Thursday, March 22, 2012

New Recipes for March

For my two new recipes for the month of March (part of my resolutions for 2012), I tried some Irish food... or at least food inspired by Irish food. I'm not sure how "authentic" it actually is, but it was DELICIOUS! For St. Patrick's Day, I didn't really go too crazy with decorations, etc. (although you can see here that Nathanael and I both made sure to wear our green). We just had a nice Irish dinner while we watched IU beat VCU (go Hoosiers!).
My original plan was to make "Irish Sammies" (like sandwiches) using Irish soda bread. The bread ended up being a little too dense to use for sandwich bread, but we made open faced sandwiches with pastrami and cheese. For the bread, I used this recipe. It was super easy, and it was delicious! Like I said, the bread was on the denser side, and a little sweeter than normal bread, but we really liked it!


I also made Colcannon using this recipe. I did change it a little, using green onions instead of leeks. It's basically just mashed potatoes with bacon & green onions. This recipe did call for half & half instead of regular milk, so that made the potatoes extra creamy... yum! Here's a picture of the meal put together. This is my plate, so I have more turkey on it since I'm not a big fan of pastrami. It turns out that pastrami and corned beef are basically the same thing... the only difference now days is that pastrami is smoked after its brined... Either way, I'm not a big fan of either of them...


For dessert, we had something that I'm pretty sure is not traditional Irish fare... Nathanael and I came up with an idea and he put it all together himself... we call it "Irish Peat Bog." Sounds tasty, right? ;) Nathanael made instant vanilla pudding and added green food coloring and poured it into a dish. Then, he crushed up mint Oreos and folded them into whipped topping. He finished the dish by spreading the whipped topping mixture on top of the pudding and then sprinkling some coarsely crushed mint Oreos on top. It was delicious!!! 


Oh my goodness! I was so stuffed from all that food! It was a delicious meal & we had a lot of fun making it together!


Friday, March 16, 2012

Luck O' The Irish

Top o' the mornin' to ya! Are you ready for St. Patrick's Day? I know most people don't technically count St. Patrick's Day as a "holiday", but those people must not be Irish! ;) My family has always told stories about our Irish ancestors, and recently, I've been doing some work on Ancestry.com and found that we do actually have several links to Ireland!  Éire go Brách! There's just something about knowing that you have Irish blood that makes you feel like Ireland is calling to you... ;)
I've always celebrated St. Patrick's Day with fanfare & revelry (how are those for some big words?). This year, I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite stuff for St. Patrick's Day:

This Veggie Tales video about St. Patrick's Day is hilarious! I know it's a wee bit long, but it makes me laugh!





Here's an outfit I put together for the style blog I write for:






The website for Ireland's tourism board- beautiful pictures! Someday I'll make it there!


An interesting article about the things that Patrick believed and preached.




However you chose to celebrate St, Patrick's Day, I hope you have a great one filled with fun, love, and laughter! I leave you with this traditional Irish blessing:


May the light always find you on a dreary day
When it's home you need to be, may you always find your way
May you always have the courage to take a chance
And may you never find frogs in your underpants!

Friday, March 9, 2012

2 recipes for February

As you may recall, one of my new year's resolutions is to try 2 new recipes per month. I shared in this post that my 2 recipes for  January were Cheesestick Light Sabers and Bacon, Egg, & Toast Cups. Yummy! This is one of my resolutions that I've been pretty good about keeping up, and I wanted to share 2 new recipes that I tried in February.

The first one is for "Bubbly Love Potion" that I made for our Valentine's Day dinner... I wish I had pictures of my own, but the batteries went out in the camera and I didn't feel like hunting down new ones in the middle of our dinner. It turned out SO delicious! I ended up getting a mixed berry sherbet instead of the raspberry that the recipe calls for, and the extra berry taste made it even better, in my opinion. You can find the recipe here. So yummy, and simple! I'm sure this could be used for punch at a shower or party, as well.



The next recipe is also from Pinterest. Lasagna is one of my favorite favorite favorite foods, so when I found this recipe for lasagna soup, I HAD to try it! I ended up making it a little different- I used ground beef, no- boil lasagna noodles that had been soaked in water for about 15 minutes and then broken up, and whatever spices I had in the cabinet (I think it ended up being garlic, basil, oregano, and some Italian seasoning mix). It was very good! When I make it again, I think I'll try using a different pasta- maybe the farfalle like the recipe suggests. Here's the finished result, served with some bolillo (I didn't have any French bread).



I've already got plans for some more recipes to try in March- maybe this recipe for a dessert called "Tom Selleck"... hmmmm... yummy!

For even more new recipe fun, check out my recipe board on Pinterest!

Friday, March 2, 2012

T-Rex Obsession

So.... I have a little admission to make... I'm kind of obsessed with T-Rex jokes right now. I blame my friend, Jenn Walker... It all started at the gym. There's this guy that runs with his arms up and his wrists bent, like T-Rex arms. I may or may not have been laughing a tiny little bit about it... that brought up the fact that in some of my wedding pictures, I had T-Rex hands...



It's not something that I'm proud of, but hey, it happened... ;) I try to be more conscious of it now and not let my hands do that, but I think it still happens occasionally. SO, anyways... for some reason, that conversation sparked a full- blown "T-Rex fest" of jokes, pictures, etc. I don't know why, but I think it's hilarious to consider what a T-Rex may or may not have been able to do. Such as...

Pick flowers...

Hang curtains...

Do cartwheels...

Ride a motorcycle...

Hug...

Clap his hands...








Bench press...








See? Hilarious, right? And the best one... this video!



Makes me laugh every time!! All of this stuff is on my Pinterest, so if you think it's as hilarious as I do, you can check back every once in a while to see what new T-Rex hilarities I've found... or just to shake your head at how weird I am... ;)