Post St. Patrick's day, Sunday March 20

I am almost corned beefed out. After three dinners last week plus facing the leftovers in my refrigerator I couldn’t bring myself to make hash today. Instead I brought back one of our favorites, a take on  Gale Gand's “ Baked Eggs in Ham cups”. My ramekin stash is very limited. I have two of this and two of that but not three of anything to bake the eggs in. The light bulb went on when I was searching my sideboard cupboard for something to use. There they were, wide mouth half pint ball jars. The timing was perfect as I had just seen someone bake individual cherry pies in them on either the Food Network or Cooking Channel.
I have posted this recipe "Baked Pesto Eggs in Ham Cups" on my Two by the Sea blog in April and June 2010. It worked very well in the little jars!

Our friend, Sharon, came over. She was very lucky as we were between rain storms. Off came the cork on the Prosecco she brought with her. As I worked on the food for our brunch we sipped and chatted away.  I was pointing out that the sweet potato fries were the Japanese sweet potatoes, a white fleshed red skinned tuber that I buy at the local Farmer’s market and forget they are white fleshed. It is always a surprise when I cut into them. Just then the smell of them reminded me to take them out of the oven!

Oven Baked Sweet Potato wedges
2 sweet potatoes or yams
Olive oil
Ground pepper
Chile powder
Sea salt

Scrub potatoes and pat dry. Cut them into 8 wedges and place into a bowl. Coat with olive oil, sprinkle with black pepper and chile powder. Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake at 375* 35-45 min. turning them once. They will be brown, slightly crisp with soft tender centers. Sprinkle with kosher salt when they come out of the oven. Transfer to a serving bowl and keep warm.

Since St. Patrick’s day was only a few days ago I still had a wedge of my Soda Bread. This was wrapped in foil and heated through, served with a little pot of sweet butter. Everyone should have a good recipe for Irish Soda bread. This is very easy and really tasty. I made two of them this year for different corned beef dinners.

                                                        St. Patrick’s day Soda Bread

2 c. Unbleached white flour
1 c. Whole Wheat flour
¼ c. sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 Tbsp. baking powder
½ tsp. sea salt
½ stick unsalted butter (¼ c.)
1 Tbsp. caraway seeds
1 cup currants
1 egg
1 ¼ c. buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400*

I use my Kitchen Aid mixer with the paddle attachment. Place flours, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt in the bowl. Attach the paddle and turn on low to combine dry ingredients. Cut the butter into ¼” dice and sprinkle over the flour mixture. Turn on the KA and let it rip until the butter is just combined. Whisk egg and buttermilk together in a small bowl. Add caraway seeds and currants to flour-butter mixture then pour it the egg-buttermilk mixture. Whisk until it comes together in a loose ball. If it is too dry, add a little more buttermilk. Turn out onto a floured board and gather together into a ball. Knead a few times until it is no longer sticky. Form into a round loaf about 1 1/2 " high. Place onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Cut a cross in the top. And place on the middle rack of the preheated oven. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temp. to 350 and continue to bake 25-30 min. A skewer or cake tester should come out clean when inserted into the center. I have under baked this a few times but think the timing is pretty right now. It emerges a beautiful golden, currant studded wonder.

I can’t figure out why I only make this once a year. It is great with butter or with one of my marmalades, jams or fruit butters. This year I gave our friends a jar of my Pineapple Guava butter to go with it when we went over for dinner ( the third and last Corned beef bash). Brunch was just about ready. I cut up some melon and strawberries then tossed in blueberries, frozen raspberries and blackberries. Maple syrup was drizzled over all.

Pictures were snapped in a hurry and they didn’t come out that great. I need to crack that "Nikon for Dummies" book that I bought months ago.We toasted to enjoying friends on a rainy day with a little fire going in the fireplace and ate it all up!

Nothing planned today as it is pouring rain and March Madness is in full swing. Steve needs to watch his team today so we will just vege out. I need to vege out big time after the Zinfandel festival in Paso Robles yesterday. Pouring rain did not deter the tasters at Peachy Canyon Winery. It is a fun event especially if you are into Zinfandel ( which I am).  Almost 300 people later,we locked the doors, cleaned up and finally sipped some wine ourselves.