A Feast Fit for a Leprechaun

I serve this every year.  My sweetie's birthday comes close to St. Patrick's day, and this is our party fare each year.  Even people who say "I never eat corned beef" love this.  Unless, of course, you're a vegetarian.  Then you still won't eat this meal... unless you'd like some cabbage and potatoes and a salad with green goddess dressing and some Irish soda bread.

So here it is.  My foolproof St. Paddy's feast, along with my St. Paddy's BrightandShinyThings.  Enjoy.

Shopping List:

A corned beef (it comes raw and slimy, in a package with some spices in it)

A cabbage

Some cute little potatoes

Some cheap beer

Check and be sure you have some:

Bay leaves

Cinnamon sticks

A few whole cloves

And if you want to make soda bread as well, be sure you have:

Flour

Salt

Baking powder

Baking soda

Sugar

Butter

An egg

Buttermilk

2. c raisins or currants

I you want salad with Green Goddess dressing, you'll also need:

Salad stuff (romaine)

Green onions (well, one)

a bunch of parsley

tarragon

chives

mayonnaise or mayo and sour cream

wine vinegar or tarragon vinegar or cider vinegar

In the AM:

Take the slimy corned beef out of the package and toss it in the crockpot.  Add the spices provided.  Also add a bay leaf, a cinnamon stick, and a few whole cloves.  Pour two cans of beer over it and set it to simmer all day long.

In the evening:

Cut up and core your cabbage.  Throw the cabbage wedges into the crock pot to steam on top of your corned beef.

Take out some of the corned beef liquid and put it in a sauce pan.  Bring it to a boil and cook your little potatoes in it.  (You can cook them in the crock pot if you give them a couple of hours.)

Meanwhile, make your soda bread.

In a large bowl, combine:

4 c. unsifted regular flour

1 tsp. salt

3 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

¼ c. sugar (optional)

2 c. raisins or currants

Cut in:

¼ c. butter with a knife or pastry blender.

Mix this in with the dry mixture until it's all crumbly.

Beat together:

1 egg

1 ¾ c. buttermilk

Mix together wet stuff with dry stuff.  Knead it on a floured board for a few minutes, until it is smooth.  This will take 2-5 minutes.

Divide the dough in half and shape each half into a round loaf.  Press each round loaf into an 8" cake or pie pan.

With a sharp knife, cut an "x" into the top of each loaf. 

Pop them in the oven and bake at 375 for 35-40 minutes.

 

Salad Time.

While your bread is baking, make you salad.

To make the dressing,

Clean the parsley, and pull the leafy stuff off the stems.  Dry it carefully.  Chop ¼ c. of it.

Chop a green onion and ¼ of chives.  (If you don't have chives, use more green onion).

Take a blender. Put it:

¼ c. vinegar

3 c. mayo (or 2 c. mayo and 1 c. sour cream)

¼ c. chives

2 Tbs. tarragon

1 minced green onion

¼ c. chopped parsley

Blend it all together in short blender bursts. Use it to top your salad.  Put the rest in a jar.  It makes lovely dip or dressing for many days to come.

Ready?

Slice the corned beef.  Cut up your bread.  Serve it all with the taters and cabbage and salad.  Leave a little for the leprechauns and the Prophet Elijah.  (What, you think he only eats one night a year?!)

Saint Patrick's Day in my etsy shop
Saint Patrick's Day in my eBay shop

Mystical Magical Shamrocks

In ancient times the shamrock, a watercress, was believed to have sacred and mystic powers. Those who ate it received the power to see fairies, and in the earliest times the plants were said to be aphrodisiacs, especially for women.

Magical shamrocks here and here.

Cry of the Banshee

by Alice Guerin Crist

1876-1941, written in 1921

As we came down the old boreen,
Rose and I – Rose and I,
At vesper time on Sunday e’en,
We heard a banshee cry!

Beyond the churchyard dim and dark,

‘Neath whispering elms, and yew-trees stark,

Where our star shone-a corpse-like spark-
Against the wintry sky.

We heard and shuddered sick with dread,
Rose and I- Rose and I,
As the shrill keening rang o’erhead
Where cloud-wrack floated high.

Our two young hearts long, sorely tried,
By poverty and love denied
Still waiting for some favouring tide,
And now! Death come so nigh.

‘Which of us two is called away
You or I-You or I?”
I heard my patient poor love say,
With bitter plaintive sigh.

‘Neither, dear girl,” I bravely said,
‘To Mary Mother bow your head,
And cry for help to Her instead,
Nor heed the Banshee’s cry’.

We raised our hearts in fervent prayer,
Rose and I-Rose and I,
Nor knew our troubles ended there,
Our happiness came nigh.

For ‘twas the grim old farmer, he-
My only kin, rich, miserly,

Who, dying left his wealth to me-
For whom the banshee cried.

The pendant necklace on a 24" beaded strand, filled with Celtic imagery, can be purchased here.

Banshee pendant created by Tanya Bond
Kirkby Lonsdale, churchyard 

Chillingham Yew Trees
Winter Sky

Musings from Land of the Lost

I lost a lot of stuff last week.  I lost my gold Swarovski crystals.  I lost my bag of things I was going to ship.  I lost the bag of pieces I was going to blog about.  It all got lost in a great big Christmahannukwanzadan chaos.

Finally I found the gold Swarovski crystals.  They were in my box of angel parts.  (Bet you didn't know angels had parts.)  And then I found the BLOG bag, which was tucked in with the various earrings bags, right behind the CHRISTMAS bag, and in front of the WINTER BAG.  And finally I found the SOLD bag.  I had tucked it into the box of bracelets.  But when I started going through the bracelets, I realized that a lot of their listings were gone.

Vanished!  POOF!  Gone!  Not on ebay.  Not on etsy.  Not anywhere.  So I went through my box of bracelets (which, I guess, is my inventory of bracelets, but I'm trying not to get too technical here).  And I made a BIG pile of bracelets that were no longer listed and were, therefore, lost.

Happily I could find photos of most of them.  So I relisted all of them (except the ones I need to re-photograph) and here they are, so you can see how lost I really was.  All of them are now in my eBay store.  At least, they'd better be, or I'll know that even more mysterious forces are at work.



A Springlike Bracelet...





A Hanukkah bracelet done in blue gemstones and sterling charms:





A fertility bracelet.  (Alas, it didn't breed in the box and make new fertility bracelets.)





TWO bracelets of Buddha' Blessings.  Does that mean two people went un-blessed?









A bracelet about the Ghosts of the California Gold Rush, in pyrite and hematite.





A St. Patrick's Day bracelet:





And the snowman bracelet that was in last week's blog post.  It was lost, I found it and re-photographed and re-listed it, did the post, and promply lost it again. 





My mother used to tell me I'd lose my head if it weren't attached to my body.

Turns out she was right.

Headlessly yours,

Cornerstoregoddess

The Legend of St. Patrick... with Cheese