St. Patrick's Day

Man oh man. I am so wiped out from making an insanely good dinner plus dessert.

The Menu:

-Partially whole wheat Irish Soda Bread
-Shepherd's Pie
-Strawberry apple crisp in a home made tart

So for the first:
I took a recipe from a youtube video. I did the 2 cups whole wheat flour instead of the ground flax seed, seeing as how I had no ground flax seed to use. I wanted to add raisins, but I forgot to.
It turned out absolutely delicious anyway. The outside was crunchy, the inside was just the right chewiness. And, it was sweet because of the brown sugar. I used dark brown. Served it on the cutting board with Smart Balance and Soy Garden for buttery options.

The second:
My shepherd's pie is really simple. It's a bag of frozen mixed vegetables cooked with browned hamburger (in small crumbly pieces), topped with mashed potatoes (I brown them under the broiler). Everything gets cooked, seasoned while cooking, and tossed into a casserole dish with the potatoes on top.
Tonight I jazzed it up a little with some Worcestershire sauce, Adobo seasoning, and tomato paste. Because I was making two pounds of hamburger I used the whole can of tomato paste.
I made a ton of this because the bf loves it for quick lunches during the week. I froze the leftovers.
It was a hit.
I used instant mashed potatoes, the ones I use I get from Costco and they're totally happy healthy. Instead of cow milk I used a mix of rice and soy milk. The potatoes came out a little creamier than usual. I also cook them with chicken broth, not water.

Third course:
This one was a challenge. The tart recipe asked for cream, but all I had around was some leftover coconut milk. The recipe said to use a dash. I added a teaspoon because I read that a dash is 1/8 of a teaspoon and that seemed rather small of an amount to me. But even the teaspoon of coconut milk looked like too little. I stuck with it anyway. The dough was dry. It tried its hardest to not hold together. I brushed the outside of the dough balls with some more coconut milk before I fridged them in plastic wrap for an hour.
Rolling one of the dough balls out was not easy. I kept having to flour my pin and the dough kept wanting to crack or lift up onto the pin.
Eventually I got it to roll out big enough. I had to use a pie plate because I didn't have little tart pans. The first 15 minutes of cooking I put white rice in parchment and put it on top of the tart. The recipe said to use dried beans, but I only had rice. It still worked out.
Another 15 minutes with no rice. The bottom puffed a little, but it went down. It actually was rock hard by the time I got to put the filling in it.
The filling consisted of strawberries (sliced), green apples (sliced), white sugar, and cinnamon. It was cooked on the stove top over medium heat. I cooked it too long though, or so I think because the strawberries went rather juice like.
The crumble for the top, which made way too much, was delicious. I told the bf to put some on his yogurt in the morning.
There is some extra filling leftovers as well.

Now I am beat. I didn't work on my paper for school and it's nearly bedtime. Perhaps in the morning?

It's worth it though to see people enjoy the food. The compliments don't hurt either.

I still have one loaf of bread. Maybe I can capture a picture of it tomorrow.