Party: St. Patrick's Day

                                                         Kid's Party!

 

 At long last we can share with you our St. Patrick's Day Kids party!

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Happy St. Patrick's Day

You must be Irish, or just lucky, because we've got somethin' for you!

Last minute St. Patrick's printable cupcake toppers/stickers/your something GREEN and water bottle wrap.

Download the green stuff here.

Have a very safe and GREEN St. Patrick's Day!

Also, check out the St. Patrick's TEA HUGS, right here.

Linking to:

Cereal,Chocolate and Marshmallows Oh My!

What to do with... half a box of "almost" stale cereal, half a bag of miniature marshmallows and, some left over dipping chocolate?

This is what I came up with...

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St. Patrick's Day Dessert Ideas

Need a few St. Patrick's Day Dessert Ideas?

We found these easy dessert ideas for you to try over at familyfun.
Who doesn't love seeing a rainbow! Especially one you can eat! Check them out!
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Ice Cream Leprechauns

Let me just say...

I am SOOOO excited to share this one with you!

I know you want to make them!  So here is the tutorial!

Supplies Needed:

-  Vanilla Ice Cream (note, I used frozen yogurt.. I think regular ice cream would have been a better choice)

-  1 Pkg Green Candy Melts

-  Ice Cream Cones (I used the colored cones)

-  Black Decorating Frosting

-  Vanilla Frosting

-  Food Coloring, red and yellow

-  Gum, in the little rectangles, not sticks

-  Cocktail Cherries

-  Rainbow Decorating Sprinkles OR Mini Chocolate Chips (for eyes)

-  Cake Decorating Shamrocks (optional)

-  Toothpicks, broken in half

Directions:

Ok... so you have a choice.  You can go the easy, less messy, less work, less expensive route and simply use the green ice cream cones that you can buy at the store.  If you choose to do it this way, skip down to Step 4.

OR... you can use any color ice cream cone, melt your green candy melts, and make your little leprechaun hat green that way.  The choice is yours.  Here is the more messy, more work, more expensive, but super fun way!  Follow from Step 1 below, if you're up for it!

Step 1

Prepare your cones.  I found that it worked well to line a baking sheet with wax paper.  I placed my cones on top of a cooling rack set inside of the lined baking sheet.

Step 2

Melt your chocolate melts according to the package instructions.  I used an entire package of melts to cover 8 cones.  Be careful not to over cook your chocolate!

Step 3

Using a spoon, pour the melted chocolate over each cone, allowing it to drip down and cover the sides.

After pouring chocolate on the top of each, I found it helpful to pour chocolate around the perimeter, then fill in spots where needed.

Maker sure your cones are completely covered with chocolate, and allow them to set until the chocolate has hardened.

Step 4

Time to add a black band on your Leprechaun hats.  I would have used this tip if it had fit onto the frosting bottle.  This was not the case.  Ugh!  So, I had to resort to a Ziploc bag.

I squeezed a bunch of the frosting into a Ziploc bag, and snipped the end.

Add a band of black frosting around each of your hats.  Here, you see the green colored cone (not covered in chocolate).

Add a little black frosting to the middle of a piece of gum, and stick it onto your hat.  Voilà!  You have a Leprechaun hat!

And here you see some finished hats that were covered in the chocolate.

Step 5

Some important notes to the rest of the instructions.

For the best results, work fast and work COLD!  The colder you can keep your ice cream, the better.  If you have a deep freeze, even better!  It will keep your ice cream colder than a regular refrigerator.  Of course... I did not have that as an option.  Also, if you can manage to keep each Leprechaun on an individual dish, this would make it so much easier as well.  That way you don't need to handle them more than necessary, and can take one out at a time.  

Keep a cup of warm water ready.  This will allow you to mold your ice cream balls and keep the ice cream from sticking to your spoons.  

Using two spoons (one of mine was an ice cream scoop), make an ice cream cone sized ball of ice cream, trying to smooth it as best you can.

Add your ice cream ball to your Leprechaun hat, using the nicest side for the face.

Place it on a tray and immediately place it in the freezer.

Here are my Leprechauns, freezing up as I work on the  next...

I would recommend allowing your Leprechauns to freeze for an hour at this point.  The more solid your ice cream is for the next step, the easier they will be to complete, and the better results you will get.

Step 6

I used store-bought frosting.  You could just as easily make your own decorating frosting.  I ended up adding some powdered sugar to this after the fact, finding that it worked a little better.  You may want to do the same.

Tint your frosting to get an orange color that you are happy with.  I used a 2:1 ratio of yellow to red dye.  With the regular food coloring, I used 30 drops of yellow and 15 drops of red.

Add your orange frosting to a piping bag with a large circle tip, or to a Ziploc bag like I have, and cut the corner.

Step 7

Again, if you can, work with one Leprechaun at a time, that way your ice cream doesn't get too soft.  Using your orange frosting, make a beard by squirting dots of frosting, or by squeezing zig-zags.

I would have added hair all around, but my ice cream was getting soft pretty fast (1 - I was using frozen yogurt, and 2 - I didn't allow it to completely freeze before this step... Ack!).  You may want to add hair to yours too.

After the beard, I added some bushy eyebrows.  Aren't they cute?!

Step 8

Time for the nose!!!  Cut your cocktail cherries in half.  I placed them cut-side down onto a paper towel to suck up some of the extra juice.

You could attach these with more frosting.  I opted for breaking a toothpick in half, and using the toothpick to secure the nose to the ice cream.  If you are giving these to young children, you likely would want to use frosting or make sure the toothpick is removed before the little ones get them!

Step 9
Add your eyes!  Actually, this would have been easier had I added them before the nose.  The little candy sprinkles aren't the easiest to handle.  You could also use mini chocolate chips, poking the pointy end into the ice cream.  I first tried to make frosting dots for eyes, but wasn't happy with the results (I needed a smaller tip, or they would have been fine).  It is up to you!

Step 10

Last, I added some frosting to the back of this candy shamrock, and attached it to the hat.  And your ice cream Leprechaun is complete!  Leave it in the freezer until ready to enjoy!

I can't wait to share these with my kids tonight.  They will be a special treat, for sure.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!  Enjoy!

Alison's Irish Oatmeal & Honey Bread

Alison's Irish Oatmeal & Honey Bread

3 cups FLOUR

1-1/4 cup QUICK COOK OATMEAL

1-1/2 tablespoons BAKING POWDER

1 tablespoon SALT

1 EGG

1-1/2 cup MILK

1/2 cup HONEY

1 teaspoon VANILLA

1 tablespoon BUTTER (to melt on top after bread has baked)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, generously grease a 9x5x13 loaf pan. In a large bowl, combine flour, oatmeal, baking powder and salt, stir to blend. In a medium bowl beat egg and milk together. Beat in honey, add vanilla. Pour into flour mixture all at once. Stir with a wooden spoon just until dry ingredients are moistened, mixture will appear lumpy. Spread batter into prepared pan. Bake 1 hour and 15 min. or until loaf tests done and top is lightly brown. Brush top with butter and let cool.

This bread tastes great toasted and spread with butter and a drizzle of honey.

St. Patrick

 Ireland's Patron Saint

Did you know.....

St. Patrick was born in Kilpatrick Scotland in 387AD.



Source: yourirish.com

St. Patrick, somewhere between the ages of 14-16 was kidnapped
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LUCKY SHAMROCKS

St. Patrick's Day Treats!

Who doesn't LOVE rice crispy treats! To celebrate St.Patrick's Day, I  thought it would be fun to turn them into lucky shamrocks!


Following the recipe on the box I changed the butter called for to coconut oil. This is something I keep in the house and use frequently in baking, on my dry cuticles and even on a baby's dry scalp! Amazing stuff! Never tried it in crispy treats, until.........

I read on the blog, How Does She?, where coconut oil was substituted for the butter, and knew the next time I made crispy treats, that's what I would do too.


I used neon green food coloring I had on hand, and, unfortunately, not a very nice green at all. So, after I spread them into the pan, I had to try and do something quick to pretty them up! I took the little squeeze bottle of dye and dropped little drops over the the setting crispy treats, thinking the dye might spread some.  (What was I thinking), no, it didn't! And I didn't like that so much either.

 So, I realized these would just have to do, and I continued with my plan of using a shamrock cookie cutter to cut the crispy treats into shamrock shapes.

All the while I kept in mind that although they were not so esthetically pleasing to the eye, the taste buds sure liked them!
The coconut oil really added a great flavor to the recipe! 

So here they are!!! The Lucky Shamrocks!!!

Homespunwithlove photo

Maybe you will try using coconut oil in stead of butter next time you make crispy treats! If you do, please let me know how you liked them!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!!!

TEAHUGS - Irish/St. Patrick's Day FREE PRINTABLE

Print these free tea bag hugs, cut them out and hug some tea for yourself or a friend. There are ten in the set, each with a different Irish saying to bring a little Irish wisdom to your day.

Ireland is the largest consumer of tea in the world, you'd be hard-pressed to find an event in Ireland without a morning or afternoon tea break on the itinerary.

Tea for thought: The slang for tea in Ireland is "cha". So, use it in a sentence the next time you decide to make or offer a cup of tea!

Get your teahugs here.

St. Patty's Day Fun

St. Patrick's Day is a very special day in our home.  No, we aren't Irish... but it is the same day that my hubby and I met about 14 years ago.  So we like to find ways to make the day special.  Now that our kids are getting older, it is fun to find ways to make it special for them too.

So here are some of the things we've been up to...

Hanging, Sparkly Shamrocks

We made these shamrocks to hang in the window, which the kids had a lot of fun making.  We followed the directions for the Stained Glue Valentine Hearts found at HolidayCraftsAndCreations.com, HERE.

We used green yarn in place of string, and added lots of green glitter to the top of the glue.  I hung them with fish line.

Just note, it took our shamrocks a couple days to completely dry... and we are in the dry winter here in the Midwest.  So prepare your kids for a long wait to enjoy their creations!


Shamrock Snacks

Aren't these cute?!  I came across the idea in the March 2011 issue of Family Fun Magazine.  I couldn't wait to try these with the kids.  HERE is the link to the FamilyFun.com directions.  However, I've outlined them with photos below :)

Ingredients:
- Pkg of Yogurt Pretzels
- White Chocolate Chips (I used about 1/2 a bag, or 1 cup)
- Green Frosting (I made my own, using a great recipe from Allrecipes.com found HERE)
- Green Sprinkles

Directions:
1)  Place about 1/2 cup of white chocolate chips in a glass dish, and microwave for 30 seconds at about 50% power.  Stir.  Do this two or three times, until you are able to completely melt the chips.  DO NOT OVER HEAT!

You should be able to stir the chocolate smooth and free of lumps.

2)  Line a surface or baking sheet with wax paper.

3)  Dip the bottom half of a pretzel in the melted chocolate, making sure each side is nicely coated.  Place the pretzel onto your wax paper.

4)  Repeat Step 3 with the second and third pretzels, laying each to form the shape of a shamrock.

5)  If you have broken pretzels, you can use them for the stem of your shamrock.  If not, you can carefully cut pretzels like we did below.

 6)  Dip the end of the shamrock stems into the melted chocolate, and put into place on the wax paper.

 Here is what your shamrocks will look like when assembled.  Some of them, we chose to lay the stem flat, while others (like this one below) we had placed so that it stood off of the wax paper.

And we thought we'd try to to make some four-leaf clovers while we were at it... of course, right?

7)  Time to mix up some frosting!  I used a great Sugar Cookie Icing recipe from Allrecipes.com, found HERE.  I like this frosting because it sets hard, and is easy to whip up.  I doubled the recipe, and found that I had twice as much frosting as I needed.  So if you use one package of yogurt pretzels, you can expect to follow the recipe as it is written.

Icing Recipe:

- 1 cup powdered sugar

- 2 tsp milk

- 2 tsp light corn syrup

- 1/4 tsp almond extract (or vanilla)

- we added green food color

I added it to a piping bag with a small tip, but you could just as easily use a Ziploc bag and cut a small tip off of the corner.

8)  Outline your shamrocks with the icing.  Add your sprinkles soon after, before the frosting begins to set!

And there you have it!  A fun St. Patty's day snack!

We ended up with 18 shamrocks, using all of the pretzels that came in the package.  Not too difficult, and the kids were able to join in.  We give this one a thumbs up!