happy st. patrick's day!

our little leprechaun - 2014

Were you an honorary Irishman in celebration of St. Patrick's Day yesterday?  Our family actually has some Irish in it (both on Eric's mom's and my mom's side) so we don't have to pretend for the day like many people do.  But if you are among those who pretend in order to partake in the day's festivities, that's okay, too!

Eric set up the crock pot first thing in the morning for our corned beef and cabbage dinner.  This was our third year making this meal for St. Patrick's Day and we love it so much that we're making a second batch tonight!  (Also because the recipe we use calls for only a 1/2 head of cabbage; what else would we do with the other half?)

St. Patrick's Day 2012

My dad was over to eat with us and we made Irish coffee to go with dinner.  Simon loved the corned beef and surprisingly ate the cabbage, too.  We had a lovely (and delicious) Irish evening at home!

Check out the recipe for Slow-Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage here.
You can also find it pinned on my Pinterest profile here.

classic butternut squash soup

Something amazing just recently happened in our house: we actually made a meal out of one of my belly picture vegetables rather than allowing it to go to waste!

I'll admit: I've been horrible and lazy.  The acorn squash, the rutabaga, most of the head of lettuce, and about maybe a 1/4 of the cucumber went into the trash.  Sure, plenty of the other fruits and veggies have been consumed over the course of the last 30 weeks, but I've tossed out more than I planned to.

Until... I bought the butternut squash.  I was determined to make soup out of this gourd, as I've been craving and desiring to make homemade soups for weeks.  Instead of buying the produce and telling myself I'd look for a recipe later, I pulled one up on my phone before entering the store and bought the squash AND all the other items needed for the recipe all at the same time!  GENIUS!  (I know; not really, but I'm pregnant and my mind is jello so give me a break.)

The recipe I found is from Whole Foods and Oh. My. Gosh. this soup came out incredibly delicious.  It was very easy to make and called for simple ingredients (Eric did most of it but I did help prep!).  We didn't bother with puréeing the soup at the end, and I actually really liked it soft and chunky.  Paired with whole wheat Italian bread and pan-fried veggies, it tasted fabulous and was healthy!

Classic Butternut Squash Soup