Provident Mom

St. Patrick’s Day is not one of those holidays that you budget for. Nonetheless, it’s fun to do something to celebrate. Try serving an Irish dinner to your family. This one is inexpensive and hearty, and you can even put a couple of drops of green food coloring in your kids’ milk for a St. Patrick’s Day surprise.

Menu:

Irish Stew
Irish Soda Bread
Green Milk
Irish Stew
Ingredients
1 ounce butter
2 pounds lamb or beef, cubed
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 Tbsp plain flour
1 pint beef stock
2 Tbsp tomato puree
1/2 Tbsp sugar
2 potatoes, cubed
1 bouquet garni (sprig of parsley, sprig of thyme, 1 bay leaf tied up in muslin)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Tabasco sauce
Instructions
Melt the butter in a large pan and fry the meat in it until browned on all sides. Do not crowd the pan; brown the meat in two or three batches if necessary. Remove the meat from the pan, add the onion and carrots and cook until slightly softened.
Return the meat to the pan, add the flour, then stir in the stock, tomato puree and sugar. Bring to boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Add the potatoes, the bouquet garni and salt and pepper to taste.
Cook over a low heat for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until the meat is tender. While the stew is simmering, add 4 or 5 drops of tabasco to taste.
Yield: 4 servings
Irish Soda Bread
Ingredients:

4 cups flour
2 Tbsp sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 Tbsp butter
1 cup raisins
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 cups buttermilk

Instructions
1 Preheat oven to 425°. Sift together the flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda into a large mixing bowl.
2 Using a pastry cutter or two knives, work butter into flour mixture until it resembles coarse meal, then stir in raisins.
3 Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Add egg and buttermilk to well and mix in with a wooden spoon until dough is too stiff to stir. Dust hands with a little flour, then gently knead dough in the bowl just long enough to form a rough ball. If the dough is too sticky to work with, sprinkle in a little more flour. Do not overknead! Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and shape into a round loaf.
4 Transfer dough to a large, lightly greased cast-iron skillet or a baking sheet. Using a serrated knife, score top of dough about 1/2” deep in an “X” shape. Transfer to oven and bake until bread is golden and bottom sounds hollow when tapped with a knife, about 35-45 minutes. Check for doneness also by inserting a long, thin skewer into the center. If it comes out clean, it’s done.

I had this super great birthday party planned for my 8-year-old son. Academically, it looked beautiful:

Arrival project: build structures out of gum drops and tooth picks

Lunch: make your own pizzas out of homemade dough and an assortment of toppings

Outside: three-legged race, paper airplane contest, airplane relay, balloon rocket game

Inside: Birthday cake and presents

Back outside: play until parents come

In reality, though, it was complete mayhem. There were pizza toppings and gum drops all over the house, the dog was in hysterics, a kid came in the house crying because his fingers got slammed in the playhouse door, one boy spent the entire time with my 5-year-old daughter because the others teased him so much, and the noise level rivaled the noise at the U2 concerts I went to in high school.

The last mom picked her child up at 1:23 in the afternoon, and I stood with my back against the door facing a war zone. I felt like a British citizen facing the aftermath of a WWII air raid.

Where did I go wrong? Before the party, I felt so smug. I’d come up with a perfect party plan. It wasn’t going to cost much at all, and the boys would all have a fun, stimulating time. I should have just turned them all loose in the backyard with some animal crackers and balloons and sat down with a book for two hours, at which time I would let them back in to collect their coats on the way out.

But really, my son had a great time. That’s why I threw a party, right? I don’t know. Why did I?

 

Pretty soon you’ll be getting a class list home in your child’s backpack. You know the routine. Each kid on the list is supposed to get a valentine from your child. So you go to the store and pick out a box of Valentine’s. Oddly, they all look like advertisements. It’s not odd at all, though. YOU’VE BEEN DUPED. You’re paying to advertise for somebody. You’re advertising for SpongeBobSquarePants or Hannah Montana or High School Musical. You’re actually paying to do this. It makes you feel a little bit sick to your stomach, so what do you do?

You make your own, homemade Valentines. This is way more fun anyway, because on these commercialized valentines the only thing there is for your child to do is to write her name and her classmate’s name where the valentine tells her to. It’s kind of like a workbook assignment. No fun at all.

What do you need for making your own Valentine’s? It’s up to you. You could get basic construction paper and paper doilies and glitter paints. Or you could get scrapbook paper and Sharpies and stickers. Or you could get dinosaur stamps and foil paper and ball point pens. The sky’s the limit.

Now, if there are 28 children in your first grader’s class, she’s probably going to poop out after making about 6 valentines, so you could handle this a couple of ways. You could start early and make valentines in shifts over several days. Or you could set up an assembly line and help your child by being the gluer or writer or something.

We’ve done this several times, and it’s very fun. Our kids friends really like the homemade valentines because they’re personalized and way more thoughtful than “Hannah Montana says ‘Girls Rock!’”

Making your own valentines cards may not save you any money, and they certainly won’t save you time. But you’ll be spending time with your kids and they’ll be using their creative little brains and not being sucked in to the marketing vortex that loves to prey on children.