Looking a Bit Green

So since March is the month for St Patrick's Day, I decided to throw a little St Patty's party last night. I have always thought it was fun to dress in green and see what other things we could turn green in the process. And this year I had a couple friends that were happy to join in the fun. Being a history fan I decided to actually look up the history of St. Patrick and find out what he was all about. Here are a few things I learned:

*He is the patron saint of Ireland, because he brought Christianity to Ireland.
*He used a shamrock (a three leaf clover) to explain the God Head. That in the one god there are three divine beings.
*He is said to be the one who drove the snakes out of Ireland.
*He lived during the 5th century. March 17th is the date of his death. At the age of 16 he was taken from his home in Britain and taken to Ireland as a slave. Six years later he escaped and returned home. He studied Christianity and later returned to Ireland to teach them.

Its always fun to learn something new. For my party I wanted to try baking something new. I found a recipe for an Irish Apple Cake with custard sauce. It is a kind of crumb cake. Since I had never had it before I gave it a try. And here is the results:

I made it the day before and made the mistake of leaving it out, so it turned out a little dryer than I would have liked but it tasted really good.

The custard sauce was the tricky part. It is fairly simple, consisting of egg yolks, sugar, milk and vanilla. But if you get the eggs too hot you end up with yummy scrambled eggs. I got lucky and it turned out perfect.

Here is the finished dish.

To get into the spirit of the party I found a cute little hat to wear and of course a green shirt.

My brother pointed out to me that we are technically from Northern Irish descent, so I should be wearing orange....but I just don't look as good in orange.

Here are my two buddies that came out for my party.

One is from South Africa and told me my custard sauce was better than the stuff she made with a mix. It was her first time eating a made from scratch sauce. I was so happy to hear that. That silly sauce had me so worried.

And here was my little stab at decorating:

Those No-Bake cookies are a new recipe, I substituted the vanilla with mint extract and left out the peanut butter. So I got mint No-bakes....nice and refreshing.

And to wash down our treats I brought out some sparkling cider. Green of course.

I think my little party was a success. We were going to watch some Irish movies but ended up getting into the BBC Robin Hood series....they want to come back over and watch the rest some time. So I think they had fun. I was happy to try something new and make some new friends.