Saint Patrick's Day

Every year on Saint Patrick's Day those darn leprechauns (yes, I had to go look up how to spell that) come and dye our milk GREEN! 

While festive, this is most unappetizing.  I was very glad to drink the last glass of green milk with my 12-grain toast with sorghum this morning.  Blessedly, the leprechauns had respect for the unopenned gallon of milk in the fridge and saved me from having to get through a whole additional gallon of green milk!  Thank goodness!

The girls always ask me if I was the one that dyed the milk green to which I always respond, "Do I look like a leprechaun?"  This year they concluded that it was not me because the milk was "leprechaun green" rather than "dye green" and we didn't have any green food dye in the house anyway (only blue and yellow).  Why, I ask you, would I dye my own milk green?  I'm the one that has to drink it!

I always struggle to come up with Saint Patrick's day appropriate festivites (green beer not being an option).  Wearing green never seems like quite enough -- like we're all dressed up with no place to go.  So Tessa and I brainstormed for something Irish to have for dinner.  Having no experience with corned beef, we opted for potatoes and cabbage.  This was fortunate because that's about all that was in the fridge.  I had, in my great wisdom, bought a 10 lb. bag of potatoes (for $3.47) and, after many baked potatoes, we still had half left and I always try to have cabbage around because it's massively versatile.

 We ended up making a very delicious scalloped potato and cabbage casserole out of six potatoes, 1/3 of a head of cabbage, the last of the green onions, a white sauce (whipped up out of flour, butter, and milk), and some bread crumbs and cheese sprinkled on top. 



Scalloped Potato and Cabbage Casserole
(By the way, that's a salad plate so it's not the HUGE portion that it looks like if you think its a dinner plate!)


Tessa requested that we have this dish at least once a week.  Even Sara-Grace ate it (I'm not sure she knew there was cabbage in there!).  And Emily ate some too (she usually cooks her own gourmet dinner instead of my lesser fare)!  So this is our new Saint Patrick's Day dish!

What are your Saint Patrick's Day traditions?