Copycat Shamrock Shake

This is another repeat post, but thought you might feel like making shamrock shakes this weekend, or for St. Patrick's day on Tuesday. (Why do shakes feel like a weekend thing to me, and not a Tuesday thing?) Either way - try this copycat recipe and tell me what you think!

On a side note: do you love or hate mint? My mom hates it, I like it just fine as long as it isn't super strong. I do love mint tea - I planted mint in my garden once so I could have fresh leaves before realizing that mint roots are unbelievably aggressive and invasive. If you want to plant it I strongly recommend containing it in a pot instead of planting in the ground - you'll thank me!

From 3/16:

I haven't had a Mc'Ds shamrock shake in years, but since it's almost St. Patrick's Day (I'm pretty sure these are seasonal for this time of year, right?) I decided to try to make one...

There are tons of copycat recipes out there - I went with a simple version: for one serving put 1/2 cup vanilla ice cream, 1/2 cup milk, one drop of mint extract (seriously just one drop - trust me), and a splash of green food coloring in the blender and blend until smooth. Top with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry - pretty and yummy.

To be perfectly honest I had to make this twice to make it edible - the first one I just added a few drops of mint and it was, to quote my niece at about 4 years old, "di-gusting".
Put just one drop in and taste - so much better!

TBT: St. Patrick's Day Luncheon (and Green Pea Soup)

This is from my new/old cookbook - I'm not making this menu but thought you might like to see it. Now remember, the cookbook I'm getting this from was published back in the '30s - that might explain why under the category 'MENUS FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS' St. Patrick's day only gets a luncheon, no corned beef dinner in sight. Times have changed fella's, now it's all about boiled dinner and green beer ;)

click here for instructions to make the pots

Interesting to note other occasions and menus listed include:

• Bridge Supper (jellied meat ring, vegetable platter, maple mousse)
• Men's Card Party (cold meats, strong cheese, spaghetti, tipsy pudding)
• For Hikers (camp hamburgs to broil, whole tomatoes, olives, cupcakes)
• Cocktail Party (salted almonds, olives, potato chips, assorted canapés)

ST. PATRICK'S DAY LUNCHEON

-green pea soup

-fried chicken

-persillade potatoes

-green pepper and grapefruit salad

-lemon ice with mint leaves

-small cakes

-green mints

-hard green candies

If you're still reading and interested - persillade potatoes are boiled potatoes (the recipe says either 12 small new potatoes or 6 medium-sized old potatoes - I've never seen potatoes that aren't 'new' being called 'old' hahah!) tossed with melted butter, lemon juice and coated with minced parsley.

Also, green pea soup is different from split pea soup (I assumed it was the same); in case I never make green pea soup to share with you, here is the recipe:

2 cups stock

1 quart water

1 quart green peas

1 celery stalk

1 onion

1 turnip

2 sprigs mint

1 T. flour

1 T. butter

salt and pepper

sugar

Reserve one half cup of peas, and to the stock and water add the rest of the peas, the celery stalk, onion and turnip cut into pieces, and the mint. Stew until the mass is tender. Strain through a sieve or coarse cheese-cloth. Thin with stock or water, if necessary; bind with a roux of flour and fat and season with salt, pepper, and a little sugar. Add the half cup of whole peas, stew for a few minutes, and serve. 

Grilled Scallops with Chili-Lime Cream Sauce

Don't make fun of me, but every month I look forward to getting the Costco magazine in the mail - actually it's more like a big ol' advertisement disguised as a magazine - because they post some really good recipes! I know, Costco? Hahaha, yep. This one is down right delicious, even if you aren't a scallop fan I still recommend you make the sauce - it was just as good on the cauliflower rice and I think it'd be great on other fish or even chicken. Bravo Costco magazine, bravo.

• 1 1/2 lbs. large sea scallops
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, optional
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

• cooked rice

• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1 T. minced peeled fresh ginger
• 1 large shallot, chopped
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 2 T. Asian sweet chili sauce
• 6 T. unsalted butter
• salt and pepper

Combine scallops, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste, red pepper flakes, and garlic. Marinate for 30 minutes.

Prepare the sauce: Combine lime juice, wine, ginger and shallot in a small saucepan. Cook over high heat until reduced by half (3 minutes). Ad cream, lower heat and cook until reduced by half. Remove from the heat. Stir in chili sauce. Whisk in butter 1 T. at a time. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Grill scallops until opaque throughout, 1 to 2 minutes per side.

Serve scallops with sauce and rice. Makes 4-6 servings.

Tip-sy Tuesday: hidden bank

This post is from Brooke - I love this idea, although maybe she shouldn't share this because now everyone will know where she hides her car money LOL!

aunt jill says today is tipsy tuesday - and i have a tip for you! i personally don’t like to keep a lot of cash on me or take any cash into school with me just in case i lose my wallet 😂( don’t tell my mom) so i use an empty gum container and put money in it and store it in there!

Shamrock Garland

I've been sick for a few days and haven't felt like being crafty - so hope you don't mind a repeat post! Here's an easy St. Patty's day craft I originally posted 3/16 you can whip out in no time:

Brooke must have been busy this week, I didn't get any of her awesome kid craft videos to share with you today...so instead I've decided to channel her and come up with my own craft that I think she'll approve of - naturally by asking myself "what would Brooke do?" I had to use the hot glue gun! And yep I burned my thumb - she seems to be better at being careful than I am!

(2020 tip: I've said it before but here's a reminder - have a bowl of ice water sitting on your work station when using the hot glue gun. If - and when, if you're like me - you get burned, immediately stick your hand in the ice water. Trust me, it helps)

I had a left over package of foam shamrocks from making the wreath the other day (see here for that project) and some twine, and of course the hot glue and thought a quick garland to hang from a door would be cute.

That is literally all I did, glued shamrocks back to back (making sure the stems matched up) every few inches on a long piece of twine. Stuck up one of those little Command removable hook things to the top of the door and looped the top of the garland string around it.

Around the Campfire 🔥 (week 10)

Dear Campers ~

A quick recap incase you missed anything at camp last week:

Posts ~
3/1: 🔥 week 9
3/2: breaded and baked eggplant
3/3: TT: copycat old bay seasoning
3/4: baked mushrooms
3/5: TBT: chipped beef on toast/goldenrod update
3/6: paper masks
3/7: framed St. Patrick's day art

What's cooking ~

• usually I try to give you some weekly menu ideas, but I've been sick all week and the only 'cooking' has been done by Dave. Which is to say we had pot pies, take out chicken, he made himself lamb chops and I ate mashed potatoes, deli mac and cheese, etc...let's just say it wasn't a low-calorie or low-carb week! 

Miscellaneous things keeping me busy while I laid in bed all week:

• So pretty much all I did this week is read books! And I read a bunch...6 books in 6 days. 

1. 'Criss Cross' by James Patterson (#27 in his Alex Cross series) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I always like Alex Cross and this one is no exception. Didn't like the end but overall enjoyed the read. 
2. 'Banana Cream Pie Murder', 'Raspberry Danish Murder', and 'Chocolate Cream Pie Murder' all by Joanne Fluke. I'll give them all a ⭐️⭐️⭐️ and maybe 1/2 for being light and fluffy 'murder'  books that I've just realized are basically Hallmark Channel movies waiting to happen. I've read a bunch of these in the past, mostly because she gives recipes along with clues haha. They are fine and not at all scary, very definitely the opposite of most of the thriller books I read. If you like baking, eating, and/or Hallmark movies then you'll probably like these 😉
3. 'Dead Until Dark' and 'Living Dead in Dallas' by Charlaine Harris. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ The first 2 in a series of vampire books that the show "True Blood" is based on. They are not very good, not gonna lie, not sure why they are so popular that they inspired multiple seasons of the HBO show (which I didn't watch, maybe it's very loosely based on the books!). Even tho the whole time I'm reading them I'm thinking how dumb they are, I still kept reading and borrowing more from the library! Kind of like reading those awful 50 Shades books, they're stupid but I just kept reading LOL. I currently have #3 on hold from the library 🤦‍♀️😂

Thanks Marky for the laugh!

Hope you had a good week and that you are staying healthy! This is like the 3rd time I've been sick this winter and I'm over it - and yes, I wash my hands and use hand sanitizer! Sigh - back to bed to read another book (the one good thing about sick days hahaha). Check back often to see what I decide to make once I'm back on my feet - in the meantime I have some recipes I've been saving and maybe I'll do a repeat or two so I'll still be posting!

Sincerely ~

Jill

camp counselor and lone person keeping Kleenex in business

Framed Art for St. Patrick's Day

This is a repost from March '16, too cute and easy to not re-share in case you're looking for some St. Patty day decor ~

Here's a couple quick little project for St. Patrick's Day using frames I found at a dollar store:

The first one is simply a print out from here that I just stuck in an 8x10 frame. I didn't take the best picture of this - it's really cute in person!

Next is a 3.5 x 5 inch piece of cardstock with the word "LUCK" cut out of glittery gold paper glued on it. Use any color paper and cardstock you like. I used a stencil to shape the letters, you can free hand or print templates out if you prefer. Then I put it into a 3.5x5 frame.

This shamrock and butterfly card takes a couple minutes longer to put together but I think it's super cute and if you have a small heart shape punch it is a simple thing to make. I got the idea here.

you need: 

• 3.5 x 5 inch cardstock
• 12 mini hearts cut out of another color cardstock
• glue
• marker

Place the hearts on the card so you have an idea where you want them, then glue in place. To make the shamrocks put 2 hearts sideways so the bottoms are touching then put a third heart straight up on top of them. 

After gluing everything in place draw the stems on the shamrocks, a dashed line to indicate the butterfly flying away from the 3rd heart and the butterfly antennae. Put in a frame.

Paper Masks (and feather heaven)

These paper masks are very easy and quick to make - just google a free mask template, cut out of  cardstock and decorate to your hearts content. Fun for Mardi Gras last week but this is a super cute craft for any time - and a perfect kid craft! I glued on feathers and sequins, then made other lines and decorating with glue and glitter. So easy. So fun. So silly. What's not to love about this one?

I just used these as table decorations, but if you punched a little hole on either side and added a thin elastic cord you could totally wear these. I'm also thinking for a future party it'd be fun to cut out a bunch of masks and set out a table of decorations and let everyone design their own - wonder if I can get the guys to join in?!

On a side note that has nothing to do with making masks:  I have a big bag of feathers that I got when I went with Dave to a fishing store and I was inspired by all the feathers they had for tying flies. When I was trying to pick out what I thought I could use for crafting the owner asked what I was going to make and said "I hope you're making hair clips?" I asked why, and he said because back when that was a thing he used to go to hair shows and sell feathers - and has tubs and tubs of leftovers. I might have started breathing quicker and had slight heart palpitations and asked if I could see his tubs of feathers? Please? He brought out a couple huge rubbermaid totes full and said for me to have at it. I. Was. In. Feather. Heaven!!! I literally sat on the floor and sorted feathers while Dave waited for me hahahahah. The owner said I can come back anytime for more. YAY!!! Best (feathery) day ever.

...and while trying to find the right little feathers for this mask project I realized that there is no reason for these to be such a jumbled mess and one thing led to another and next thing you know I'm organizing feathers! I put them together by color or type, put in smaller ziplock bags making sure they are laying flat and not all kinked up, then 'filed' them away in a folder. Nope, pretty sure I don't have OCD. Pretty sure...

PS: this is only a handful of all the feathers I got that day at the fishing store!

TBT: update to Goldenrod

Today's 'throw back Thursday' is an update to last week's post about my Grandma's old cookbook and Dave's mom making 'goldenrod' (click here to see that post); my mom sent me a couple more versions of  SOS (or chipped beef on toast, or goldenrod, or whatever you call it at your house!)...here's what mom has to add:

Grandmas version was simply milk thickened with flour slurry and adding jarred chipped beef cut up. I always add butter at the end cause I like butter in everything. Grandma also made a version with substituting the chipped beef with a can of tuna, was really pretty good. She used it over toast. 
I still have the SOS version when I feel like comfort food. Some people have it with hamburger.

I found this image online at buddig.com - the meat we use for chipped beef on toast looks like this, comes in a small package in the lunchmeat section. I see online that other people use dried beef in a jar but I have no idea what that is like so can't comment. Click here for a bunch of other recipes using this packaged meat (the pinwheel appetizers are easy and yummy, jazz them up by adding a slice of pickle or green onion before rolling). 

Baked Mushrooms

Baked mushrooms. Yuuuuummmmm. I stumbled on this idea and ran with it - they are a new personal favorite of ours. Perfect side with steak, but I can just eat a bowl of these on their own! Not sure why I've never thought to roast mushrooms before, I roast just about every other veggie - and I love mushrooms... shoulda been a no-brainer, but better late then never - we eat these a lot!

Preheat oven to 375'; line a baking sheet with foil or parchment, or spray with non-stick cooking spray.

Toss 1 pound sliced or halved mushrooms with a drizzle of olive oil, coarse salt and pepper, 1 teaspoon thyme, 1/4 cup grated parmesan; sprinkle with a little lemon juice (I don't know how much I use, maybe 1 Tablespoon) and toss again so everything is evenly incorporated. Spread out on the baking sheet in an individual layer.

Bake for 15 minutes, turning occasionally, under brown and tender. At about the halfway mark there will be a lot of liquid in the pan, I carefully remove the baking sheet from the oven and pour off what liquid I can without spilling the mushrooms; return to oven until done. If you cook them long enough maybe the liquid will evaporate but I've never waited that long.