GREEN SCENE: OK, so it's not the Breakfast of Champions (TM, I'm sure), but what could be more appropriate for a St. Patrick's Day morning meal than special shamrock-themed Lucky Charms with a side of gold coins? (We'll go back to kale smoothies tomorrow, really!) Predictably, we had corned beef going in the crockpot before 9 a.m., right after finishing the 'magically delicious' breakfast you see above. (And yes, the milk did turn green, for the record.) The golden Oreos were an experiment of sorts. We'd seen a 'recipe' for them online (spray Oreos with golden food coloring in a can), but tried our own twist. For starters, we started with Golden Oreos instead of the traditional brown ones. I knew that had to make our task easier. Here they are in their "natural" state.
On some, we used Wilton's "Color Magic" spray. On others, we used a less-widely available product, "Edible Gold Spray" by Chefmaster.
On some, we applied superfine gold dust (suspended in clear vanilla).
On others, we sprinkled on edible gold flakes for extra bling.
In the end, we decided we really liked the color of the Chefmaster spray better (it was more gold, as compared to the Color Magic's more orange tone). We also decided to try our hands at making Irish soda bread.
We found a highly-rated recipe on the Food Network, by chef Ina Garten. We followed the instructions carefully, but found them lacking. For instance, the ingredient list calls for currants, but it doesn't say what to do with them (how to prep them or when to add them to the mix). We did have instructions regarding when to add the orange zest (or Clementine, in this case, since that's what we had on hand).
Also, the recipe tells you to "dump the dough onto a well-floured board and knead it a few times into a round loaf." Well, OK, but it would have been nice to know how many times she meant by 'a few'. "Few" is standardly thought of as five, but kneading the dough just five times seems like that wouldn't be enough.
Also, she didn't say how big around or thick your raw round loaf should be. Should it be 5x5 or 12x2 or? Pretty big omission, IMHO. Fortunately, our loaf turned out OK. Actually, it was delicious.
When we took our walk past the neighborhood's Irish pub this afternoon, I told the kids that in Chicago, they dye the river running down the middle of their city green. They'd never heard of such a thing, so when we got home, we found a YouTube video (by Dan O'Leary, courtesy of ChicagoStPatsParade.com) showing the process.
We could see men in a boat tossing an orange-y powder into the water, and immediately wondered what it was.
I had the kids do some research, and they learned that back in the day (the 1960s, when the tradition started), fluorescein was used to get the job done. For environmental considerations, years later, the dye was changed to a vegetable-based product.
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