St. Patrick's Day or... St. Paddy's (;

Happy St. Paddy’s Day!

St. Patrick’s Day or St. Paddy’s is one of my favorite holidays because… I have a serious infatuation with all things Irish. No, I’m not talking leprechauns and rainbows but I am talking about the color green, shepherd’s pie, Irish soda bread, THEIR ACCENT, Niall Horan <3, Ed Sheeran, and in general the Irish are just fun loving people like me! Needless to say, I feel like Ireland is going to be my home one day, or maybe for the rest of my life. (: haha.

I wanted to share the few things I made this year because they're cute! I threw a mini St. paddy's after school lunch for my siblings and it was the crackin' haha. Since I don't own any Irish movies besides "The Town," "Tristan and Isolde," and "The Boondock Saints," (all which are non-working for kids under 17) I decided that since Hobbits are small (like leprechauns), the movies are very "green" and remind me of Ireland we had a "The Hobbit" marathon and ate all of our green and Irish foods. I'm probably more excited than the kids! Haha.

I made some rainbow ice cubes to add to our Lemon flavored Water.

And I made a Clover Garland. Super Cute!

First cut paper into 1.5 inch strips.

Fold the strip in half and then make two tabs on each half.

Fold back the ends and glue them to the center of the strip of paper.

make two and stick them together back to back.

annnd... you have a sort-of clover! Haha.

I also made an actual clover. 

First, you'll fold the strip in half and fold each half in half.

Staple each half like I did in the above picture and make tabs on each half.

Fold back and glue the tabs to the center of the paper.

This will give you a clover!

Lastly, I made a bigger clover... I'm sure you'll like this one.

Fold a strip in half, staple the half and make tabs on the ends.

Fold back and glue the tabs to the walls of the heart.

And there you have a clover, make sure to cut small strips of scratch paper to make the stem.

This is the final project! I ended up just folding some tape together and putting it behind the end strips so I didn't have to use the ugly white tape.

I made some Shepherd's pie... yum! I know it's a peasant dish so you can pretty much add anything you want but definitely make sure you have the basics! Since I am not Irish (I'm pretty sure I am a wee bit on me da's side but I can't be 100% sure since I haven't done his genealogy yet) I didn't have an actual family recipe to follow so I pinned one! I didn't follow the recipe completely but I'll tell you what I used.

My Recipe:

Mashed Spuds:

5-6 medium Potatoes

1/2 cup Milk

1 tbsp. Butter

1 T. Sour Cream

Salt + Pepper

Meat:

1 Lb. Ground Beef

1 medium Onion

2 cloves of Garlic

Salt + Pepper

3 Carrots 

OR (1 handful of mini carrots sliced)

1 can of Corn

1/2 cup of Frozen Peas

1 8 oz can of Chicken Broth

1 T. Flour

you may add chipotle or cayenne pepper to make it hot if you're into that (;

Boil peeled potatoes until tender (about 15 min) mash them and add in milk, butter, sour cream, salt and pepper.

In a skillet, brown up the meat, add in salt and pepper. Once meat is browned add in onion and let sweat out, follow with garlic and stir for about a minute. Once the meat, onion and garlic are ready add in the carrots, stir around for a few minutes and add in the flour, once that is completely cooked out and begins to thicken add the chicken broth. Stir until there is a gravy formed. Add in the peas and corn and dump into a baking dish. Top with potatoes and put in oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown potatoes.

I didn’t have time to make cookies but I did have time to thaw out some Toll House cookie dough. I actually drizzled in ¼ Tsp. of peppermint extract, chocolate chips and about 10-15 drops of food coloring and made some super delicious GREEN COOKIES! I took some to my friend’s house and she devoured them… of course at the time she was VERY pregnant and loves peppermint almost as much as me.

Jared busted out his big boy muscles to mix the cookie dough.

Very green cookies!

I made this Ombre cake last year and it turned out so good I was happy with it!

Lastly, I printed some Printables to use around the house. these are the two I used.

Printable # 1

Printable # 2

It was a success and very delicious. I hope next year I prepare better and have time to have a bigger party!


Thanks for reading guys!

XOXO.