Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Duit!

St. Patrick's Day is a pretty big holiday around here. While my wife is Italian (and, thus, so are my kids) my background is more varied. However, I think it's safe to say that I'm predominantly Irish. The brown hair, dark eyes and skin so pale that I don't tan - it's all I can do to just tone down the blue.

So, every year we use the holiday as a excuse to buy Guinness Draught, listen to the Irish Rovers, and (like everything else we do) get the family together for dinner.

A family tradition is that me and the kids (well, okay, Christina - the other two are too "mature") get together and bake a giant shamrock cookie.

The recipe isn't rocket science:

• Pick up any 18 oz. package of sugar cookie mix.
• Shape it roughly into a shamrock shape; as it bakes the sugar cookie dough will spread out and change the shape of your cookie anyway.
• Bake 15 - 20 minutes or until you can lift an edge of it and see that it's golden-brown.
• Let it cool on the baking sheet for two minutes, then carefully loosen cookie with a spatula (so it doesn't stick to the sheet.)
• Before decorating, let it cool completely. Say 20 minutes. Decorate it hot and your frosting will melt and run all over the place.
• Decorate with green frosting, green sugar crystals. Just so everyone knows it's a shamrock, outline with white chocolate chips.

If you really want to do it right, say for all those black-tie St. Patrick's Day parties you'll be attending with the Rockefeller's, you can cut out the outline of the shamrock after the cookie has cooled and before decorating. As you can see in the picture, I won't be going to such parties anytime soon.

Still, it's a fun craft, especially if you have wee bairns who're not above green a little frosting on their hands.

Sláinte chugat