Irish Week

Last week was Irish week around here; most nights I made something Irish for dinner. One was a hit but the rest were so-so and of course the corned beef on Friday for St. Patrick's day was delish. I'm not sure what exactly it was we didn't like about the first few recipes, maybe the Guinness (which is always better on draft), maybe some other ingredient or mix of ingredients. Nothing was horrible and maybe a few tweaks would make them better.

We tried bangers and mash with Guinness gravy. I think the problem with this recipe is that the Worcestershire sauce was a bit strong and just overpowered the Guinness a bit. It was still good, I'd probably make this one again, cutting back on the Worcestershire.

Another day was beef and stout pie. I think the problem here was operator error. I should have cut the puff pastry larger so it sat more on the dish and didn't sink into the stew. This one will probably be made again.

The Irish potato pie was probably the big hit, although this one did have it's issues as well. It ended up on the greasy side, partly because the directions weren't totally clear. It has bacon in it as well as a lot of butter to cook the potatoes in initially. I think the grease needs to be drained/left out when you pour the potatoes into the puff pastry. Really good flavor in this though. Definitely will try this one again.

We finished the week with corned beef and cabbage with roasted potatoes and carrots. As always it was really good. I love my crockpot for cooking corned beef; put it in in the morning on low and it's ready at dinner time. I used the leftover corned beef and potatoes to make hash Saturday morning and the leftover cabbage was chopped up and cooked with bacon for a quick easy dinner Saturday night.

All in all a good week of eating.