Thank You, St. Patrick

Well, seeing as how we're not the green-beer-swilling-type, I instead just finished eating a lot of food. Irish food. Or, what Americans think is Irish food, anyway. I don't know how accurate it is but I do know that it is delicious.

The feast was gobbled up before I was able to take any photos but it consisted of:

Corned Beef
Boiled Cabbage
Roasted Potatoes
Roasted Asparagus
Sparkling Limeade
Cupcakes

It was pretty incredible, if I do say so myself. Also, I think St. Patrick's Day may be my favorite holiday as the entire meal took about 15 minutes total of my actual time. The rest of the time it just tended to itself. That just doesn't happen with Easter or Thanksgiving or Christmas foods. They are all so much more time consuming what with the grating, stirring, rising, rolling out, etc.



Also, a word about the cupcakes. This morning I woke up really wanting to bake. I love baking but can only do it occasionally -- only when I'm able to spread the calories around to other people rather than ingesting them all myself.

I found the cupcake recipe on a food blog I love, Whipped. They are POM Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. POM as in POM Wonderful Pomegranate juice. The POM juice actually replaces the butter and eggs that would normally be in a cupcake batter. Vegan! (Just don't mind the frosting -- definitely not vegan.) So I had to try them.

But, upon first taste out of the oven, I was pretty disappointed. They didn't seem very moist, the tops got hard/crispy and they did not want to come out of the cupcake liners without a struggle. However, I couldn't imagine throwing out 30 cupcakes. So, I frosted them with some green-tinted cream cheese icing, dressed them up with a peppermint leaf from the garden (woot!) and distributed them among our friends. Feeling just a little bit reluctant. I do not want to be known for dry cupcakes.



However, it seems that a combination of Refrigeration and Time worked some magic and by the time I tried another one after dinner -- moist! soft! no struggle! It was really pretty great. Mostly the cream cheese frosting could make anything edible, but they were pretty good after all.

I don't know that I'll make these particular cupcakes again -- they weren't the best ever -- but they were definitely worth eating. :) I don't know what I could have done to make them turn out differently. If you happen to try this recipe, please report back with your results!

So, Happy St. Patty's day everyone and HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY to my sister Bethany! (I ate a cupcake, or two, in your honor, Beth.)