Top o’ the mornin’ to ye!  St. Patrick’s Day is here again, one of the favorite holidays around the ol’ Flamingo Pond.  The husband is half-Irish, and back when we got married, we made a deal:  I would get all the Jewish holidays and he would get St. Patrick’s Day and Christmas.  I took this to be a pretty fair compromise, since the only holidays he wanted were the ones involving good food, good drink, and prezzies!  And we like to start the morning with a slab of old-fashioned Irish Brown Bread.  This is not the sweet bread with raisins or some such, that you might find in stores, today.  Real Soda Bread is just that – bread. Slice it up for sandwiches, chunk it up to sop up soup or gravy, toast it up & slather with good butter, a piece of cheese, maybe some jam.

We don’t dye anything green around here, no sir!  From the beginning, we’ve only made traditional Irish recipes, prepared as closely as possible to the traditional ways.

One of the really lovely things about this bread is that it’s pretty quick to make. Just mix up the dough – either by hand or mixer with a dough hook – form it up and bake.  No resting time, no rising time.  You can have this on the table, all warm, crusty, and ready to eat in about an hour!  And I’ll bet you have the ingredients ready to go, right now.  So, let’s do it:

Irish Brown Bread

Ingredients:

• 3 cups stone ground whole wheat flour
• 3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 3 tsp. kosher salt
• 2 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 Tbs. sugar, honey, or molasses (optional)
• 2 1/2 cups soured milk *

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 425° F.

In a large bowl (or your mixer bowl), combine the flours, salt, and baking soda. Mix well.  Add the sweetener (if using),  and add the milk, a little at a time, mixing well.  The dough should be firm and still just a bit sticky.

Divide the dough into two pieces, form into firm balls, and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or pan liner.  Flatten each ball slightly with your hand, to about 2-3 inches thick.  Slash an X across the top of each loaf (to let the fairies out, of course!).

Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the loaves sound hollow when the bottoms are rapped with your knuckle, or an instant-read thermometer inserted through the side indicates at least 192° F.

* Yes, I actually let milk go naturally sour for this. Don’t go freaking out. No, it’s not going to hurt you.  After all, that’s how basic farmers cheeses historically got their starts, and the natural acids work with the baking soda to get the dough rising.  And it’s a great way to use up milk that’s “gone off” on you.  If you don’t have any soured milk on hand, just measure out your milk and add either a teaspoon of lemon juice or a teaspoon of white vinegar, mix it well and let it sit till it reaches room temperature.

Don’t save this just for St. Patrick’s Day, either! This is a tasty, healthy bread that’s great all year long, especially if you just noticed that you’ve run out of bread for sandwiches or snacks.

More St. Patrick’s Day food ideas:

• Mashed Potato Biscuits (Irish Potato Cakes)
• Shepherd’s Pie for St. Patrick’s Day
• Chicken in (Non-Dairy) Tarragon Cream Sauce
• Colcannon (Mashed Potato with Cabbage and Leeks)

Several years ago, MJ and I made a pilgrimage to the land of (some of) his forbears, Ireland. We traveled on our own to Dublin, took a bus up to Termonfecken to peer at the lichen-covered headstones – searching for said forbears – rented a car in Galway, and adventured our way down the west coast and back up to Dublin, searching for music. We had a blast.

The following year, we heard about Celtica Tours to Ireland, headed up by Robbie O’Connell, a nephew of our favorite Irish Trad group, The Clancy Brothers. We couldn’t resist and booked ourselves in. Again, we had a blast. Despite the swan dive and face-plant I did off the top step of the bus at some castle or another. Not their fault, though. That was all me.

It was so much more relaxing to let someone else do the driving (except maybe on some of those narrow, twisting back roads, when it became tour bus vs. compact car, or worse, tour bus vs. tour bus), and we really got to enjoy the scenery. And there were “sessions” every evening. And the camaraderie of our fellow travelers – characters themselves. Like Anna the Puppet Lady from Boston.

That’s where we met the Zoo Lady and her hubs, who hail from Arkansas. The Zoo Lady and I hit it off and had many wonderful conversations over a Bulmer’s or Guinness and cigarettes in the hotel parking lots. We kept in touch via e-mail when we got back, mostly during hurricane season (she has family on the Florida west coast), especially when storms approached or passed (“Are you guys okay?” “Did your folks have any damage?”).

This past Fall, we discovered – through forwarded and personal e-mails – that we even share the same political views. Which was a relief. You know how you just don’t want to offend someone whose views you’re unsure of, because you like them and don’t want them to cut you off? It was like that.

The Zoo Lady was in Florida last week to visit her family and help out with stuff, but we couldn’t manage to coordinate a visit. Still, we had the first voice-to-voice contact since Ireland, and it was just like being back there. ->Sigh<- A bright spot in an otherwise dismal week of more dusting and straightening and digging out at my FIL’s. Yes, that mess continues. Although the living room pretty much resembles a living room now, and we discovered an actual couch and coffee table in the FIL’s “office”! Seriously, I thought it was all a mountain of junk, but when you cleared off the junk, there was furniture under there! Un-freaking-believable.

Anyway, the Zoo Lady reads this blog, too. I know you’re out there – I can hear you breathing… so if you don’t like your nickname, come up with something better. And leave a comment. Yo.