Of the various and sundry ways to celebrate St. Patrick's Day we decided to choose the most scrumptious option: cooking a traditional Irish feast: corned beef, cabbage, mashed potatoes, and soda bread. While nothing in this dinner menu is decidedly green, it is all decidedly tasty. The corned beef slowly cooked in the crock pot with a little bit of this and a little bit of that all day today while we were out and about. The cabbage wasn't done in any special or peculiar manner but just boiled on the stove. The mashed potatoes were made from scratch after Emily's suggestion to have taters. The soda bread was kneaded with my own two hands and was likewise straight from scratch, raisins and caraway seeds included.

Now, before you think too highly of my cooking, I have to give credit where it's due and point you to my new favorite website, Recipezaar. It was there that I got inspired to cook the above menu for St. Patty's Day: their suggestion…all of it. And we weren't disappointed in the least. The corned beef was perfectly juicy and full of flavor, and the soda bread changed my life (I had never had it before nor was I expecting to like it so much simply judging by the ingredients). And since the recipe called for 4 1/2 lbs. of corned beef brisket, Emily and I decided to call in the reinforcements to help take the meal on. You'll see in the pictures and video that two of our pals, John and Aaron, came over to celebrate.

In closing, I have a couple questions to ask our MOT readers, if they care to answer:

1. Did you do anything special for St. Patrick's Day?
2. Does this sound like a traditional Irish meal to you?
3. Have you tried soda bread before? If so, what'd you think?
4. What about corned beef? Yay or nay?
5. Do you think you'll be trying either of the recipes we used?

Here's a link to the recipes: corned beef (upon recommendation of other users, we didn't make the cabbage in the crock pot with the beef) and soda bread.