The Luck of the Irish Giveaway!!! HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!!! #Giveaway

HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY to all who celebrate and all who do not. You don’t have to be Irish to party today! That said, Diverse Reader is bringing you all THE LUCK OF THE IRISH! In giveaway form of course. How you ask? Well, below are a bunch of amazing leprechauns (authors) and they are very much wanting to shower you with luck (gifts) BUT are you lucky enough to receive it? And what do you win?

Each one of these darling leprechauns (authors lol) are going to share a little something something with you. Some have recipes, others have poems, limericks, art… It’s a festive treat for the eyes and the soul. At the bottom of this rainbow of fun is a pot of gold (rafflecopter sign up) you enter and RANDOM people will be chosen, BUT!!!!!!!!!!! What you win is completely up to the author you are paired with. MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!! So how lucky are you really?

When the contest ends you will be notified if you won, be told the author you are paired up with, and I’ll need verification of your contact info. THEN the magic happens. The author will contact you and tell you what you’ve won... OH I’M SO EXCITED FOR ALL OF YOU BEAUTIFUL LIL SHAMROCKS (people) So… first thing is first. Enjoy the treats these leprechauns have awesomely come up with… then the prizes. Enjoy, and HAPPY ST.  PATTY’S DAY! 

You are the star of each night, the brightness of every morning, the kernel of my heart,

the face of my sun, the harp of my music, the crown of my company, the gentle breeze that lifts my soul to where it belongs by your side. ~An Irish proverb

Shamrock Shortbread

I’m going to share my favorite cookie recipe with you. I could eat them all year around (okay, I do that). They’re sooo delicious and easy to make. Try them!

What You'll Need:

•   1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

•   3/4 cup sugar

•   2 eggs

•   1 teaspoon vanilla extract

•   3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

What To Do:

1  In a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla; beat 1 to 2 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Gradually add flour and beat 2 minutes, or until well blended.

2  Form dough into 2 balls; cover and chill at least 2 hours.

3  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

4  On a lightly floured work surface, using a rolling pin, roll 1 ball of dough to 1/4-inch thickness. Using cookie cutters or a knife, cut into St. Patrick's Day (like Shamrocks) or other desired shapes. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets. Repeat with remaining ball of dough.

5  Bake 10 to 12 minutes, or until golden around edges. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Notes

•   Enjoy these plain or sprinkle with colored sugar or sprinkles before baking. You can also frost and decorate the cookies once they've cooled.

Recipe initially from Mr. Food

 Song: Whiskey in a Jar

May you have warm words on a cold evening,
A full moon on a dark night,
And the road downhill all the way to your door.

Bacon Guinness Chocolate Pancakes

Ingredients

1 cup flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup + 2 tablespoons Guinness or other Irish stout

1 egg

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons butter, melted

4 strips bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces and cooked (optional)

1/2 cup heavy/whipping cream, whipped with 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup Guinness chocolate syrup

Directions

Mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.

Mix the Guinness, egg and butter in another large bowl.

Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients along with the bacon.

Heat a pan over medium heat and melt a touch of butter (or bacon grease) in it.

Pour 1/4 cup of the mixture into the pan and cook until the surface starts to bubble and the bottom is golden brown, about 2-3 minutes.

Flip the pancake and cook the other side until the bottom is golden brown, about 1-2 minutes. Repeat for the remaining batter.

Serve in a stack topped with a head of frothy whipped cream and Guinness chocolate syrup.

Where I found them:

http://www.closetcooking.com/2013/03/bacon-guinness-chocolate-pancakes-with.html

 

"As you slide down the banister of life,
May the splinters never point the wrong way."

After I go for a brisk walk some mornings, I love to enjoy this delicious treat. It's a great incentive to exercise! :)

S.C. Wynne's Favorite Irish Coffee Recipe:

A BIG mug
Fill mug three fourths full with coffee of choice (You can't go wrong. It's COFFEE!)
2-Tablespoons Brown Sugar
1-Ounce Bush-mill's Whiskey
1-Ounce Bailey's Irish Cream
A dash of half and half
Stir well and then get your Irish on.

Always remember to forget 

The friends that proved untrue. 

But never forget to remember 

Those that have stuck by you.

~Irish Proverb

A little author insider info for the occasion, for my fans of course:

 Clark Stevens, my MC in Horizons was born on St. Patrick's Day!!

St. Patrick’s Day Dinner Recipe

By Kate McMurray

True story: both of my parents are Irish-American. My mother comes from both Scots-Irish Appalachian folk and a few potato famine immigrants, and on my father’s side, I have a great-grandfather who came through Ellis Island before moving to Chicago and opening a pub. When I was a kid, St. Patrick’s Day dinner was the one time my mother ever made corned beef, and she cooked it in the same pot as the cabbage.

My brother Sean is the real foodie in the family, and he has a recipe he uses that’s a smidge more sophisticated than the meals we grew up on, so I am sharing it with you all. Enjoy!

Corned Beef

Rub a 4lb. corned beef brisket with 1 cup brown sugar. Place in a roasting pan, and pour 1 pint Guinness can over the brisket slowly, soak but do not wash away the sugar. Bake at 300°F, covered, for 2 1/2 hours.

Cabbage:

Melt 4 tbsp butter over low heat, add 1 cup milk. Cook for 5 minutes. Stir in 1 tbsp brown sugar until dissolved. Add chopped cabbage and onion, with salt and pepper to taste, cook until tender. (Approx. 20 minutes)

Champ (North Irish potatoes): 

2 lbs potatoes peeled and halved. Cover with water and boil for 20 minutes. Drain and return to pot over low heat, to dry potatoes. In a saucepan, heat 1 bunch of green onions (thinly sliced) with 1 cup of milk until warm (do not boil). Mash potatoes, add salt and pepper to taste, and add 1/4 lb butter. Add milk and onions. Serve hot with extra butter to top.

Eat with beer and whiskey.

 
 

Here are two of my favorite Irish Blessings:

May love and laughter light your days,

and warm your heart and home.

May good and faithful friends be yours,

wherever you may roam.

May peace and plenty bless your world

with joy that long endures.

May all life's passing seasons

bring the best to you and yours!

May the dreams you hold dearest,

Be those which come true,

The kindness you spread,

Keep returning to you.

 

Potato & spring onion breakfast pancakes

Hi, Lillian Francis here. I love a pancake of any nature or description. So why not celebrate St Patrick's Day with this Irish-inspired breakfast or brunch, based on 'boxty', or potato cakes.

Cooking time Prep: 15 mins Cook: 30 mins plus cooling

Serves 2 (makes 6 pancakes) 553 calories per serving

Method

Put the potatoes in a large pan of salted water and boil until tender. Drain well, tip back into the pan, shake for 1 min over a gentle heat to dry them off, then mash and leave to cool.

Put the cooled mash in a bowl with the flour and bicarb. Whisk 1 egg with the milk, season, tip into the bowl and whisk until smooth. Stir in the spring onions, reserving some to serve.

In a non-stick frying pan, heat half the oil and butter until sizzling, then spoon in half the pancake batter to make 3 pancakes. Cook for 1 min or so on each side until browned and set underneath, then flip and cook the other side. Keep warm in the oven while you make 3 more pancakes.

Wipe out the pan, add the bacon and sizzle until almost crisp. Push to one side and crack in the 2 remaining eggs – with a splash more oil if needed. Fry to your liking, then serve with the pancakes and bacon, sprinkled with the remaining spring onions.

On St. Patrick's Day night I dressed up like a clover

and left for the neighborhood pub three blocks over.

Halfway there a small leprechaun appeared in the street

and called me bad names, said I was a cheat.

"Look at you all in green," the leprechaun hissed.

"You're not Irish at all!" I mean, I felt dissed!

"You're Italian and Swedish, other things too,

but you wouldn't know Ireland if it jumped up and bit you!"

The leprechaun started laughing, looking all smug,

but I disregarded his taunting and gave him a shrug.

I said, "What you say was once true, but please do not chide me.

My husband is Irish -- so there's plenty inside me!"

The leprechaun quit laughing and rocked back on his heels,

and looked at me with eyes that were brimming with feels.

He apologized sweetly, said "It matters not where you're from,

anyone can be Irish, if it's by birth or by bum."

He stepped aside then and let me keep walking,

but he coughed once and I turned; he wasn't done talking.

With a tip of his hat, the leprechaun quoth:

"Just between you and me, I'm Irish by both."

Ben Monopoli

Lucky

When you’re lucky in love, it’s a Dream.

Until waking, you find with a scream

that the man in your bed,

has more muscles than head,

and he’s covered your ass in whipped cream.

-LE Franks

Irish Soda Bread

There is nothing like a good breakfast. I don’t know about you, but for a lot of people—possibly including me—it’s even more important on St. Patrick’s Day. You just never know when you might run into a pint of Guinness or an Irish whiskey.

A good breakfast requires good bread. And Irish Soda bread is about as good as it gets. Well, the way my Irish husband makes it anyway J

Here’s how to do it:

Ingredients:

250 gr plain white flour                                  2 tsp bicarbonate of soda           

250 gr whole grain flour                                  1 egg

380 ml buttermilk

Preheat oven at 200°C

Mix all ingredients together to make dough.

Shape into a ball

Put on baking paper covered baking tray

Use a knife to cut a cross in the top, about 1/3 of the way into the dough ball and dust lightly with plain flour.

Bake in oven for 40 minutes.

Allow to cool on a rack for a crustier crust or on a flat surface if you prefer the crust softer.

Enjoy!

She once found a book of romance

With two boys who fell in lust at first glance

Their journey to love

Defeated all else above

She was glad she gave the

Story a chance.

 

Saorstat Eireann

The coinage that came about during the newly founded Irish Free State is beautiful. When my grandmother passed, I was given an old Irish penny she had turned into a necklace. Being someone who loves research, and has always had a peculiar interest in coins, I read up about them. The coin committee decided the national symbol would be the Irish harp, and the reverse would feature animals important to their agricultural economy. An artist by the name of Percy Metcalf won the contest for submitted designs, and his art on the first set of coinage in the 1920’s would be known as the ‘Barnyard Set.’ The penny’s reverse is a hen with her chicks. I like to believe it brings me luck now and then. You can find many of the animals used, such as the bull, salmon, and pig, in Irish mythology, representing strength, wisdom, even fertility.

-

St Patrick’s Day here in Australia usually consists of everyone wearing green, claiming Irish heritage ―even if they have none―eating green-dyed food, and drinking the Blarney Stone’s weight in green beer.

It rarely ends sober, but there’s a lot of fun to be had.

Finding a good ol’ Irish pub in Australia isn’t exactly difficult. And there’s always good ol’ Irish food on the menu. I am (roughly) a sixth generation Australian. We’ve been here since convict times, but we came here from Ireland. (My maiden/family name is very Irish.) One of my husband’s favourites is Beef & Guinness Pie. (Shhh, don’t tell him. I haven’t made it for him in ages lol)

I actually learned how to cook this from a French chef in Sydney, but have since found a similar, somewhat amended version online years ago. So as my tribute to St Patrick’s Day, I thought I’d share a tried and tested recipe.

BEEF & GUINNESS PIE

Ingredients

 2 kg diced chuck steak

 2 sliced onions

200gm sliced mushrooms

 2 crushed cloves garlic

 1 tablespoon oil

 2/3 cup plain flour

 400ml Guinness

 2 cups Beef Stock

 Ready-rolled puff pastry

 1 beaten egg (pastry egg wash)

1. Brown 2kg diced chuck steak in hot oil. Set aside. Cook sliced onion, mushrooms, and crushed clove of garlic in 1 tablespoon oil until golden. Sprinkle in 2/3 cup plain flour and cook for 1 min.

2. Return meat and juices to pan, add 400ml Guinness and 2 cups beef stock. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat, simmer for 2 hours until tender and sauce has thickened.

3. Preheat oven to 200°C. Spoon beef mixture into eight 250ml ovenproof ramekins. Cut out eight circles of ready-rolled puff pastry to cover. Press firmly onto dishes and seal. Brush with 1 beaten egg, place on a tray and bake for 25 minutes until golden.

NB: You can add diced potatoes, carrots and peas at Step 2 as well.

So there you have it. My Irish Beef & Guinness pie. It’s a comfort food, and perfect on a cold Sunday afternoon in front of the footy.

 GIVEAWAY

It will end  March 24th... REMEMBER to check your spam. You'll have 48 hours to respond

if after 48 hours we do not hear from you it will go to the next random winner.

Thank you and HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

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