Burns Night

Burns Night Dinner

Every family has traditions. Even if it's just the regular ones that everyone celebrates - Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween and Easter. We want to make things fun and memorable by trying to create the "perfect" experience like we see in movies or remake the fond memories we had when we were young.

As time goes by it's harder to recreate them. Grandparents pass, children grow, things are never the same and they never will be again. We try and are disappointed by the results. We must remember that. To LIVE in the moment, not the past. Make new memories not just try to relive the old ones. Because every new memory will be an old one one day.

As my children grow they are not as interested or excited about the little things anymore. Like the Easter bunny leaving a basket to find or the egg hunt they loved when they were little. It is really hard for me to accept this. I want them to stay little, I want to hide eggs and help them find them. I want to see the excitement on their little faces..

So, I have to come up with new things that suit older children ( they are 12 and 14) and hopefully grow with them and they will want to carry them onto their children.* I have another post about Easter and growing children in the works.

 Being a Burns and of Scottish descent I wanted an interesting way to celebrate and start a new tradition with the kids. It is actually an old tradition but a new one for us. Burns Night Dinner.

 Robert Burns was a well known Scottish poet in the 1700's.  I won't tell his whole life story you can read it here or here. He was liked by many and they wanted a way to remember him. So his friends started having a dinner on the anniversary of his death the following year which was later changed to his birth date Jan 25. 

So for the past few years I have been making a faux "traditional" dinner. The reason it is not exactly the same is because for one I do not like the taste of Haggis :P  so I make my version of it using ground beef and a mix of spices.

 Part 1 (2015 dinner)

The first year I made "haggis" neeps and tatties, bacon wrapped asparagus and Parmesan -garlic carrots a cheese tray and brownies with vanilla ice cream and strawberries. 

I stacked the neeps and tatties on the haggis to make a tower, 

We had a cheese tray with sharp cheddars, pepper cheese and Irish Guinness cheese 

and a bottle of Drumguish Whiskey.

For a sweet treat we had brownies with vanilla ice cream and strawberries and more chocolate of course :)

We did part of the traditional dinner but tried to just enjoy making memories the rest of the time. Hopefully every year we can add more to it!

Part 2 (2016 dinner)

This year I wanted to try something a little different. Last year we had "Haggis" and it was good but there are other yummy Scottish foods to try.

So I chose a menu of Scotch Eggs, neeps and tatties.

Scotch Eggs

Scotch eggs are boiled eggs wrapped in sausage then fried and baked

They are delicious!

Neeps

Neeps are turnips peeled, boiled and mashed with butter and pepper

Tatties

Tatties are potatoes boiled and mashed with butter and spices. I added green onion

We had McClellands Highland whiskey 

and some sparkling juice for the kids.

We also went to a Burns Dinner hosted by the local Celtic society. They did an informal- formal dinner. This was their first and hopefully will improve each year as well.

Happy Robert Burns Night 

(January 25)

Friggle Fraggle