top o' the mornin' to ya

Amidst my diatribes on lack of time and planning and project incompletion, one thing I have been doing is attempting recipes for random events. I may not have the energy, but I can always make time for food. It has a point - I make it to eat it. It usually doesn't take too long (when it does it causes even more anticipation) and in the end I won't be hungry. Crafts on the other hand...

{a spoonful of thyme's perfect looking Irish soda bread}

On Sunday we went to a corned- beef and cabbage party for twelve. In preparation, I made Mrs. O'Callaghan's Soda Bread from Bon Appetit (let me just pause for a moment to mourn the loss of Gourmet magazine. Although there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with Bon Appetit per se, I do not pull it out of my mailbox with the same excited fervor as I did Gourmet. The photographers and art directors of Gourmet turned luscious foodstuffs into true food porn. Bon Appetit does not, therefore it is not an adequate subscription replacement for the death of such a magnanimous magazine.). Our rental has an old oven and it's temperature is irregular and too hot. Despite many of my friends' suggestions that I buy an oven thermometer, I haven't yet because the last one I bought shattered in the oven (a different apartment, a different irregular oven. ah rental living.) - they aren't supposed to do that. I made two soda breads, one which G did all the kneading and the other which I did all the kneading. G's looked gorgeous and brown, but it was too hot and it browned too fast and ended up being slightly doughy in the middle. On mine, I stopped kneading too soon but I reduced the temperature in the oven so it cooked more evenly. Eh. They both tasted pretty good but apparently we should have served them with Irish butter and homemade jam like here and here. Funny how I do my research after the fact.

{what they should look like - food}

The second baking I did was last night. Today I have a work pot luck which really has little to do with st. patty's day but whatever. Rather than research actual st. patty's day cookies on Martha like I usually do, I was drawn in by these frosting cookies I saw on Made. It doesn't take much to tempt me with a pink frosting cookie so I thought, super yum! However, after a stop at whole foods to buy supplies and finding no food coloring (to make the frosting green), by the time I got home, I was way too tired to do all the work required to make the what would be white but should be green "pink" cookies I'd planned on. So I made something easier. These lemon icebox cookies from Food.

Did I mention my oven is too hot? The dough tasted divine (salmonella here I come) but of course, the first batch was really brown, the second, kinda brown and the third, almost right. They all look like little slices of tree. But they are pretty tasty with a nice hot cup of Irish breakfast tea. Should I tell everyone that at the pot luck?

{what mine look like}

Did you remember to wear green?

One of my co-workers threatened to pinch someone already. hmm.