It's St. Patrick's Day so I bake! (plus a St. Patrick's project I did last week!)

Today is St. Patrick's day, the NCAA tourney is on TV (watching the Aztecs right now!!) with three teams I am rooting for in the Big Dance (Ohio State, SDSU and my alma mater UCSB - go Gauchos!). So, while I SHOULD be re-writing my dissertation, I am baking and watching college basketball. Eh, oh well....
So today I tried Suzie the foodie's version of the Fast Bread's Irish Soda Bread. It looks LOVELY!! It just came out of the oven and smells wonderful!

Look how pretty it is!

It tastes great too! The caraway seeds are the kicker. They add an amazing flavour!

Here is the recipe

1 1/2 c whole wheat flour

3/4 c regular flour

1 tbsp dark brown sugar (I used light brown because I didn't have any dark)

2 tsp caraway seeds

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

2 tbsp melted butter

1 c buttermilk (I didn't have butter milk so I acidated some 2% with 1 tbsp lemon juice - for more info just google buttermilk substitute!)

1 tbsp molasses

Preheat oven to 375 F

In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients. Add the milk and molasses. Mix the dough (I used a Kitchen Aid Pro 6 with the dough hook on 2). Mix til all of the flour is absorbed into the dough. Grab the dough out of the mixer and put it on a parchment lined baking sheet (my addition to the recipe, not from Suzie). You are supposed to stretch it into an 8" oval. I kinda did that. It was loaf shaped, but pretty thin. It WILL rise in the baking process. I scored the top 6 or so times with a sharp knife and baked it for 35 minutes.

This made the house smell lovely! The molasses cooking and the fragrance of the caraway seeds is amazing!!

I sliced a piece off, put some butter on it and YUM!

So there you have it! My version of the Irish Soda bread! Happy St. Paddy's!

A week or so ago, I made some hand towels for St. Patrick's day.  Ok, I didn't actually MAKE the towels, I embellished them. Again it wasn't my own idea, I borrowed it from Sew4home.com, but I modified it!

I used the same basic idea, but  rather than using just fabric strips, I used my handy dandy bias tape maker (the 1" version) and made some bias tape with some sparkle fabric. 

Isn't it cute?! 

So I used this fabric, made tape, but not on the bias. I did not want it to be stretchy, so that is why I did it that way. 

This is what we wound up with:

Kinda cute, if I do say so myself!

One more project for this post, I promise! I need to get up to date and STAY up to date!

I did a similar thing for Valentines day (both the hand towels and this banner thing project!) and I loved it! 

This is just a sweet little banner for St. Paddy's. Some shamrock foam shapes and some ribbon with a hot glue gun is all it takes! I think if I can find flowers or bunnies I may do an easter one! 

So fun and so cute!! I didn't come up with the idea, but from Kitty Cats and Airplanes. I think it turned out super cute!!

Well, that's all for now. Aztec's won and UCSB is getting it's ass kicked. Let's hope it turns around!