St. Patrick's Day Gluten Free & Kid-Friendly Recipes!

Lifestyle

Mar 2

Written By Camille

Welcome to the first stop aboard Blogorail Teal. Enjoy the ride as we share St. Patrick's Day recipes!

We absolutely love snacks and treats at our house. While I really work hard at keeping the kids on the straight and narrow of eating organic, dye free, and natural flavor-free, there are times where I simply cannot control it, nor do I even attempt to fight it. It's cheaper, and many times easier to just grab a case of frosted sugar cookies or a pack of cupcakes than the time spent making it from scratch.

With that said, I've always loathed holidays that they celebrate at school because it usually amounts to bags of candy and store bought treats that really shouldn't even be on shelves. But, if you know me even a little in "real life," you know that I have serious sweet tooth. I'm not a fan of candy... But chocolate and cake are my kryptonite. Especially cupcakes. If I wasn't allergic to gluten, I would probably have no teeth, and weigh a few more pounds.

St. Patrick's Day has always been one of those holidays for me. Kids come home with green colored EVERYTHING and I seriously just cringe at the thought. This year I thought I'd try something new with them after school. I contemplated making a natural dye from spinach leaves for frosting, but I left that within my imagination. I really am not sure if that should even be voiced out loud. It just seems so wrong. I will get creative though, I'd love to find some natural dye processes for food. As of now, I only know how to dye fabric with natural dyes and I don't even do that often!

I wanted to give the kids a little history lesson on St. Patrick and answer their question of "why on earth does he have a holiday?" It's so funny, because my daughter asked if he was a leprechaun, I laughed and realized that I seriously don't know anything about the holiday, except we would get pinched if we didn't wear green at school!

Well, I've gathered three fun recipes and yes they have some sugar and coloring. Yikes, but we are working on it slowly! Hope you enjoy them!

St. Patty's Lucky Popcorn

I don't have a popcorn maker, unfortunately it died when someone decided to pour the oil in the wrong spot, oops! Luckily no one was injured! A new popcorn maker has just been put on the back burner... because.

To be honest, I don't really like microwave popcorn, and I rarely buy it for the kids. So, when I came across a recipe that perfects the Stovetop popcorn preparation (Thanks Bree!) , I was so excited! It's super easy to make and you can add whatever topping you want to customize for any occasion!

My entire idea for this post was to make quick, easy snacks with the kids. Instead of just plain microwave or air popped corn, I wanted to spiff up the popcorn for the occasion of St. Patrick, so I added my own magic flare to this timeless snack. Note: You can use microwave popcorn or pre-popped, bagged popcorn!

Popcorn Topping

3/4 cup Ghirardelli White Chocolate Chips
1/2 Tbsp Coconut Oil (or butter)
Sprinkles!!

Instructions

Microwave the chips and oil in a microwave-safe mug or bowl for 30 seconds. Stir and repeat.
Pour the popcorn onto a baking sheet lined with wax paper.
Once chocolate is melted, pour and mix onto popcorn then top with sprinkles!
Let it cool, the chocolate will harden, and it will be DELICIOUS!

Rainbow Fruit Parfaits Sprinkled with Gold

FRUIT! We love it and hope you do too! Parfaits are fun because who wouldn't want to spend hours cutting up a bunch of fruit and separating them into a billion little glasses? See that? It's my sass. It comes out at times, but really, I love the outcome of pretty food... Even better when I worked hard to perfect it!

Remember the prism in science?? ROY G. BIV? I replicated it with fruit!

Red - Strawberries, orange - Oranges, yellow - Bananas, green - Kiwi, blue - Blueberries, indigo, violet. I later realized I could have added grapes to the bottom. Oh well.

This snack is not only nutritious, but so pretty and somewhat scientific. It encourages the kids to eat a bunch of fruit in one sitting! I just cut and layered them, and topped with whipped cream and edible gold stars (coin is not edible-but you could use a chocolate gold-wrapped coin!).

There's approximately a handful of blueberries, 1 kiwi, 1/2 banana, 1 tangerine cutie, and 4 strawberries per parfait!

Mint Julep

You know I had to add a magical flare to this. I LOVE the Mint Julep drink at New Orleans Square at Disneyland Park! If I can bring a touch of Disney magic to anything, I will! Every year our family throws a "Happy Birthday Disneyland" party in July, and I made this for the first time in 2013. Unfortunately, it was before my blog, so I don't have pretty pictures. BUT, I recreated it for this post and am excited to whip up another batch in July! It's a once-a-year type of sweet drink, that's for sure!

This recipe makes around 2 pints of Mint Julep syrup that you'll dilute with ice water or you can even add to club soda if you like fizzy drinks!

3 cups of water
1 cup of sugar
4 tsp of lime juice
1/2 can of frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
6 - 8 Tbsp of Creme de Menthe syrup
Pineapples and/or Maraschino cherries for garnish

Instructions

In a medium pot, combine the first 4 ingredients and bring to a boil.
Whisk the mixture until the sugar has dissolved.
Remove from heat and add the creme de menthe syrup.
Let cool and store in fridge.

When you're ready to serve, mix 3 parts syrup to 5 parts water or club soda, more or less depending on how sweet you like it!

Okay, so you've got the snacks, now what? Stay tuned for more St. Patty's activities as time draws near! I'll be sharing more fun next week for St. Patrick's Day!

Thank you for joining me today! Your next stop on the Magical Blogorail Loop is The Disney Point.