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03/15/2018 12:01 AMRemembering St. Patrick’s Day is easy since my second-oldest grandchild was born in Massachusetts on the day before St. Patrick’s Day.
When we heard that Sydney had peeked into this world early that morning of March 16, we drove as quickly as we could, legally, and were at the hospital, without breakfast, in less than two hours. I had grabbed a few clementines and I peeled them and we ate them on the way up. Our daughter-in-law, Nancy, was holding this gorgeous baby girl, as proud father, Peter, sat next to her bed. When Doug and I stared adoringly at all three of them, Nancy waited until I sat, then handled swaddled Sydney into my arms. As I touched her face, wondering how such a beautiful baby might be in my arms, she turned her little mouth and sucked on my finger. Maybe it was the clementines, and she has loved oranges ever since.
That little baby graduated from the University of Rochester with a degree in biomedical engineering and now lives in Boston, working on software for a computer start-up. I thought it might be fun to drive to Boston and meet Syd and her parents for dinner, until I realized that the last place I wanted be the day before St. Patrick’s Day might be Boston. So, I will make a corned beef with vegetables (I’m not wild about the corned beef but I love cabbage and carrots) and serve it with Irish soda bread and a grape nut pudding.
Irish Soda Bread
From Breads, Rolls and Pastries (Yankee Books, a division of Yankee Publishing Inc., Dublin, NH, 1981)
Yield: Makes 1 loaf
4 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 to 2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons caraway seed (optional)
1 cup raisins, currants, or Craisins (optional)
2 cups buttermilk (or 2 cups milk soured with 1 tablespoon
white vinegar for 10 minutes)
Melted butter
Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a baking sheet or loaf pan with melted butter.
Sift together flour, soda, sugar, and salt. If used, blend in seeds and raisins and mix well. Stir in buttermilk to form soft dough (like biscuit dough). Turn out onto floured surface and knead gently for 1 minute. Roll into a ball and flatten top to form a loaf about 9 inches in diameter. With a floured butter knife or spatula, cut top of dough about one-inch deep into equal sections (one cut north and south through the center, the other east and west through the center. Place in baking sheet, brush with melted butter, and bake 30 to 40 minutes.
Grape Nuts Custard
2 eggs
⅛ teaspoon of salt
⅓ cup sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 cups light cream (you can use heavy cream)
2 tablespoons butter
¼ cup Grape Nuts cereal
Butter an 8-inch square pan and put aside. (You can double the recipe and butter a 9-inch by 13-inch pan.)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Whisk eggs, salt, sugar, and vanilla, and set aside.
Scald cream with butter.
Add about ¼ cup of scalded cream to egg mixture, whisking quickly. Add another ¼ cup of cream, again whisking. (This “tempers” the eggs so they don’t become scrambled eggs.) Add the rest of the cream, whisking.
Pour entire mixture into buttered pan. Sprinkle Grape Nuts evenly on top. Do not mix in.
Place the pan into a larger pan into which you have poured warm water half way up the smaller pan (this larger pan with water is called a “bain Marie,” or water bath). Place the bain Marie in oven until custard is set in the middle, about 25 to 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and bring to room temperature; cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours, or overnight.