Which means, God Bless Ireland.
I've always been kind of partial to that expression. Grin.
This Irish family will all be sporting green come Thursday, but I have a few other simple things planned to celebrate the emerald island's most famous holiday.
My friend Laurel, of http://petalpusheraccessories.blogspot.com/, sent me over the following Bento idea. Since I won't be making this until March 17th, I though it only fitting to post the inspiration photo today. This will give you time to plan if you'd like to do the same.
Leprechaun Bento
The photo is from a family magazine, but I cannot find a link, so I will give you my best guess as to what the items are in the photo:
The Leprechaun is a sandwich cut in a circle shape. The bottom of a green pepper has been used for the hat. The band on the hat looks like a strip of grape fruit roll-up and the buckle is a piece of hand cut cheese. The leprechaun's beard is shredded carrot. His eyes are two raisins and his mouth a sliver of red pepper. His nose looks like a piece of dried fruit but I'm not sure what? Regardless, you could really do anything here. The rainbow fruit salad contains strawberry, Mandarin orange, pineapple, kiwi, and blueberries. At the end of every leprechaun's rainbow is a pot of gold. These golden chocolate coins are my favorite part of the meal! You can purchase them at Cost Plus.
I've also picked up shamrock shaped silly straws and green nail polish at Old Navy.
The straws and polish are cute and cheap (one of my favorite combinations). Grin. They do not appear to be available online, but I would imagine that most Old Navy stores have the same seasonal items available in the stores.
My daughter goes to a uniform school, so painted nails are a cute way to sneak in a little festive flair.
As a good Irish girl, I need to get in my corned beef and cabbage for St. Patty's Day dinner. The traditional Irish stew isn't a favorite of mine, but Reuben sandwiches are!
This sandwich consists of thinly sliced corned beef, Swiss cheese, crispy sauerkraut and 1000 island dressing grilled between two slices of dark rye bread. Serve them up with a crisp dill pickle and some salty chips and you've got a winning combination. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!
Growing up, my Mom would dye the dogs eyebrows green and hide a drop of green food coloring in the bottom of our dinner glasses so that the milk magically turned green when she poured.
***GIVEAWAY ALERT***
I'd love to hear your family St. Patrick's Day traditions, so please leave them in the comments. I'll choose my favorite on Friday 3/18/2011 and ship you a box of my homegrown lemons. Wink. ~The Lemonista
Leprauchans always invade our house and mysteriously die our milk green for the day ;) Then we have Lucky Charms (a big treat b/c I don't let my kids normally eat sugary cereal) and green milk for breakfast. This year we are also making shamrock pops using heart shaped marshmallows, shaped and dipped in green chocolate!!
ReplyDeleteLove your Bento, may have to try it too ;)
Every St. Patty's Day I remind my kiddos to wear their green. They always get pinched if they forget. This year the kids are going crazy asking me what I'm going to do, we did the king cake last week for Fat Tuesday... May just have to surprise them with the green drop milk. Great idea!!! Love the bento, by the way. I just don't have any patience.
ReplyDelete:-)Tracy
We start St. Patty's day starting our corned beef in the crock pot. The aroma throughout the day is mouthwatering. The girls get their leprechaun on by wearing festive necklaces, hair accessories, shirts they helped design and, some fun pants or skirts. If daddy is out of town we take a picture and send him our St. Patty's Day wishes before heading to school.
ReplyDeleteA naughty leprechaun usually messes things up...tipping over chairs & stringing toilet paper around leaving a trail of gold chocolate coins. :0p We all wear green & decorate ourselves festive. We aren't big fans of jigs dinner here...so we always top the day off with Shamrock shakes! :0)
ReplyDeleteWe try to go to Chicago when we can around St. Patty's day for the parade. It's been tougher to get there with the girls in school now.
We don't really have St. Patty day traditions besides wearing green. I'm going to try this fun bento though.
ReplyDeleteI REALLY want to try your yummy lemons! :)
We dont really have any traditions here other than wearing green but this year we are going all out and making corned beef and cabbage and guinness chocolate cake. I am really excited about it!
ReplyDelete(cant wait to see pics of YOUR bento!)
JoAnne,
ReplyDeleteGuiness Chocolate cake? Do tell!
I've never heard of this. Sounds so yummy :-)
March 17th is a super important day in our household. Our biggest wish came true on March 17, 2004. We welcomed our healthy baby boy into this world. We received our "pot of gold" with him. Our son is such a gem, perfect in every way. (I know he WILL break my heart some day...but not yet, he is still my baby boy!) March 17th is such a fun, fun day in our house. We all wear green and we eat shamrock coookies for breakfast. We scour the neighborhood and inside the house to look for traces of the Leprechaun!
ReplyDeleteBirthday boy would love to have some of your delicous lemons!!! He loves anything lemon.
Would also love the recipe for the guiness chocolate cake--sounds magically delicious:)
ReplyDeleteWe wear green and love to go out to eat (early before the craziness ensues!)
We're making green shamrock pancakes, and green eggs and bacon. :-) The kids haven't a clue!
ReplyDeletethis was the leprechaun i was looking for! and i also found the link http://www.parents.com/recipes/cooking/kid-friendly-food/play-with-your-food/
ReplyDelete