st. patrick's day Archives

This really should read how to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, at home. We don’t need to tell you how to find a local Irish pub to down some Guinness and eat some traditional fare… that’s pretty easy, depending on where you live. It is, however, very fun to celebrate at home with your family. Growing up, my mother made a big deal out of this holiday. She was one of nine kids, in a family that was raised in a very Catholic Irish-American household, even though they had lots of other ethnicities in them as well. They didn’t grow up with a whole lot of money, and like them, many other large Irish American families that came over to the New York City area were large and suffering, so they decided to make this very cheap and relatively easy meal as the base for the celebration.

Top o’ the mornin’ to ya!

Alana getting into cooking/cleaning mode

Yesterday we had the privilege of celebrating one of our favorite Americanized and distorted holidays. This year we were lucky enough to have it fall on a Sunday, so we decided to hold a little celebration since we are so far from our homes. I’ll try to make this brief because I’m still pretty full.

Kittens hoping for some scraps

We woke up early and headed to do a few chores. Target for prescriptions, King Soopers for groceries, Marshall’s for another large pot, and Sprouts for produce. We already had corned beef from the day before. Five pounds of it… for three omnivores and four vegetarians. Whoops.

Our grocery trip

We cleaned the house and I threw the mixture of corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes (not telling you the secret recipe) around 11:00 a.m. We started eating at 3:30 p.m. Alana made a very good Irish soda bread with her friend’s mom’s authentic recipe AND a spinach-feta pie-like dish. We also had some good Irish cheddar cheese, jack, and cranberry goat cheese with matzoh. That’s right… straight from Jerusalem.

Our tunes for the day…

For drink, we were provided with George Killian’s irish Red, a nice refreshing light tasting beer to compliment the dishes. (I know nothing about beer.) Afterwards, I made vanilla Bailey’s milkshakes for dessert. We Skyped with family, chatted and caught up with one another, and gave the kittens tons of attention. All in all it was a very fun time together. Thanks to everyone for coming and everyone that celebrated this holiday the right way!