Featured on The Party Wagon! Our Irish Step Dancing Party

I'm honored to say that our latest party was featured on The Party Wagon today!

This one is really special to me.  I've been an Irish step dancer since I was a little kid, my daughter is one now.  And my Kirsten friend passed an extremely rigorous exam to become a certified Irish step dancing instructor.  I only had three days to throw this party together, but it was an accomplishment I couldn't let pass without a celebration!  Check out the post on The Party Wagon today, and come back here for all the details tomorrow--just in time for St. Patrick's Day!

Recipe: How to Make Irish Soda Bread

I only make Irish soda bread once a year.  Not because it's difficult--it really isn't.  But because it's so darn easy and delicious that I'd do nothing but sit at the table, eating slice after slice of the bread (preferably warm out of the oven), slathered in butter and honey.

In honor of St. Patrick's day coming up, and in advance of showing you a fun and special party I threw together on Saturday, I wanted to share my family's favorite Irish soda bread recipe.

Irish Soda Bread

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/4 cup (that's the same as a half a stick, or 4 Tablespoons) butter
• 1 egg
• 1 3/4 cup buttermilk

1)  Preheat oven to 375.

2)  In a large bowl, stir together all dry ingredients.  Cut in cold butter with a pastry cutter or two knives, until the chunks of butter are pea-sized.

3) Add to the dry ingredients the buttermilk and one beaten egg.

Let me interrupt this recipe now to show you one of my favorite kitchen tools, an egg beater:

Basically, you just push the coil down a bunch of times (squishy squishy squish!), and in just a few seconds, you have a perfectly beaten, frothy egg.  It's way faster and more comprehensive than using a whisk or a fork.

I don't know how easy these things are to find these days, unfortunately.  I had a friend, an accomplished baker herself, come over while I was using my egg beater and exclaim, "Oh that's what it's for!  I've seen it in my mom's kitchen, and I always thought it was a really crappy whisk!"  It does make a pretty pathetic whisk, but it's awesome at what it's intended to do.  And fun.  I can't emphasize the sheer enjoyment of the boingy, squishy action of beating an egg with this tool enough.  If you ever see one in a resale shop, pick it up.  It's worth it.

Back to the recipe.

4)  Stir the wet and dry ingredients together until blended.  Place the dough on a floured surface, and knead until smooth, about two or three minutes.

Note:  remember to take your rings off before this step.

5) Divide dough in two parts and shape into smooth, round loves.  Put each round of dough in its own greased 8" pie or cake pan, and press down until the dough fills the pan.   Use a floured, sharp knife to cut a cross in the top of each loaf.  Each cut should be about a half inch deep.

6) Bake 35-40 minutes at 375, until the bread is a light golden brown color.

This stuff is seriously delicious, especially straight out of the oven, warm, with butter and honey.

And for what it's worth, the recipe is pretty forgiving, too.  I forgot to add the butter the last time I made the bread.  It was still darn good!  It works fabulously with egg beaters instead of real eggs, and milk curdled with lemon juice instead of buttermilk.  Of course, I recommend the recipe as written for the very best product.

Is it authentic?  Perhaps not the most authentic recipe out there.  But it's seriously delicious.  Tom Bracken, head of the Bracken School of Irish Dancing, an actual Irish man, gave the bread rave reviews yesterday, and said it was the best Irish soda bread he's had in this country.  Until I can get to Ireland and do an exhaustive search for the best Irish soda bread out there (I'm ready and willing, if anyone wants to sponsor this effort, by the way), this recipe is good enough for me.

A Tradewind Tiaras Silk Tulle Veil on Style Me Pretty!

I just stumbled on one of our silk tulle veils on a spectacular post on Style Me Pretty on Tuesday!

Check out the absolutely amazing wedding, the incredible photography by We Heart Photography, and of course, our absolutely stunning bride, Kimberly.  Oh yeah, and the silk tulle veil.  ;-)

New Product: Children's Party Hats!

Remember the tutorial for how to make children's fabric covered party hats from last May?

Did you know that if you're not feeling particularly crafty, I'm happy to make them for you?  Check out our Etsy shop!

I just added three new styles to the collection.

Cute styles for boys are in the works, too!

Kitchen Renovation: Solution for Dark Cabinet Interiors

When I first bought our cabinets from Cabinets to Go, at first I thought, "oh how lovely, the cabinets are so nicely finished inside as well as out!"  And then I put the first cabinet on the wall.

When the light spills in from that window over the sink, you open the cabinet with the dark interior finish, and it's a dark cave of mystery.  I don't want to wait for my eyes to adjust to the lower light just to be able to find a cup.  I also don't want to paint the insides of my nice new cabinets.

Enter Ikea's Dioder battery operated drawer lights:

I wondered if these could be re-purposed for cabinets as well.  I'm happy to report that they work brilliantly!

They automatically turn on for 15 seconds when you open the cabinet door, and turn off five seconds after closing the door.  The only problem now is that you can totally see all the awful spots all over my glasses while I've been doing my dishes in the bathroom sink.  ;-)

Kitchen Renovation: An Improvised Cutting Board Holder

I saw a cutting board holder from Rev-a-Shelf online, and thought it was a brilliant idea!  The only problem was that it came with a cutting board.  I have plenty of those already.

I also had scraps.  Perfectly stained-to-match wooden scraps left over from when my father created our double oven cabinet (out of half a 30" base cabinet turned upside down, two fridge panels, and a 18" tall wall cabinet).

It looks perfect, doesn't it?  If you can see it past all the construction mess.  My father is such an incredible wood-worker!

I, on the other hand, am a woodworking dilettante.  I know just enough to think I can do far more than I really can.

This project turned out to be within my capabilities, however.  A few scraps, a few screws, and a few L brackets from the garage, and I made myself my very own vertical behind-the-door cutting board holder!

Man, these little things make me so happy.  When I eventually get vertical pan storage, you will see glee.  Unmitigated glee.

Kitchen Renovation: Refinish That Old Table!

When we moved into our current house about four and a half years ago, we bought a new kitchen table off Craigslist.  The chairs were great (aside from the upholstery, which I finally fixed in the last post), but the finish on the top of the table wasn't in the best shape.  Still, it was solid wood, the perfect size and shape for our new kitchen, and a great deal.

The years between purchase of the table and now haven't been kind to the table.  Years full of craft projects and kids, and kids with craft projects.

I never took particularly good care of the surface, because I always intended to refinish it.  Someday.

With the whole kitchen getting a makeover, this felt like the right time to do it!  We're just waiting for the granite to get installed at this point, so I had a bit of a lull in projects, and decided it was time to tackle the table.

The first step was to fill in those awful grooves.  I liked the look when we bought the table, but I quickly realized that they were beast to clean.  They capture every crumb and glimmer of glitter.  They make it impossible for my daughter to do her homework on the table without placing a book beneath her paper.

First, I had to clean out those nasty channels.

TSP and a green scrubby and elbow grease got the job done.

Next, it was time to fill in the grooves.

Sandable, stainable wood putty turned out to be an easy, inexpensive solution.

Once the putty was dry, it was time to sand off the old finish.

Coarse sandpaper made pretty quick work of this step, and fine sandpaper at the end made the surface fabulously smooth and ready for staining.

I used some stain we had left over from the pergola we built in May, and the deep espresso color worked perfectly with the rest of our decor.

You can still see the where the grooves were, but it's nice and smooth, and so much better!  Since I already had the stain, the only cost for this project was the $3.67 for the wood putty.

Ready for more years of service!