Weekend Cooking...Caite's St. Patrick's Day

I am working this St.Patrick's Day, so no lovely Irish dinner for me it seems. So, I decided to make a little something to remind me of Ireland. And nothing, absolutely nothing reminds me of Irish food more that some brown bread and vegetable soup!

Stop in any pub, any restaurant, and there is always brown bread and vegetable soup. As I have written about before, it is always a pureed vegetable soup, but the color will change, depending on what veggie played the major role. Maybe white, maybe green, maybe orange, like the one I am going to make. And nothing is better on a cool, damp day (of which Ireland has a few) than a bowl of this easy, versatile, filling and pretty healthy soup.



a yogurt shamrock and my Turkish spice grinder



And then we have the brown bread, with some lovely, high butter fat Irish butter, fresh and chewy and delicious. I have given this recipe before, most likely last St.Patrick's Day, but if I do say so myself it is an excellent recipe. Not happy with any recipe that I found, I made this one up and worked on it until I got it right. Ideally, you need Irish-style whole wheat flour. I get mine from King Arthur's these days, "a lovely “soft” flour, coarsely ground, a really nice match for the flour used in Ireland for their whole-grain breads". There is a big difference from our whole wheat, which is a hard wheat. I add the yogurt because our buttermilk is sorely lacking and I think it adds a nice tang.

All you need is a half pint of Guinness or Murphys and we will call it lunch or dinner.
Now I am going to have some smoked salmon as well, with some capers and a splash of lemon because the thing that goes best with that bread, besides my soup and some Irish butter is some lovely smoked salmon.
Oh, it will be lovely...lovely and grand.

Carrot and Parsnip Soup

• 3 tbs. olive oil
• 2 large onions, halved and sliced 
• 4 cloves garlic, minced  
• 1 tsp. ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
• 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp. ground red pepper
• 2-3 large parsnips, about 1 lb., peeled and cut into pieces 
• 1 lb. carrots, cut into pieces
• 3 large red potatoes, peeled and cut into  pieces 
• 48 oz. container chicken broth
• Salt to taste
• 1 can skim evaporated milk..or 8 oz. 1/2 and 1/2 ...or cream

In a large pot, heat oil and then add onions and garlic, cooking for a few minutes. Add all the spices and let cook for a minute or two, then add remaining vegetables, stirring well.
Pour in the chicken stock, bring up to a boil, then reduce and cook until vegetables are tender, about 10-15 minutes. Puree in a blender or using a stick blender.
Test for salt and pepper.
Add cream, stir well and bring back to heat.
Lovely topped with a little sour cream, or a spoon of yogurt, and a bit of sliced scallions.

 

Brown Bread

• 3 cups Irish Style whole wheat flour
• 1 cup white flour
• 1 cup Irish steel cut oatmeal
• 2 tsp. baking power
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 3 tbs. sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 1 cup buttermilk, plus enough to moisten

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Spray a round casserole baking dish with oil and dust with a little whole wheat flour.
Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In another bowl, mix egg, yogurt and 1 cup buttermilk. Add the wet to the dry and mix with your favorite wooden spoon. Add additional buttermilk until all the dry ingredients are mixed in and it forms a quite wet, sticky dough.
NOTE: do not fool with it. No attempt at kneading. Just mix, put it is the baking dish and in the oven. The less you handle it, the better, like scones.
Put into prepared casserole, loosely covering with foil to keep it from burning.

Bake at 450 for 15 minutes then reduce to 400 for remaining 45 minutes, uncovering for the last 15 minutes.
When you remove it from the baking dish, wrap in a tea towel and let stand, on it's side, until cool.

 

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This is my contribution this to this week's Weekend Cooking.
"Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend."
Be sure to check out the other entries this week. As always, hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

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