My daughter is a st. patties day baby and will be turning one. We are having her birthday that saturday and doing a st. patties day theme. I am going to make a cake in the shape of a clover and decorate it green, with mint and vanilla ice cream. Im going to have green punch and raman salad (because when using broccoli slaw it is mostly green), but im looking for some main dishes. Something everyone will like. It can be irish food or just food to match with the green theme. Not corned beef and cabbage as i know most will not eat that. Any ideas??? Thanks!
Have you ever had Irish Nachos? It's nachos with a potatoe base instead of corn chip. Some make it with waffles fries. My favorite restraunt piles those up and covers it in cheese, chili, jalapenoes, sour cream, whatever you would put on your nachos. You could do an irish nacho bar. let everyone build thier own.
One thing my husband likes to do is make green deviled eggs. He puts green dye in the yolk mixture before putting them in the eggs, it is always a hit. We also like Irish Soda Bread.
I'm thinking a nice beef or lamb stew (easy to make ahead, better on the 2nd day!), or maybe a shepherd's pie? Fish and chips? Green eggs and ham?
We Love Corned Beef and Cabbage. So do my kids. I trim the excess fat off of the corned beef and then I boil the corned beef in a large pot. The fat will float to the top and can be skimmed off before removing it from the pan to slice. I cook the vegetables (cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes) in my pressure cooker with the seasoning pack that comes with the corned beef. I serve the vegetable separate from the corned beef.
I believe that Black Eyed Peas is also a traditional St. Patrick's day food.
I don't do the whole corned beef/cabbage/veg thing unless my inlaws are around. Kinda bland. I think the previous suggestions for stew if it's cold, or fish and chips (you really can't go wrong with that) are good. We like to do reuben sandwiches on St Patty's day because it's more "flavorful" than just the corned beef and cabbage. We get dark dark brown bread (is that Jewish Rye? Or more likely Pumpernickel?) and butter the outsides like you would a grilled cheese. I put sliced corned beef (from the deli, have them slice it up for you as the packaged stuff just isn't very good), some kraut, a slice of swiss, and cook it just like you would a grilled cheese. We don't do dressing because it's fat for no reason, and the butter, sauerkraut, swiss, and meat are loads of great flavor. No need for anything else. We slice up potatoes and make our own "fries". We also love Irish Bananas (ha--there's nothing Irish about bananas really, but whatever): we melt 1/2 C butter in a skillet, stir in 1/2 C Irish whiskey and 1/2 C brown sugar and bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is all dissolved. Then add 4 bananas sliced the long way and simmer them until they are tender and glazed with the syrup. Serve the bananas immediately with vanilla icecream. It's a totally "Americanized" Irish dinner, but we love it and really only serve it once or twice a year. It's fun.
Last year we did this for dinner, but for breakfast we served green eggs and hash (scrambled cuz that's how I prefer them, with food coloring), I cut the toast like shamrocks. We also made a leprechaun trap (got that idea from Family Fun magazine): we didn't succeed in catching him, but he thought it was a good try so he left a gold coin but it turned to chocolate because he's a tricky fellow. My son is sure we'll do better this year.
