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Alicia back again with another Irish recipe for you. This will be my last recipe for Ireland. Next month we're moving on to French food! This has been a very fun experiment so far. I hope you get the chance to try something like this out sometime.

Today I'll be sharing a recipe for Cottage Pie.

You may be thinking that this Cottage Pie looks a lot like Shepherd's Pie. That's because they are essentially very similar. But one thing is very different between them. Shepherd's Pie has to use ground lamb or sheep meat! Never Beef! This makes sense if you think about how Shepherd's watched over sheep and not cows.

I didn't have ground lamb, however, so I decided to make Cottage Pie withe the ground beef I had i the freezer. And it was so tasty, we "accidentally" ate half the dish in one sitting, going back for thirds. Even my 6 month old daughter was digging it. She is so fascinated by food. Every time we would bring the fork to our mouths she would open her mouth. It was really cute. I ended up giving her some of the mashed potato topping, and she loved it!

Cottage Pie is layered. A delicious beef layer with veggies and gravy, and a topping of champ and cheese. 

Champ is mashed potatoes with diced green onions, lots of butter, and milk. They are mashed until they are really creamy smooth. You definitely don't want any lumps for this dish. So get those potatoes as smooth as you can. 

Because you want it layered, dollop small amounts of the champ on top of the beef mixture, and then gently smooth them together with a fork or spatula. You don't want any holes in the top.

The cheese I used was Kerrygold Dubliner cheese. It's an Irish cheese, and it tastes a bit like Gruyere only a bit sweeter. It's very tasty! 

Irish Cottage Pie

This is such an easy meal to make and pretty inexpensive. I hope you give it a go. Let us know how you like it!

This post contains affiliate links.  If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you.  All opinions expressed are our own.  Thank you for your support.

Hey Alicia again with another recipe from our culinary travels around the world. If you're new to 3 Winks, each month my family is picking a country from our heritage and making one meal a week from that country. So far we have done Germany, Ecuador, and Ireland. To see all the food I've made in this experiment so far, look through the slideshow below. If something looks delicious, clicking on the picture will take you to the post with the recipe. Enjoy!

This week I made Irish stew. I made it before St Patrick's Day actually because we were going out of town over the weekend. It was very delicious!

To make this Irish dish, I looked up a lot of recipes. They all varied in some ways, but all had one thing in common; you have to use lamb. It's not Irish stew if it doesn't use lamb. Lamb is a must for Irish stew. Never beef! In my area lamb isn't something they have in plenty year round. But now that Easter is coming the stores are stocking up. This could be a great dish to make with your leftover Easter lamb! (If that's what you eat on Easter).

Because this is meant to be a meal that feeds a crowd, it's very filling itself and doesn't really need any side bread etc. Every version of this stew I saw used slightly different vegetables. Some used turnips, rutabagas, and even beets! I used more traditional stew ingredients such as carrots, celery, onion, and, of course, potato. 

Some of recipes baked their stew in the oven for about 90 minutes. While others let theirs simmer for at least 3 days on the stove! I decided a few hours would be good for my stew and let it simmer (covered) for 3 hours. 

The leftovers were delicious! It reheats really well! Everyone in my family loves this stew. My husband was skeptical at first because he doesn't really like lamb. But as he was eating he kept telling me how good it was. He also was sad to find the leftovers were all gone. My 3 year old had 2 helpings of this stew! He almost never does that. So that will tell you something. He is also the culprit for eating the leftovers before Dad could get any.

Irish Stew

I hope you give this stew a go. It was really so delicious and perfect for the rainy weather we've been having in the Bay lately. I think I would really be enjoying it in the early spring snows I know are happening around the world now too!

Tomorrow I'll be sharing my last Irish recipe for Cottage Pie! Be sure to come check it out!

     When kids are on Spring Break, it is nice to have some activities handy to keep them engaged in life.  Since our Spring Break was this last week, I was ready and armed with simple activities for my grandchildren to do together.  They were thrilled! While these all have an Easter flair to them, I think that bunnies and cupcake baskets can actually be enjoyed all Spring, even after the Easter holiday. 

     This is one of those ideas that evolved because of 3 things.  First, I had some leftover almond bark in my double boiler. Then, I went to the store and found 2 things, store brand peanut butter sandwich cookies, (much cheaper than the name brand), and Annie's Organic Friends, which are little rabbit shaped grahams, on sale right now on Target. Finally, all I needed were some little jelly beans to make a bunny sitting on a nest.  I thought of this idea before all of the Easter candy was available, so we used Mike & Ikes. I just dipped half of the peanut butter cookie in the almond bark, stuck on the jelly beans and bunny before it hardened.  The kids loved them!  They enjoyed helping to stick on the jelly beans and bunnies.

     When I found these White Ding Dongs,  I thought, these will make cute baskets! So my grandkids and I picked up some coconut for the grass and Twizzlers for the handles and Robin's Eggs for the basket filling.  Here is how we did it:

     These may look like regular washcloth bunnies to you, but they have a little something extra.  

There is a little treat in the back! I thought that these would be a great little gift from the kids to their friends, or if you are the grandmother to nearly 10 grandchildren like I am, this is a fun way to give them each a little something without breaking the bank!  And, they are quick and easy to make. I found all of my supplies at Dollar Tree! 

I also used colorful wiggly eyes (here is a link to black ones),  and little plastic containers. 

     Here is how we put them together:
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I used little butterfly stickers on the lid of the container to look like a butterfly landed on the rabbits back. Dollar Tree has a wide assortment of stickers to choose from.

     I love making memories with my grandchildren.  We just had a scare in our family where we could have lost one of my sweet granddaughters.  It has brought home to me very clearly how precious every moment with these sweet kids are.  I hope that we can capitalize on these moments and have quality time together as often as possible.   

This post contains affiliate links.  If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you.  All opinions expressed are our own.  Thank you for your support.

     Living in the desert, we cherish every rainy day! We have been happy to get some rain lately in our area.  Alicia lives in the Bay Area in California, so she often gets a lot of rain.  The trouble with rainy days, when you have children, is figuring out how to keep them entertained during the storm and through the muddy times afterwards. Today's Friday Faves is featuring our favorite ways to have fun with kids during rainy days.  

     Because Alicia faces more rainy days than we do here in Phoenix, she likes to find ways to still allow her son to play outside without always being soaked to the skin, (like the kids were above) and also to play outside after the rain stops without getting muddy!  She has found a rain suit for him to wear that she absolutely loves.      

She loves this Tuffo Unisex Muddy Buddy Coverall that makes puddle jumping all kinds of fun! It has a generous fit so you can put it over the child's normal clothing and it comes with a handy little bag to store it in.  In this suit, Adriancito can go out right after a rainstorm and stay perfectly dry. He can even go down the slide and the little puddle at the bottom doesn't phase him.

It also comes in camo, pInk, red and yellow. It is very waterproof and has 4.5 stars on Amazon! 
And, don't forget the rain boots! LIttle Adrian has a cute pair on as you can see in the picture.  There are a ton of them available on Amazon! Here are some of our favorites, just click on the pictures to order them: 

   I almost wish that these were more useful in Phoenix! I love them.  Since some of my grandchildren are moving to Wyoming, so these might be good gifts for them! I can see them being very useful there.
And, I'm sure that Lindsey can hardly wait until her baby Emily is old enough for a pair, even though she lives in Phoenix, because they are so adorable and Lindsey loves to go out in the rain when it is coming down.  Bonus-kids can learn to put them on all by themselves! 

     Madalynn suggests that after being outside and getting wet and possibly chilled, the best thing to do on a rainy day is to snuggle up in a blanket and watch a movie with a cup of Hot Cocoa Bomb! I asked her what movie she would suggest and she decided that the Harry Potter Series would be perfect.  I think all 4 of us would agree with that! It makes me want to do that right now! 

Whenever I think of what to do on a rainy day, I think of reading! When my children were young, we used to watch Reading Rainbow and there was one of the first episodes that was about rainy days.  I always think of the book that was read on that show, Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain.
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It is a beautiful, rhythmic story with awesome artwork.  And guess what! All of the episodes of Reading Rainbow, season 1 are available on Amazon Prime for free! I am so excited to show these to my grandchildren! 

     I also love to listen to storms with my grandchildren and talk about what is happening.  My husband always likes to go out on the covered patio with the kids and watch the lightening storms.  Then, he opens all of the windows in the house and lets in the fresh, rain smelling air! Lindsey says that she loves to do the same thing.

     Here are a few other activities that are fun for rainy days:

• Bake Cookies! My DIL says that is when she likes to bake.  Eating those cookies while watching a movie or reading a book sounds awesome to me!  We have a lot of different recipes on the blog. Click here for the cookie category.
• Break out the Legos! Not that you need a rain storm to do this, but I found this great idea on Dollar Store Mom to make a Lego marble run.  It looks like so much fun.
• Build a fort with blankets and the furniture!  This used to keep my kids happy for hours! 
• Do a jigsaw puzzle together.  The Dollar Tree is a great resource for puzzles to fit all age levels.
• Teach your kids a skill like sewing or crocheting, painting or playing the piano, or any other talent you may have to pass on.
• Play board games! Our family loves them.  We have recommended some of our favorites here, here and here.

     April showers should be on their way soon! I hope that you will be enjoying them like we will! 
What do you like to do with your kids on rainy days?
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