We celebrate St. Patrick's Day each year in our own special ways, but this year was unique even for us. Our traditional meal is not that nasty corned beef trash, but GREEN meat loaf, GREEN mashed potatoes and gravy, GREEN jello, salad with avocado and a GREEN vegetable. Great additions would be Green Goddess salad dressing, kiwi and limeade, etc. Anything green is welcome. We used to make green breakfast, but it was very disturbing to eat bright green pancakes, eggs and milk. The meatloaf is a more natural looking shade of green somehow, but the potatoes still have a strange look to them.
The recipe for my SubLIME Jello is at the end of this blog. It is yummy! This year I pureed apricots from my own tree for the recipe, which is epic.
My first grade daughter Mimi's class had a Leprechaun visit this year and mess up their room. He put chairs on the teachers desks, stacked the students' chairs, put things askew and left gold foil covered coins for the kids. That was a few days before the 17th. Then Leprechauns came again on St. Patrick's day. Each one left a note for the first graders. My daughter got a letter from Lily the Leprechaun. They had read a book that said the little people are the size of a human thumb, very strong and full of mischief.
At home, Mimi built a trap in the garden to trap a Leprechaun and a playground in the dirt for their nighttime outings. We never saw or caught one of the wee folk, but we did find some Andy's mints that they left Mimi in the trap she rigged. Andy is probably an Irish mint maker and that's why they chose that particular kind of candy, I guess.
So here is how this whole Leprechaun experience applies to life at our house...
While preparing our green grub, I was immersed in stress as I usually am at mealtimes with strong-willed children under foot. Benj and J.B. were "starving to death" and trying to eat any snack food they could get their hands on, the baby was fussing, Mimi was missing in action and my oldest was at sports practice. Amidst all the joy of zoo keeping in the kitchen, J.B. takes a FULL hard plastic 2 gallon water jug and drops it on the ground. It exploded like a bomb full of nails hitting hard rock and covered the floor in about two seconds. To say that I was a little distressed would be a gargantuan understatement. I kicked everyone out of the kitchen, and put J.B. in the backyard with the slider locked until I could clean the flooded floor without him splashing in the puddles. My oldest came home and brought me towels and we saved the day, but what "joy" I had in the meantime. Dinner was late, to say the least, but still yummy, (if you don't count the meatloaf briquettes that I made, which I don't because they were dry, but not inedible).
I have come to a strange conclusion about my three-year-old given his tendency toward mischief making. Maybe he is the offspring of a Leprechaun! I did have an Irish great-grandmother in my family tree. Maybe there is a recessive gene from one of the little people that chose to emerge in my generation. If I can just hang on until his adulthood, perhaps we will find that elusive pot of gold and he can help finance my retirement years.
St. Patty's Sublime Jello
1 Box lime jello
1 can Kern's Apricot Nectar (11.5 oz in aluminum soda can)
Assorted non-acidic fruit (Optional)
Prepare jello according to package directions, except using apricot nectar instead of cold water. (If you are using a family size box of gelatin, use nectar and any additional water needed to make the 2 cups of liquid). I prepare the jello in a large glass measuring cup so I can pour it into individual containers and also because any unmixed powder stays in my original container and not the finished product. Add fruit immediately and refrigerate until set.
Source for Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcka/3375900731/
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