St. Patrick's Day Party Spread

Lisa - Trying out being a red head...

Did you know that St. Patrick's real name was Maewyn Succat?  Or that divorce was not permitted in Ireland until 1997?  These are a few of the trivia questions I used in a game at my St. Patrick's Day party.  Below I provide the recipes for my menu spread as well as see some of my decorating ideas.

On the Menu:

Veggie Plate & Rainbow Fruit Plate

Pesto Deviled Eggs

Cheddar & Chives Potato Bread

Shamrock Tortilla Chips & Queso

Corned Beef Dip

Mini Shepherd Pies

Guinness Infused Banger & Pretzel Kabobs with Stout Mustard

St. Patrick's Day Table Spread

Desserts: Chocolate-Mint Shamrock Cupcakes & Over the Rainbow Cupcakes 

Libations: Lucky-tinis, Irish Champagne & Shamrock-aritas 

My veggie plate was pretty simple, just some raw broccoli and baby carrots with some vegetable dip.  The Rainbow Fruit plate consisted of blackberries, blueberries, peeled and chopped kiwi fruit, pineapple, raspberries and strawberries.  I ran out of room on my plate, but you can also add in some mandarin oranges between the pineapple and raspberries.

Pesto Deviled Eggs - 12 servings

These are a unique & flavorful version of this popular party appetizer.
The green flecks from the pesto are perfect for St. Patrick's Day.

Ingredients:

6 hard boiled eggs

1 cup of olive oil mayonnaise

1/4 cup of minced onion

3 tbsp. of  basil pesto

1. Peel the shell from the hard boiled eggs, cut each egg in half length wise.
2. Spoon out the yolk center of each half egg and put into a mixing bowl.
3. Place egg white halves onto your serving dish.
4. Add in onion, mayonnaise and pesto, mix thoroughly until egg yolks and other ingredients are a smooth consistency.
5. Spoon egg yolk mixture evenly onto egg white halves.

Cheddar & Chives Potato Bread - 10 servings

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup of Bisquick mix

1/2 - 3/4 cup of unsweetened almond milk

2 cups mashed potatoes

1 cup shredded medium cheddar cheese

3/4 cup shredded colby-jack cheese

Approximately 3 stalks of chives/ green onions, diced

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Mix the Bisquick, milk, potatoes, and cheddar cheese in a bowl.  
3. Scoop spoonfuls of batter onto a greased baking sheet.  
4. Sprinkle each batter scoop with the colby-jack cheese and chives.
5. Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes or until the tops of the bread is a golden brown.  
6. Let sit for a few minutes and then transfer to serving plate.

Shamrock Tortilla Chips - makes about 14 chips

Ingredients:

2 spinach (green) tortillas

Shamrock-shaped cookie cutter

Spray olive oil 

Sea salt & garlic powder to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Cut spinach tortillas with shamrock cookie cutter, about 7 per tortilla.
3. Place cut outs on a greased baking sheet.
4. Spray generously with olive oil spray (or you can brush a coat of olive oil from a jar)
5. Sprinkle with sea salt and garlic powder to taste.
6. Bake in oven for approximately 8-10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool for about 5 minutes.  Chips should be hard, crispy.
7. To serve I mixed these with round golden tortilla chips to symbolize gold coins found at the end of the rainbow, and serve with queso.

This was the most popular dish.

Corned Beef Dip

Ingredients:

3/4 lbs. of sliced corned beef from your local grocery deli

2 cups shredded Swiss cheese

3/4 cup olive oil mayonnaise

1/2 cup thousand island dressing

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Shred the corned beef.
3. Mix 1 cup of the shredded Swiss cheese, the mayonnaise, the dressing and the shredded corned beef.
4. Layer mixture in a baking dish.
5. Generously cover the top with the rest of the shredded Swiss cheese.
6. Bake in oven for approximately 25 minutes, or until cheese is fully melted and crisping around the edges of the dish.  Serve hot with crackers.

Mini Shepherd Pies - makes 12 servings

Ingredients:

1 pkg of pie crust dough, thawed

2 cans of beef vegetable soup 

4 cups of mashed potatoes

1. Pour soup into a pot and cook at a medium to high heat to reduce the liquid.  Stir occasionally
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
3. Grease a 12-muffin pan.
4. Unroll 1 piece of pie crust dough.
5. Cut smaller circles out of the dough (I used a glass with the diameter of about 3.75").
6. Place smaller circle dough into each muffin cup.
7. Once soup is reduced to little to no liquid, spoon soup to fill each dough cup. (Drain any excess liquid with either a slotted spoon or strain the contents with a colander).
8. Bake in the oven for approximately 15 minutes, or until the edges of the pie crusts start to brown.
9. Remove from oven and top each cup with mashed potatoes.
10. Return to oven, cook for about 5 more minutes.   
11. Carefully transfer from muffin tin to serving dish, they will be hot.

Guinness-Infused Banger & Pretzel Kabobs with Stout Mustard - makes 12 servings

Ingredients:

1 pkg of frozen pretzel bites

1 pkg of bangers

2 cups of Guinness beer

1/2 cup of dijon mustard

1. Prepare frozen pretzel bites as per directions.
2. In a nonstick skillet, brown bangars, then cover with beer, reduce heat, cover and simmer until beer is almost disappeared.
3. Remove bangars from pan, and cut into large bite sizes, yielding about three pieces per link.
4. Skewer a bangar piece, a pretzel bite, and bangar piece.  Repeat until all pretzels and bangars are used.
5. Mix the remaining beer with mustard (2 parts mustard, 1 part beer) thoroughly and let sit for about 5 minutes.
6. Serve with kabobs.

Lisa's St. Patrick's Day decorations.