Merciful God, You are great in compassion and Your tenderness for us is without measure. We ask You to give us today our daily bread, and also provide for the needs of all of Your hungry children around the world. Through Christ Your Son and Our Lord. Amen.

Monday, March 19, 2012

St. Paddy's Day treats





It's been awhile since I posted. My sincere apologies. Dinners have been bare bones around here, by and large, which is good timing for Lent even if it wasn't intentional. I did manage to muster the fortitude to party on St. Patrick's Day and my kids (and husband and mother) were most appreciative.

We enjoyed Jessica's Guinness Stew which never fails to please, served over a pile of buttery mashed potatoes. Yum. And, of course, Soda Bread.

We also enjoyed a silly St. Paddy's Day fruit salad, which, fortunately was nutritious and tasty as well as silly. I thought I had accounted for all my colors in the rainbow, but when assembling realized I missed violet. Oh well.





Red: strawberries
Orange: orange slices
Yellow: bananas
Green: kiwi
Blue: blueberries
Indigo: blackberries

The pots of gold are rolos and the clouds are marshmallows (or the marshmallows are clouds, in case ya didn't get that).




We also enjoyed some Leprechaun Bait. I saw it on Pinterest as Bunny Bait and if you google Bunny Bait you'll see a hundred recipes so I'll not link, not knowing the "original."



This is a flexible recipe and you could make it with lots of ingredients or just a few. I used popcorn, crispix cereal and pretzel M&Ms -- just the green and orange -- Ireland's flag colors, and vanilla candy coating. I have to say the popcorn got rather soggy so I don't know if I used too much vanilla coating or the popcorn is supposed to get soft, but I didn't like it and would use something different next time -- maybe plain Bugles, or corn chex and pretzels. You could add nuts if your people like nuts and colored sprinkles if you can find the right colors. I could not find just green sprinkles at the grocer. For Bunny bait you can use pastel M&Ms and pastel sprinkles -- cute, cute. And for Elf Bait, you can use Christmas M&Ms and Turkey Bait -- fall M&Ms. You get the idea -- a multi-holiday treat.

If you serve it, be certain to tell your family that it's sweet. Both my mother and husband grabbed a handful and thought it was salty popcorn which resulted in some strange facial expressions.


My mom also brought over some Shamrock Shortbread cookies. I don't have a recipe, but if you want it, I'll get it. Just ask.

2 comments:

Jenn King said...

Thanks for the link to the stew recipe....that looks amazing. We'll be trying that one soon. The rainbow is fun! Shortbread is my favorite cookie and turning shortbread into shamrocks is even better!

Barb Szyszkiewicz said...

I love the cute fruit salad rainbow (Rolos, great touch!)