Idea Alley

IDEA ALLEY: Irish Soda Bread from County Cork

Recipes that appear in Idea Alley have not been tested by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

St. Patrick's Day is Saturday, so it's fitting to publish this recipe from Emily Ruth Harper Watson.

Watson included the following introduction:

"Several years ago a young man from Connecticut came to Pine Bluff just to check us out. He had been on his way to Florida to get out of the cold weather. He never made it to Florida because he liked Pine Bluff and felt at home here.

"His grandmother was from County Cork, Ireland. He passed his recipe for Irish soda bread on to me a long time ago. It is way too good to be lost when we pass on. It is easy and I think others will enjoy it too."

Bob McCusker's Grandmother's Irish Soda Bread

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons caraway seeds

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter

2 cups raisins

1 1/3 cups buttermilk

1 egg

1 teaspoon baking soda

Into a large bowl, sift flour, salt, sugar and baking powder. Stir in caraway seeds. Cut in butter; stir in raisins.

In a separate bowl, beat buttermilk, egg and baking soda. Stir into flour mixture until moistened. Turn onto a floured surface and knead until soft.

Grease a loaf pan (an iron skillet or sheet pan can also be used) and place dough in pan. Cut a large "X" 1/4-inch deep into top of loaf. Bake at 375 degrees for 50 minutes; cover foil and bake 10 minutes more. If loaf is not as brown as you'd like, bake 10 minutes more. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn onto a wire rack to cool. Good warm or at room temperature. Keeps well.

...

And as promised, here are some recipe organization ideas.

Weston Lewey: [I use] an app called Paprika Recipe Manager 3. It is a paid app but not expensive and worth every penny. I keep all my recipes on here now. It's easy to grab new ones from the internet and exchange them with others who also have the app. You can back up to a hard drive or keep it in the cloud if you wish. I really like it if I am at the grocery store and need to check ingredients; it's all right there on my iPhone! Also handy at the lake or when traveling if you decide you'd like to cook!

Meredith Moll also uses Paprika. "You can save recipes automatically from websites and categorize them however you like. I love it because it doesn't come pre-loaded with a bunch of recipes you don't like or need, it is only your collection that you add over time. Obviously this doesn't help with recipes torn from magazines, etc, but if it is from a recent publication I will just Google the recipe, save it to Paprika and then throw away the paper copy. There is also a meal planning aspect to it that I don't use very frequently."

LJ Eberle: I have put mine in file folders, labeled meat, desserts, salads, bread, vegetables, etc. The file folders are put in notebooks, the kind with stiff sides to hold the file folders up. If you don't the folders will fall over. If I want a dessert all I have to do is pull out the dessert folder and find the recipe I want, or a bread recipe go to the bread folder. This has worked fine for me. Also I have one for hints.

Marilyn Goldsmith suggests using a computer recipe program that lets you create your own cookbook. "I enter my recipes, short-cutting instructions for my own cooking style. I also make a category labeled 'Try This Soon' for recipes I'm unsure about. The programs allow you to make lots of notes, such as substitutions you can make, wine that goes with the dish, 'my husband's favorite,' served to Jan and Mike in July 2017. I even include recipes that were failures or not worth the effort, making notes of why they were unacceptable."

JoNell Caldwell uses a diary-type book called Cookbook Organizer. It has ruled pages with columns for the recipe name, the cookbook it appears in and the page number. "I have been consistent in recording each successful recipe. For loose recipes I place them in a named binder (I'm on my third binder) organized by categories. ... Consistency is the key. The Cookbook Organizer makes menu planning and grocery lists so much easier. So many great recipes can easily be forgotten and my children love when I make a recipe they remember fondly from their childhood."

Dorothy Nigro uses photo albums for 4-by-6-inch photos -- "just the size of a large recipe card. This has worked so well as I can clearly see the recipes as I thumb through the albums which I organized into categories -- breakfast, salads, cookies, holiday recipes, etc."

Send recipe contributions, requests and culinary questions to Kelly Brant, Idea Alley, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, P.O. Box 2221, Little Rock, Ark. 72203; email:

kbrant@arkansasonline.com

Please include a daytime phone number.

Food on 03/14/2018

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