handmade hobbyist: cook + create: shepherd's pie and paint

St. Patrick's Day was a workday though also a Friday, but not to be followed by an evening of imbibing. I wore my green sláinte t-shirt and had baked a Guinness stout chocolate cake with Bailey's Irish Cream in the cream cheese frosting. I had tried to get all fancy and pipe the frosting on top, but the liqueur and vanilla extract plus extra cream cheese and not enough powdered sugar made the frosting not stiff enough for the rosettes to be upright and perky. No matter, I gave Cecilia the mini chocolate cake and slathered the bigger cake with not enough frosting. The King Arthur's recipe called for 4 cups of flour, and holy moly that is a lot of cake.

And I knew our 3-year-old neighbor was gonna come by, and so I took out the shamrock-shaped ravioli to defrost for boys night dinner while I swam. I considered possibly making the vodka sauce, but no time for that if I was to get exercise in.

I almost drank just stout for dinner with said toddler's parents who were visiting, but there were 5 ravioli left which I quickly sauced with heavy whipping cream and basil pesto.

And Saturday was the Paddy's Potato Bar and Publick House party at the clubhouse, but I was needing to carve out time to paint 2D assignments. I had sketched on to Bristol board another letter to illuminate. I didn't think the letter H was obvious in this sketch of a house, and so I added text. But then that defeats the purpose of the assignment on the nature of the assignment, which is the illiteracy of the reader.

And so I erased it and drew a tree.

But I've yet again changed my mind and will inscribe text right next to the not-so-obvious H and below the picture with the start of a paragraph: "o u s e s
built today emphasize clean lines, simple geometric shapes, and intentional asymmetry. Modern homes eschew arches, ornate columns, window shutters, superfluous decoration, and instead emphasize function over frill, strong horizontal and vertical elements as well as sharp and subtle contrasts with their natural surroundings." I'm perhaps going to use some kind of waterproof and permanent ink pen to write the text.

I had to skip swimming in order to finish the dish for the St. Patrick's Day party. The evening before I had chopped onions, carrots, celery, turnips, and leeks and also took out what was left of the bacon, the 2 pounds of thawed ground lamb, 2 large Russet and 2 Yukon Gold potatoes. But cooking that shepherd's pie turned into a few hours.

I sautéed the chopped bacon and then tossed in ALL the chopped onion, at least 2 and 1/2 cups.

And once the onions were softened after 5 minutes, I put in the rest of the chopped vegetables and then immediately the ground lamb, breaking it up with my hands into smaller bites.

As I was browning the lamb, I almost forgot about the roux and brought out the butter, stout and a couple tablespoons of flour.

Butter is my not-so-secret ingredient. And then remembered I needed to add herbs and spice. Since there was celery, I brought out Old Bay for a bit more seasoning as well as bay leaves.

I also stepped out into the garden to snip rosemary and thyme. There was a lot of water to steam out of the meat and vegetables and let the flavors concentrate.

I would taste and sprinkle salt, but I also added a chicken bouillon cube.

And then the flour and then the stout as the mixture started to brown and form a fond on the bottom of the pot.

And then you just let the ingredients simmer and flavors develop.

I had also peeled potatoes and boiled them until tender, which usually takes 15 minutes.

Before mashing potatoes, I heated the cream and butter and decided to add cabbage too--making a colcannon to top the lamb stew.

Into the hot cream and melted butter, I added the chopped leeks and chopped cabbage and let it all simmer about 5 minutes until ricing the potatoes into the hot mixture.

And then you just mix and salt and taste and maybe add milk until you end up with perfectly seasoned creamy mashed potatoes.

I had already spooned the Irish stew into casserole dishes.

And next I layered the mashed potatoes and uses a fork to create runnels and hashtags atop.

Meral came to our St. Patrick's Day celebration and afterward I followed her to the ceramics studio to sieve the glazes. While waiting for her to mix the glazes, I underglazed this mug.