Happy St. Patrick's Day

Guess I should give a nod to my Irish heritage here.d

A reader sent me this:

Erin go bragh.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, y'all!

I think my ancestors must have been from Southern Ireland. Can't put a nifty graphic up because I'm blogging behind enemy lines, but I wanted to wish everyone a happy one. St. Patrick: kicking snake ass so you don't have to. Go raise a few for the man.

Got a little St. Patrick's Day food porn for ya

Yeah, you thought St. Patrick's Day was all about trying to reduce the worldwide beer surplus. No! We got saint's day food porn, people. Today's special: shepherd's pie.

You start with some spuds. Get about 1-1/2 pounds of potatoes (your choice of variety, my recipe actually called for russets), peel them and quarter them. Put them in water, maybe a little salt, and boil them until tender:

Once those suckers are boiling, melt some butter, maybe a half stick, preferably in a cast iron skillet:

Now we're cookin'. Chop up a big onion, or two medium onions, like I did, and toss them into the skillet.

OK, you're looking good. Now, cut up some carrots -- maybe a pound, chop 'em up -- and toss them into the onions once they are starting to get translucent.

OK, while that stuff is cooking, you should take some green onions and chop up just the green part of the shoots. Plan on having another use for the white, onion part of the green onions. I leave that to your imagination:

So, the potatoes that you boiled earlier? Drain, toss in a little milk and the chopped green part of the green onions that you just cut up and mash the hell out of them until they look like this:

Now, we're multi-tasking. Take about a pound and a half of ground beef, preferably 93 percent fat free so you won't have to drain it, and brown it up. If you do it with the low-fat beef you can just toss it in with the onions and carrots, which is the preferred solution.

We're getting close. Once the beef is browned, throw in some vegetables. Your choice -- peas, corn, limas, whatever:

Add a half-cup of beef broth, simmer 10 minutes. Once that stuff is in and heated through, put the whole hot mess in a lightly greased casserole dish. Layer the mashed potatoes on top.

Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, and broil on high for about the last 5 minutes to toast the potato topping.

 If you don't think this is really fucking good, you did it wrong. Bon appetit and happy St. Patrick's Day.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Kind of like Cinco de Mayo in this country, St. Patrick's Day is mainly an excuse for people to drink heavily. I'm not trying to make that sound like a bad thing. In any event, go embarrass yourself with green beer and whatever else you plan to do to pretend you are Irish for a day.