Whiskey in the Jar

St. Patty’s Day. In Belfast. I would follow those statements with “Need I say more?”, but I do actually plan to say more.

It started in the morning with pancakes. I should mention that, in the full spirit of the day, they were green pancakes. I had picked up some green food coloring and applied it to the pancakes which what I thought was a liberal douse. But one of my housemates – who shall remain nameless  to protect his identity – mentioned that they were not green enough. I disagreed, but in an attempt to please his pertinent cries I reached for the green food coloring. Or so I thought. You see, I had also perchased peppermint extract which was encased in green wrapping, which contrasted with the red wrapping covering the green food coloring. I must comment on the epic fail completed by the producers of the brand – covering green food coloring in red. So, as I am sure you may have figured out, I added some peppermint extract to our green pancakes. Oops. Solution: Make more pancake mix!! I can’t say that the final product was completely devoid of peppermint (it sort of snuck up on you at the end), but I was happy with the amount of recovery made.

Making the Green Pancakes

After digesting our green – and somehow minty – pancakes, the house commenced into our ceremonial green for the St. Patty’s Day Festival in the center of Belfast. It was…a bit disappointing. But there was green as far as the eye could see. Then it was off the pub for lunch (and a pint) and watching some games. Good fun was had by all.

Sometime after all this good fun took place, I headed home to cook dinner for the infamous Choir Saturday Event. It all went as planned – but with one exception. The dessert – green for the occasion – went terribly. I was trying to make these chocolate-fudge-mint-brownie concoctions and didn’t have enough powdered sugar to make anything right. But I stubbornly moved forward and continued to try and fix the problem with flour and regular sugar and so on. My efforts were in vain. The idea was to chill the dessert – but it wouldn’t chill properly. So, in haste, I threw it in the freezer. And promptly forgot that I had put it in the freezer. So when I remembered and rushed to remove it, the mint-thing had frozen solid. The melted chocolate layer I had placed on top of the mint had completely solidified, while the mint layer underneath was still gooey. Trying to cut it into squares was, well, frankly impossible. It went everywhere – mint as far as the eye can see. Luckily, my guests were not cuisine experts and were thus overjoyed as the miss-shapen results of my valiant, and slightly drunken, efforts. Of course, the two bottles of wine may have helped turn their opinions favorable.