St Patricks Day Classic Dinner

Of course we had Corned Beef & Cabbage and I decided to try to make a brown soda bread. The CB recipe is a real simple one my mom gave me. In short, you saute carrot/onion/celery in a bit of oil, put the CB on top with water covering it and 1 Tbl pickling spices for 1 1/2 to 2 hours at a medium to low heat covered. Add in a cut up cabbage and potatoes for 20+ more minutes. I've made it a bunch of times and it's pretty easy to do.

This year, despite my continuous dough disasters, I decided to try the Mrs O'Callaghan's Soda Bread recipe from this months Food & Wine (not online yet) as discovered and written about by a Mr Andrew McCarthy of St Elmos Fire/Pretty in Pink fame (none other worth mentioning in my humble opinion). When I think of Andrew McCarthy, I think of his weird "grabbing-face-before-mashing-what-appears-to-be-a-kiss" move on Ally Sheedy. Turns out it wasn't his weirdo character b/c he does it EVERYWHERE!

Back to business...As usual, I feel like an idiot with dough, never knowing if I'm over or under doing it and getting flour all the F*&^ over the place.

Here's what the dough looked like before-hand...not too bad...seemingly not cohesive, a bit chunky, looking like it will fall apart...

Should this much dry mixture have been left over????? Hmmm

Here's what the bread looked like afterwards:

Not too shabby, huh???

And...it tasted ?

Not too shabby. It was nice warm with butter, but what doesn't taste good warm with butter, right? Pretty good, I thought! Maybe there is hope for me yet!