Irish Spring

St. Paddy's Day has come to the Great White North...well, a North that is looking a little less white these days and more beige, brown and gray. The sun is shining vigorously and the snow is melting away faster than it came. We didn't Spring Forward, as Saskatchewan changes its clocks for no one, but forward into Spring we have gone nonetheless!

Drip, drip, drip. These are the day of our lives. The snow remains, and will for a few weeks yet I imagine, but the promise of Spring is very much alive and well Up North.

It seems like the entire town has been out enjoying the warmer weather lately, including a chance to revel in the glorious rays during a recent fishing derby. 

Winter drips away slowly before our eyes. The sun is so incredibly warm and it makes its presence known on a daily basis these days. The clouds don't seem to stand a chance, although I'm certain that they're regrouping somewhere waiting to strike. And they will. But the sun has given its promise that it will conquer in the end, and that is all I need to celebrate.

And celebrate I will! Melting snow and fishing fun can be overshadowed by the fact that it's St. Patrick's Day! A saint back on an Island in Europe has initiated a Day of Revelry (or something like that, there may be more to it) and I will answer the call. This drink is not a traditional Irish one, but delicious nonetheless. It's a drink I've posted about before that I first had at a restaurant back home in Ontario called Borealis. The Lemon Ice Wine Martini is a beautifully refreshing drink that can be made an instant Irish dalliance with a hint of green food colouring. Otherwise it's all fresh lemon juice, vodka and vidal ice wine. I found that this combo seems to work fine, although tweak it to your own liking:

1 and 1/2 ounce Vidal ice wine

1 ounce vodka

1 quarter lemon, squeezed 

It's a nice aperitif or a sweet-but-not-too-sweet cocktail to sip on a warm Spring afternoon. Check, and check.

After you've downed your citrus concoction, grab a Guinness (or in my case a nice glass of red wine, which is nowhere near Irish but a damn good substitute so drink what you like because life is too short) and have a bite of Irish Soda Bread along with an Irish Stout Cheese. The cheese was purchased (I was surprised to find it in The North, but life is nothing but full of surprises) but the bread was homemade with the help of this tasty recipe. It really is as easy as the recipe claims, and super duper good!

Dinner was served, a lovely Shepherd's Pie, but sadly dinner didn't get photographed. Dessert, on the other hand, made it to the reel (or iPhone album, as it were), but just barely. What could be more Irish than a Chocolate-Guinness Cupcake with Baileys Frosting? Well, if we'd followed the Irish Car Bomb Cupcake recipe and added the Irish Whiskey Ganache, but one can only be so ambitious during the course of a day and mine just didn't have a panache for ganache. Not being a fan of super-sweet desserts, I think that the ganache would have been over the top anyway, as the cupcakes were as rich and sweet as I like them to be already. Truly a perfect end to a lovely day of warmth and celebration with friends.