Preparing for St. Patrick's Day

In our family we do two big celebrations each year.  With our family size I don't think I could put together more than that.  Over the years it has worked out that we gather once around Christmas and again for St. Patrick's Day.  Being Irish was always a big deal on my dad's side of the family.  It's the only heritage I was raised to know anything about.

When I was younger I always invited my dad over for the typical Irish-American meal of corned beef and cabbage.  Most of my kids didn't care for corned beef.  Once my dad passed I figured we'd just carry on the tradition within our home.  I never planned to make a big family celebration out of it, but my kids had a different idea.  Imagine my surprise the first year after he was gone when I started getting phone calls from our children that had already flown the coop asking when we were going to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.  Thus, a Smith Family Tradition was born.

Over the years I have learned to make a few more traditional Irish dishes that I just love.  One of my favorites is Champ.  This year, however, we are changing things up a bit, and I am making Irish Stew for our celebration with Soda Bread, of course.  Corned Beef is just too expensive to feed to nearly 30 people.  We're reigning it in a bit, and I have locally sourced beef on hand, so I can think of nothing better.  I do get tempted, though, to make Champ to serve the stew over, but the point is simple, right?  We will still be having the "traditional for us" meal on the actual holiday, so we'll get our fill of all our favorite foods this year.

So far the kids and I have made Soda Bread and Scones.  We even made them gluten free this year, and we're having a hard time leaving the scones alone.  They are SO good!

Large Carob Chip Scones

Here's how we made them:

1 1/2 cups   Rice Flour
   1/2 cup    Sorgum Flour
   1/4 cup    Natural Sugar
   1/4 tsb.    Salt
   1/2 tsp.    Baking Soda
   3/4 cup    Plain Greek Yogurt  (I use Fage)
      1          Whole Egg
   1/2 cup     Rice Milk
      2 Tbs.   Butter
      1 cup    Carob Chips or Cinnamon Chips
                 Raw Sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  

Mix together flours, sugar, salt and baking soda.  Set aside.

In mixing bowl, mix yogurt, egg, milk, and butter.  Add the dry mixture a little at a time until combined.

Gently stir in your favorite chips.

I lined my baking sheets with parchment and made both varieties.  We made 12 larger chocolate chip scones  using an ice cream scoop and baked them for 18 minutes.  We made 24 smaller scones using a baking scoop and baked them for 13 minutes.  We sprinkled them with a little raw sugar before placing them in the oven.  The trick is to remove them just as they start to brown.

These are not as dense as traditional scones, and they spread out like cookies.  In the future I plan to try adding a bit more flour.

Cooking with Kids

I love to cook, and I love to cook with kids.  There is a small, in stature and number, audience watching me almost anytime I do anything in the kitchen, especially cook.  My oldest granddaughter was parked on the kitchen counter beside the stove just as soon as she could sit upright.  Everyone thought I was crazy, but she loved it.  She could stir a pot.  They understand so much more than we generally give them credit for, and she never did burn herself.

Harmony at 3 years in her rightful spot on the counter.

Now that she and her sister live with us, and we reentered the homeschooling circle, there is plenty of time spent in the kitchen together.  Recently she learned how to make her own egg over medium just like Papa likes it.  She is very proud!  Her younger sister is a constant presence and has no fear of anything cooking related.  I do have to watch her a little more closely, though.  She is much more bold and is the type of person that cannot just take your word for something, like a hot stove; she has to find out for herself.  So, I cannot say that she's never been burned, but she has survived just fine.

This is where you find Annabella when I'm cooking now.

I love the layout of the kitchen in our new home.  The open counter with the built-in oven allows for me to be on one side of the counter or stove with the kids on the other.  It's like our own little hands on cooking school.  It really works well for including them in all aspects of the process without interfering with my cooking space.

So much can be learned in the kitchen.  A lot happens in cooking.  Math is the most obvious, but there is science, art, history, and creativity as well as character building aspects like self-confidence and hospitality.  Then, there's the opportunity to learn good health, preparedness, and self-sufficiency.  Not to mention meal planning and learning what is and is not a good deal in the grocery store.

Over the next year we will be doing a lot of learning in the kitchen.  There's the whole wheat free adventure we're stepping out on, and we plan to add learning to exist without sugar in our cooking as well.  Then there's the gardening we will be doing which will hopefully produce enough produce for opportunities in drying, freezing, and canning.

Harmony in the kitchen today.

I'm great one on one in the kitchen.  My new goal is to learn how to work with three kids in the kitchen at once since that's my new audience participation number.  I lack experience in that department despite the fact that we are currently raising kids number 8, 9, and 10.  I managed to potty train two at once this time around, so one would think I could figure out how to cook with three at once.

Avery gets in the kitchen now and then as well.

Pepper Plate

In the interest of all things awesome I absolutely have to share with you my latest find.  Initially, it was a free download on my Kindle Fire. I downloaded it, and it sat there a while.  Little did I know the organizational gem I was holding at my fingertips and failing to benefit from.

As some of you may know, I have been on a cookbook writing adventure with my best gal pal of 31 years for, oh let's just round it off, say the last 10 years.  She is a home schooling mother of six, and I am a mother of seven adult children and a now two-year-old.  Need I say more about why we have been working on this project for 10ish years?

Anyway, I absolutely love all things cooking, baking, recipe related, and the like.   This website that is totally new to me is like a creative gift.  It has everything a cookbook writing, busy mom of a toddler, Pinterest pinning, Facebook loving, Kindle Fire newbie, foodie could ever possibly want in a food planning recipe saving, menu creating, and grocery list generating website.  It's incredible and VERY user friendly.  I love it!

No, they didn't pay me to write this post.  I just had to share.  It's not too often that I get excited about any particular website, but this site is now my favorite website.  Yes, I even love it more than Facebook and Pinterest.  It's easy to use, practical, and downright fun.  I may actually get the work done I am supposed to with this little gem under my belt.

What is the site, already, you ask?  It is called Pepper Plate, and you simply must check it out!  You can manually enter recipes that you have in your own personal stash.  It's as simple as copying and pasting from Word, which is what I do, or typing it out.  You can also use the Add to Pepperplate button and add directly from any website.  It's awesome!  You just copy and paste right onto a popup screen.  It even lets you drag a picture of the recipe onto it as well.  This feature, the whole recording right from the website, is what seriously got me excited.  Do you see the potential in expanding your cooking adventures?  I love, love, love this website.  Period!