Burns Night - Casa de Pena

One of the major holidays celebrated in Scotland is Burns Night, which falls on the 25th of January, every year. Here's a little video about Robert Burns, aka Rabbie, the famous poet and songwriter. 

For those of you that don't know, he wrote the oh so famous "Auld Lang Syne," which is typically associated with New Years.  This year, Burns Night,  happened to fall on a Friday, and since we didn't haven anything planned, we thought it would be fun to host a Burns Supper. 

Since I don't really know how to cook Scottish food, our friends from Wales, James and Tash, volunteered to come over and prepare the meal. Come to find out, it wasn't that hard, since you could just microwave the haggis and boil all the vegetables =P Okay, I admit, I was just lazy...hehe. Anyhow, they did a great job and the food came out delicious. Who said haggis was bad? I quite like it, especially with the whisky gravy I made from McCormick's brown gravy mix and Gerald's whisky...hehe. Along with the haggis, we had neeps (mashed turnips mixed with carrots) and tatties (mashed potatoes) to have the traditional Burns Supper meal: Haggis, Neeps, and Tatties =)  

Everyone enjoyed the meal, but of course, my picky husband had to grill some chicken wings to mess up the tradition. I guess he made up for it in the amount of whisky he drank with the boys. We didn't "address the haggis" or recite any poems, but I guess we'll continue on with the celebration this Friday when we attend the Chevron Burns Night dinner at the Ardoe House. We've gone the past 2 years and it's usually great fun, so hopefully this year will be the same. Gerald is excited to wear a kilt again, he loves that thing!