When you think of St Patrick's Day food, a corned beef and cabbage meal comes to mind.  Unfortunately I just don't care for the taste of brined beef. Perhaps this is because it is disgusting, I don't know. If I'm eating Irish, I much prefer the pub favorite bangers and mash. Yesterday I experimented with the traditional version, giving it a little California love, making it more green (there's a secret ingredient), and a wee bit healthier. All of the components come from Trader Joes and the whole meal took under 30 minutes to prepare, making it easy breezy for next Monday night.     

California has been rain-starved this winter, something that has everyone feeling a little uneasy, especially the surrounding farming community up here in Sonoma County. As the skies finally opened up for what looks like a week long storm (sigh of relief) our family took to the outdoors to celebrate with a good old fashioned rain walk. Our destination was the park for some worm hunting, mud football and Olympic style rain luge down playground slides. We got very wet.  After the boys took a hot bubble bath and watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (now that's a crazy movie), we sat down for an early dinner of chicken and dumplings. This is a healthy, French inspired version of the dish; a perfect comfort food for a day like this. I've put together the recipe below. Here's hoping for another week of swinging in the rain...