These are the perfect chocolate cookies, made only better by the molten chocolate mint candies that nest in the center of them. I am so glad that a friend recommended this recipe to me. You can tell just by reading it that it is a true retro recipe!

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day, dear readers! As I may have mentioned before, I come from a very strong Irish bloodline, and March 17th is a day to celebrate. Tonight we celebrated our Irish heritage a few days early with wonderful friends and delicious food. I was in charge of the soda bread. I found a great recipe in a book I found recently at a book fair. It was a major crowd pleaser and an excellent accompaniment to our corned beef and cabbage!

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As I’ve mentioned a few times now, I have a mostly Irish heritage. So today is a fun and festive day in my family when we celebrate with food and friends! Here is what I put in my crock pot this morning. As opposed to a London Broil, I like to call this a Dublin Boil.

Here is what my crock pot probably looks like right now, bubbling away in my kitchen:

I can’t wait to get home and enjoy this overflowing, bountiful Irish feast!

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I have been cozying up to my crock pot a lot lately – it’s just so nice to be able to throw stuff in there and have it come together perfectly with barely any work at all. And I’d read that you can actually make oatmeal in a crock pot by fixing it the night before and setting it on low overnight. I love oatmeal and eat it almost every morning, especially during the colder winter months. I enjoy the Irish-style steel-cut oats the most, but they take so long to cook that I rarely make make time for them in my morning routine. So I decided to try cooking them in the crock pot overnight to see if I could make it work – and it did!!
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My brothers and I calculated it once, and I think we came up with the figure of 85% – we’re 85% Irish. My maiden name has an apostrophe in it, and the only bad part about being married is that I miss my apostrophe. 😉

I like to put together a special Irish menu every St. Patrick’s Day, and a couple of years ago I was inspired to try to re-create the amazing bowl of Guinness Beef Stew that I enjoyed one night in a pub in Dingle, on the west coast of Ireland, when I was studying abroad there. Now it’s become one of my favorite slow-cooker recipes!

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