with a little bit of Irish luck

Thursday was St Patricks Day and with a bit of luck, I pulled off a "green dinner" by the seat of my pants. I had every intention of making an Irish dinner that would knock the socks off of a kilt wearing, Guinness drinking, golf playing, Irishman but didn't get to the grocery store due to a meltdown or two of the little ones.  When the raccoons were finally in bed, I scoured my house for anything that would taste Irish, look Irish, or sound Irish.  I dove into my pantry and linen closet to find green linens (a wedding gift-never used until now), natural food coloring for the beer and milk, and visited Epicurious.com for an Irish themed recipe that had only ingredients that were in my kitchen

 Since Grace turned 3, she has acquired the skill of expecting holidays, asking about them, and partaking in each and every tradition.  She loves to decorate the house, make appropriate holiday cookies, read "holiday" themed books, and construct art associated with that particular day.  Ok, ok, ok.....I love to do all of this!! Isn't this why you have kids?  To express your inner child-like excitement and euphoria for an Irish holiday, a Spanish holiday, a "hallmark" holiday.  You name it, we celebrate it. 

The kids learned of leprechauns, made St Patricks Day cards with shamrocks, wore green, pinched those that didn't (the best part of the day according to Grace), helped make a green dinner, and Grace even found a gold chocolate coin that a leprechaun hid at her school.  You would think the green milk and green whipped cream would score high on the toddler radar screen.  Nope.  They both thought it was weird and asked for "normal" milk.  Go figure.

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Menu

sage cheddar cheese

kale chips

cabbage potato bundles

Irish soda bread

green milk

green beer

vanilla ice cream with shamrock whipped cream

 Irish soda bread

 "shamrock" milk

Graham quickly avoided a pinch by jumping in his green jumper.