Since Byzantine Catholics fast form meat on Wednesdays as well as Fridays during Lent—we cooked up a big corned beef roast this past Sunday & enjoyed Reuben sandwiches for a few days afterward…complete with Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, rye bread & Thousand Island dressing.  Tonight, it is the very non-Irish fare of palak dal (Indian lentil & spinach dish) over rice for dinner.  At least there is some green in there!  ;o)

My first ever corned beef and cabbage meal is simmering on the stove.  We’ll see how it goes and then determine if it’s to become a family tradition   I also already convinced the three year old that we just needed ice cream for dessert tonight after her grandma mentioned shamrock cookies to her and got her all excited about making cookies.  I wasn’t feeling up to the mess or the temptation of leftover cookies come tomorrow!

Err, well, we’re having takeout Chinese. Daughter’s best friend is from China, we’re making her honorary Irish for the day, so her homeland’s food is Irish too?

We are! Even my non-Irish Protestant family has always had this for St. Patrick’s Day! It’s very funny to me how this is a holiday that secular America has embraced - I flipped past CNN and everyone from the hosts to the politicians were all wearing green!

Could I bum some corned beef and cabbage off someone???? I’m the only one in my family who would eat them. We’re having very Irish o’porkchops which my (half) Irish hubbie is grilling for us. For dessert we’re having the last of shamrock sugar cookies which his brother brought us on Sunday. Maybe I’ll have an Irish coffee (decaf) after the kids go to bed. I just realized I have all the ingredients!

Our town has one parade on the Saturday before St. Patricks and then the Irish community has one of their own on the actual day. The parade consists mostly of Irish clans walking behind banners with their family names! Plus the numerous Irish dancing schools. Our youngest walked away with piles of green beads around his neck and fists full of candy. What a great day to be Irish!

Funny, we’re not having it today. I say this because last year I realized EVERYONE ate corned beef (OK, maybe not the cabbage, I throw in some potatoes too), and started making it once every 2 weeks or so, I find it is an easy dinner with few complaints, rare around here. It is so nice out - almost 70 here in NJ - that we are grilling Brats and having a fruit salad for dinner. I guess we have a little Spring Fever, but we are all wearing green and our leprachaun trap were ready, didn’t catch any again this yet. My oldest son will march with the boy scouts on Sunday in the town’s parade (rained out last Sunday), we just moved here so I am not sure how big an event this is, followed by an Easter Egg Hunt, so we are melding lots of holidays this week
Have fun everyone!

we enjoyed the parade rachel was talking about, rain and all (thank goodness for golf umbrellas) and are having baked potatoes for dinner!

We are the odd men out. We are not Irish, not even a smidgen on either side, and don’t observe St. Patrick’s Day anymore than say St. Cyril and Methodius’ feast day-actually it would be ethnically appropriate for us to observe St. Cyril and Methodius as dh is Slavic. No one cares for corned beef or any other traditional Irish fare, it would be a wasted effort on my part. We acknowledge that today is St. Patrick’s Day…“yes, Ben, it is St. Patrick’s Day today.” but that is the end of it for this family.

We are! It’s bubbling on the stove as I type. I’m serving it with Irish Soda Bread and the most Irish of drinks: Guinness (just for DH and I, obviously). I also started off the day with eggs, sausage, Irish Scones (courtesy of a recipe from last years F&F magazine!) and Irish Breakfast tea!

We’ve been doing corned beef and cabbage for several years now.  All Recipes dot com has some excellent recipes.  We look forward to this meal every Lent

We only eat it once a year and I always wonder why.  It’s easy and yummy.  I had it on the stove before we went to the parade so getting home was nice because I was more relaxed than usual.

I’m not even a smidgen Irish, but DH is half Irish (and therefore the rest of our family), so I make corned beef with potatoes, carrots and cabbage every year.  I don’t like the idea of all the nitrates in the beef, but it’s only one night a year.  I simmer the brisket in Guinness and water and also throw in some sprigs of fresh thyme and parsley and some dry mustard.  Also, Martha Stewart had a recipe for Irish Coffee Cupcakes in her magazine this month, so I made those for DH and me (there’s espresso in the cupcakes and whiskey in the frosting).

We had corned beef and all the fixings too. You know I never had corned beef before I moved to Augusta. We Poles in Milwaukee never ate it much. I don’t know what we ate on St. Patty’s Day—probably the potatoes and cabbage with kielbase.