my youth for two months every summer to stay with my parents and expierence the magic that can only be found in a small New England town. 

2018 picking with friends

Emma on our second visit this summer

our bounty

If you have never picked fresh strawberries and have only eaten store bought berries let me share with you what sets the two apart. When you get store bought berries, they are often very firm, lack juice, their color is pale pink to red and when you cut into them the depth of color does not go through to the center of the berry. Berries from the farm are very tender, extremely juicy and the color is a dark red that penetrate the entire flesh of the berry. Berries from the farm also spoil much quicker because you are picking them at their peek ripeness. 

Strawberry Basil Bruschetta with Goat Cheese 

I am always on the hunt for new recipes to try. This summer I found two strawberry recipes that are share worthy. The first recipe I found was a strawberry bruschetta with basil and ricotta that looked very good but I already have another appetizer that I make that uses ricotta so I decided that I would change a few things up from this recipe to make it my own. The main swap was switching the ricotta out for one of my favorite cheeses, goat cheese. This isn't a recipe where you need to measure everything out so I will do my best to give you rough measurements to guide you through making this delicious appetizer but feel free to adjust as you see fit. The pictures below are from a fun evening cooking with my daughter and great friends. 

          

             

Ingredients: 

1 french baguette

olive oil 

1 small log of goat cheese (softened)
1 tablespoon honey

2 cups rough chopped strawberries

Zest of one lemon (a micro plane works great)

12 basil leaves (sliced into thin ribbons) 

Balsamic reduction

Sprinkling of sea salt 

I start by taking my goat cheese out of the fridge about 15 minutes before I start cooking, usually taking it out while I get all the rest of my ingredients out is plenty of time for it to soften. You'll need to preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Take your french baguette and slice into 1/2 inch slices and lay them out on a sheet pan. I lightly drizzle both sides of the sliced bread with olive oil then put it in the preheated oven for about 6 mins till the edges start to turn golden brown. Take them out and let them cool while you get the rest of your ingredients ready. Roughly chop your strawberries and place them in a bowl, add lemon zest and basil leaves and gently stir to distribute everything evenly. In a separate bowl stir the goat cheese and honey together till combined. Spread a generous layer of the goat cheese mixture on one side of the toasted baguette slices. Next top the cheese covered baguette with the strawberry mixture. Take your pre-made balsamic reduction and drizzle it over the top of the strawberries and finish it off with a nice sprinkling of sea salt. If you are in the New England area check out my friends Matthew and Tami Mullins at Newport Sea Salt for local harvested sea salts. Plate these up and step back and watch as they disappear and your guests rave about them. 

Note: If you are using store bought berries I would add a table spoon of sugar to your berry mixture to help sweeten them and encourage their juices to come out. 

Strawberry Ice Cream

At my parents house my mom has a no frills ice cream maker with a bowl that you must first chill in the freezer over night. Summer after summer on our visits we've said we should really make ice cream but had yet to pull the machine out of the pantry to give it try, this was the year it happened. The ice cream machine can make up to a quart and a half of ice cream at a time. The recipe I found came straight out of the Cuisinart manual that came with the machine. I followed the recipe exactly but with the fresh berries that we used from the farm the next time I would have cut the sugar by a third if the berries were as sweet as the batch that we used.

Ingredients:

1 pint fresh ripe strawberries, stemmed and sliced

3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 cup of sugar (divided)

1 cup whole milk

2 cups heavy cream

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

In a bowl large enough to hold the strawberries, combined the berries, lemon juice and 1/3 cup of sugar; stir gently and allow the strawberries to macerate in the juice for 2 hours. In a medium bowl whisk together the milk and granulated sugar till it dissolves. Stir in the heavy cream, vanilla and any juice from the bottom of the strawberry bowl. Following your machines instructions, start the machine, pour the cream mixture in via the ingredient spout and let it process for 30 minutes. While the cream mixture is churning, take the bowl of strawberries and using an immersion blender, blend the strawberries till they are roughly chopped but not pureed. Set this aside to add to the mixture at the 25 minute mark and let it churn for 5 minutes additional minutes. When the churning time is complete you want to transfer the contents of the ice cream freezer bowl into a freezer safe container and pop the container into the freezer till the ice cream firms up to your preferred hardness. The kids and our company devoured this ice cream that accompanies a homemade strawberry rhubarb crisp. 

I know it's not possible for everyone to pick their own strawberries but my lesson to all who do have the opportunity to pick fresh, don't hesitate to get out in the fields with your loved ones. Come home and get in the kitchen together  its worth the effort and and you'll be making fun memories with your families.