Lots of families have the fun tradition of eating green food for supper on St. Patrick's Day, ours included. But we've also added a little bit of silly. We always wear funny Irish hats during supper. (Thank-you, dollar store). We've added quite a few to our collection, and the kids have their favourites. It has also turned into a mini-tradition to get a group shot of the kids in their gear before supper. Here is this year's picture.
Yes, the parents play along too. Like my green wig?
What you need: chocolate chips, large marshmallows, shortbread cookies with chocolate on the back, green coloured sugar, and toothpicks.
Start by melting the chocolate in a double boiler, or in your microwave (be sure to stir every 30-45 seconds if you are using the microwave!)
Let the excess chocolate drip off.
Put chocolate covered marshmallows on the chocolate side of the cookies, and gently pull out the toothpicks. Touch up any areas that need it with the melted chocolate.
Put remaining melted chocolate into a Ziplock bag, and snip a small hole in one corner to make it into a pseudo-icing bag. Pipe chocolate around base of marshmallow.
Sprinkle the green sugar on the melted chocolate.
Ta-Da! Little Leprechaun Hat cookies! (They are pretty good, too!)
For the first few years, the traps were made by me and the kids. They were made of a shoebox, or cereal box in a pinch, that was covered with green paper and decorated with anything green we had on hand. (This picture is my girl, age 2, peaking under our box to see if we'd caught a leprechaun early St. Patrick's Day morning, 2007)
But it wasn't too long before my husband took over the trap designs. They suddenly became much more elaborate and trap-like. This is the one he and our oldest son designed two years ago. It is plywood, with a hinged door that is triggered by a trip-wire that the leprechaun would have to snag as he went inside to get the bait, (a potato). 2009.
2011's attempt that my hubby and daughter built together. The leprechaun would climb up the ladder, see the pile of coins, cross to get it, and fall through the working trap door. Then in the morning, we could just lift up the sides of the trap to look through the bars at our catch.
One thing that I added to my sister-in-law's fun idea, was to leave a trail of green footprints from the trap to the hiding place of the leprechaun's gold, rather than leaving the surprise inside the trap. It was tedious to stamp out dozens and dozens of footprints onto the green paper and cut them out, but they keep from year to year, and I love what they add.
In the morning, the kids check the trap and when we discover it is empty, we arm ourselves with magnifying glasses and follow the trail. It goes everywhere! Up walls, under couches, behind bookshelves, wherever the little man fled as he hurried to escape.
Finally, at the trail end, the footprints stop.
You know I like leaving surprises for my family, and today I was seized with a whim. My husband loves green mint Aero chocolate bars, which are perfect for St. Patty's, yes? So I took the kids to Safeway, under the guise of needing to buy a package of green Koolaid to go with our supper tonight. While they weren't looking, I smuggled a few of those yummy treats through the checkout. Step one: successful!
All you need are some little pretzels, some green chocolate wafers (melted) and a sheet of waxed paper. (If you want to get fancy, we also had a little coloured sugar for sprinkling, but you do not need it for this to work)
All you need to do is melt your chocolate, and then let the kids get a little messy as they dip their pretzels in. Then have them place the pretzels onto their sheet of waxed paper to form a regular three-leafed clover, or the elusive four-leafed variety.
We sprinkled some green sugar on top while the chocolate was still soft, then we left our treats to dry for about twenty minutes.
When we came back, they were firm, and we could pick them up off the paper and they'd hold their form. (As you can see in the corner of this picture, I also drizzled some of the shamrocks with white chocolate, but since it was prettier in my head than in real life, I'm not going to bring it up.)
Nothing left to do now but enjoy them!
Our afternoon snack was the result of a happy accident. I wanted to do a rainbow craft for a St. Patrick's Day activity, and I thought it might be fun to use Froot Loops. So I went out and bought the cereal specifically to make the craft.
First we dumped out about half the box, and sorted them into separate bowls.
Got a clean sheet of paper.
Then the kids set the Froot Loops out, following the lines.
Having fun.
Finished the rainbow - now it is time to eat! After eating up all her picture, she looked up at me and asked, "Mom, can I make another Froot Loop picture?" Ha!
St. Patrick's Day Popcorn! It is just a regular candied-popcorn recipe, but I added green food colouring to make it festive. I've seen coloured popcorn that is made with Koolaid to give it a colour and flavour, but I don't know how to make that.
The first thing you need to do is pop some popcorn. You'll need about 16 cups of popped corn. Whenever I made it, I always sift out the kernels that don't pop so that as you are eating your treat you don't crack a tooth. The kids were very into the sorting and took care of all of it for me.
Then in a medium sized pot, you'll need to combine 2 tablespoons of butter with 1/2 cup of corn syrup, and as much green food colouring as you want. When it is all melted together, add 1 1/2 cups of white sugar, and a pinch of creme of tartar. (If you don't have that, you can make it without)
Pour the popcorn into a large roaster, or some kind of pan with edges on it, and bake for 1 hour at 200 F. Every fifteen minutes or so, stir the popcorn around.
Once it was all cooled off, we put it into clear cellophane baggies and tied them at the top.
I bought this book the year that my oldest had his first St. Pat's. It is the story of a kind old man, who is an excellent harpist. When a harping contest is announced, it is a chance for him to play for the king, and he sets out to attend. But after extending his kindness to a sinister competitor, his harp is sabotaged and the strings break. During the night, he hears the sound of someone in distress and goes to help. It turns out that the person in need is a leprechaun, and to reward him for his efforts, the leprechaun leaves him a surprising gift, and sees that the saboteur gets a reward as well.
I honestly don't remember how we came by this book. I know I didn't buy it, so I'm guessing it was a gift from a grandparent or from one of the kids' teachers. It is cute, none-the-less. It is the story of Tom, who catches a leprechaun. The little man is then duty bound to show him where the gold is hidden, but while Tom goes to get his shovel to dig it up, the leprechaun performs a little trickery to ensure his gold's safe keeping.
This one is from the local library and we checked it out while we were there for story time a couple of days ago. This story tells just why the gold is at the end of the rainbow. I thought the writing was particularly entertaining. Here is the opening paragraph, just to give you an example.
