Happy St. Patrick's Day!
It's been quite some time since I've been reminded the history of St. Patrick's Day beyond the drinking and rivers of green. See I grew up going to a Catholic-parochial grade school with weekly morning masses and strict Irish nuns as teachers, which was quite an experience coming from a Buddhist household. I wasn't really sure why I'd have altars at home with different Buddhas and ancestors, then Crucifixes at school in a castle-like cathedral. But it taught me how to be open to differing religious views because they all really have the same underlying teaching: be good, do good. Religion is quite pleasant if you look at it that way.
These blog posts always end up with me rambling away on any given topic. As I was saying, I'd forgotten the meaning of St. Patrick's Day. So I did a little reminding research, which resulted in me learning that, one, St. Patrick was not Irish by blood and, two, a majority of his work was bringing Christianity, specifically Catholicism, to Ireland. The celebrations grew to recognize and honor Ireland as a country with a rich cultural background. And the drinking came from a tradition of "drowning the shamrock," which involved placing a shamrock at the bottom of a cup, filling it with whiskey, beer, or cider, then drinking the entirety in cheers to St. Patrick, Ireland, and everyone there.
Green became associated as part of a Ireland and St. Patrick's Day mostly because Ireland is called the "Emerald Isle" for it's lush green landscape. Which really is quite a difficult color to bake with without looking like it went horrible wrong. So I was pleasantly surprised when I walked through Target the other week and saw a bag of mint M&M's lining the shelves in two lovely mint green colors. Aside from wanting to eat them all straight out of the bag, I wasn't sure what I could do to make them a scrumptious snack to leave about at home and at work. But I knew I was craving chocolate chip cookies, so I went about and tried whipping together a mint chocolate chip cookie. It turned out quite nice actually! Though, I might have to put in more M&M's next time because the green got hidden underneath the cookie dough as it baked.
Just a note, though not reflected in my current photos, I adjusted the M&M portion in the recipe below to increase the green visibility and mint taste.
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (9.6 ounce) bag of mint M&M's
INSTRUCTIONS:
Preheat the oven at 350°F.
In a medium bowl, beat together butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until fluffy and light in color.
In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
Combine the butter mixture into the flour mixture until well combined.
Fold in the mint M&Ms
Bake for 8-10 minutes. Enjoy!