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Irish baker's recipes bring smiles to three generations

Those who have been faithfully reading the Cook of the Week feature for 40-odd years may recognize Bridget McGuinness.

Known then to please her family with meals filled with Irish specialties, she first was a featured Cook of the Week four decades ago. Now 78 and living in Elgin, Bridget continues cooking the Irish dishes her mom once prepared and sharing that food with her own family and members of her church.

Bridget grew up in Ireland eating boiled bacon — a taste she compares to ham — lamb, cabbage, turnips and homemade breads. She vividly recalls of her mother's lamb stew.

“Lamb stew was called Irish penicillin,” she said. “This stew would cure whatever ailed you.”

Bridget moved to Chicago when she was 17 and later married John, to whom she was married for 45 years. Macaroni and cheese and peanut butter showed up often on the table for her seven children during their early years.

Feeding a group that now includes 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, Bridget returns to treasured recipes for family gatherings.

“My happiest days are in the kitchen,” she said.

Bridget also shares her love of cooking with her church, St. Thomas More in Elgin. She joins a group of women who take turns making dinner for the priests and adds they look forward to her corned beef and cabbage and other Irish fare.

“We make dinner and have it at their house by 5:30 on that one day. I love doing that,” she said. “I usually make more than they need, of course.”

But what Bridget enjoys most is baking, whether it be birthday cakes for the children or the treats she recalls eating back in Ireland.

“It takes me back every time I make them. It takes me back to being young again,” she said.

Her Irish soda bread leavens with buttermilk instead of yeast so it tastes sweeter; she makes it with either all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour.

“It is the bread we always had in Ireland and we grew up on,” she said. “I see Irish soda bread around St. Patrick's Day at different bakeries but it's not quite the same.”

But she adds this round loaf is quick to prepare and the dough can be shaped instead into Irish scones. One year for the St. Patrick's Day celebration at church, Bridget baked 350 scones so each guest could enjoy one.

“Maybe somebody will be able to keep up on it and keep it a tradition,” she said.

Bridget also shares with us her rhubarb custard bars and whole wheat flaxseed muffins, wholesome treats that everyone smiling.

Healthy Whole Wheat Flax ’n’ Apple Muffins

Rhubarb Custard Squares

Irish Soda Bread

  Bridget McGuinness of Elgin cuts the butter in as she prepares scones for St. Patrick's day. BRIAN HILL/bhill@dailyherald.com