Fit With Forester: Celebration of St. Patrick

It's warm and sunny out and the week of one of my favorite holidays so you can bet this week's column is going to have an Irish theme to it. I'm not sure that I have any Irish in me but I like to think that sometimes we can adopt cultural heritage. Of course it is great to know your own heritage but who says you can't find yourself identifying with a different one. Considering LSC is having a cultural fair right now I think it's the perfect time to embrace something new. All that aside, I'd like to say that although St. Patty's day is often celebrated with lots of drinking please don't be the typical fool who only celebrates because they get to drink themselves into oblivion. Enjoy your whiskey or beer (if you're of age) but also learn a little about what it is to be Irish and take part in one of their cultural traditions other than getting hammered.

Exercise of the Week:

Wood Choppers

Traditionally done with a medicine ball but if you don't have one you can fill a soda bottle with water and use it as your weight.

Stand with your feet hip width apart with the medicine ball held out in front of you at head height. Keeping your arms straight twist your torso to the right and sink into a squat bringing the medicine ball to the outside of your right mid-thigh. Come back to the starting position and repeat for the left side keeping your arms straight the entire time. 1 rep counts as doing both sides. Do 15 reps.

Recipe of the Week:

Crock Pot Irish Soda Bread

You will need the space to knead the dough but otherwise this is a really easy bread recipe.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 Cups All-Purpose White Flour

3 TBsp. Soft butter

1 tsp. Baking Powder

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 tsp. Salt

2 TBsp. Sugar

3/4 Cups Buttermilk

Crisco

Directions:

1.            Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda.

2.            Mix in butter with a pastry knife if you have one but a fork will work just fine. Mix until the dough is crumbly.

3.            Add in buttermilk slowly, about 1/4 cup at a time, until the dough moves towards the center of the bowl. You might not need all of it.

4.            Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and knead by hand for about one minute, until smooth.

5.            Shape dough into a round loaf about 6-8 inches in diameter.

6.            Place loaf into the bottom of your greased crock-pot. Cut an X about a half-inch deep across top of loaf.

7.            Cook on high for about 2 hrs. until golden brown.

This is a more traditional recipe that doesn't include raisins but if you wish to have bread that is more similar to what you will find in stores add in half a cup to a cup of raisins.

Activity of the Week:

Horseback Riding

Pony racing is an Irish celebratory tradition. There are plenty of stables around the area and with the weather as beautiful as it has been a trail ride could be a ton of fun, especially if you can organize a group of people to go. If you don't want to spend the money at a stable but still want to enjoy the tradition, get a group of people together and piggy-back races. See if you can reserve the gym or do it outside on one of the fields (caution this could get muddy). Form teams using two people, one being the horse and the other the jockey. The horses can either be standing or on all-fours. Line up the teams and make it race to the finish line.