Irish Soda Bread

This weekend was St. Patrick's day, also known as my anniversary, so it's a pretty exciting weekend in our house!  In honor of our mutual Irish heritage I decided to try out something totally new - Irish Soda Bread.  Joe is especially fond of dense breads, and this is super simple and takes very few ingredients so it was destined to be a great new addition to our recipe book.

I based my creation off of this recipe.

The Ingredients:

1 cup buttermilk - OR - 1 cup milk and 1 tsp vinegar stirred together and left to sit for 10 minutes

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 Tbs sugar


Mix dry ingredients, stir in buttermilk.

If it's too sticky, add some flour.  If it's too dry and won't stick together, add a dab of milk.  It probably won't be perfect.

You can also add exciting things like nuts or dried cranberries or more sugar, but it was my first time so I went basic.

TOO STICKY!!!  Add more flour. 

Now that looks more like bread dough.

Don't forget one of the essential essential elements of Charm Hour- your drink of choice.

And you gotta go Irish on St. Patrick's Day if not always.  

My Meat-Eating History

I started writing this post about bacon and this amazing breakfast for dinner Joe and I did last night, but it took such a long detour I thought I should make this it's own post. Plus having pictures of goat skinning and bacon pancakes in the same post seemed a little extreme.  So, here's a port just about me!  And why I went from eating nothing but grains to being an avid meat-eater.

Warning:  some of these pictures might gross you out.

I didn't eat meat growing meat growing up- and not because I have hippy parents, but because I am ridiculously bull-headed sometimes (more like all the time).   I started being a picky eater around age 5 and was stubborn since birth so I refuse to give in once I made my decision. Not to mention the only meats I remember trying after that point was cold cut ham and salmon which have probably convinced NO ONE to eat meat.

But then in college I decided to go study Wildlife Management in Kenya and Tanzania through the School for Field Studies.  This was one of the best decisions I've even made.  When we left Tanzania the staff at Haven Nature sent us off with a ceremonial goat roast.  The goat was around for a little while, during which time he got the name Buckets (why he was named Buckets is long and unrelated story).  Festo, one of our staff members, slaughtered it and those of us who wanted to helped skin it before it was cooked up for dinner.

Festo and Buckets