Saint Patrick's Day Party: Easy Food and Drinks

Easy food and drinks for your Saint Patrick's Day party:

Food: A party isn't a party without food, and Saint Patrick's Day isn't Saint Patrick's Day without corned beef and cabbage!

Main meal: Traditional Irish corned beef and cabbage is easier to make than you think. The morning of the party, place a corned beef brisket, peeled and quartered potatoes, baby carrots, and cabbage wedges into a crock pot. Add a wee bit of garlic and some peppercorns, set the heat on low, and your meal will be ready by party time! (Oh yeah, put a smidge of water in the bottom of the crock pot so the meat doesn't burn, but don't use too much- the corned beef and cabbage will cook down, creating plenty of water.) You can serve the meal straight out of the crock pot or in serving dishes, it all depends on how fancy you want to be. All you need to add is bread and butter on the table, and you're all set.

Snacks: Beside the main meal, you'll want to have a few snacks beforehand for all the noshers. You have to have potato chips. (Get it?- Irish? Potatoes?) Having all of the snacks come from the potato family is a really cute idea. So... potato stix, potato skins, and tater tots are good Saint Patrick's Day theme snacks. (Oh yeah, don't forget to put out green cheese for snacks. That's an old joke from my bartending days.)

Dessert: Generally, Saint Patrick's Day isn't a big dessert holiday, but if you're like me you need a little something sweet. The best bet here is cookies. Cut-out cookies in the shape of four leaf clovers- aka shamrocks- are super cute! Frost them with green frosting or sprinkle with green sugar. If you want to get a little more involved, buy a set of Saint Patrick's Day cookie cutters. (They're all over the Internet- just do a Google search.) The usually have a leprechaun, rainbow, pot of gold, and gold coins in the mix. Fun, fun! If you're thinking that's too much work, buy the Pillsbury ready bake cookies and be done with it. Like I said, Saint Patrick's Day isn't a big dessert holiday anyway.

Drinks. Saint Patrick's Day isn't Saint Patrick's Day without the drinks. (Sound familiar? That might not be the most original line, but there's a lot of truth in it!)

Non-alcoholic drinks. The wee lads and lassies need to wet their whistles on Saint Patrick's Day, too. The very little ones get a kick out of green milk! Just add a few drops of green food coloring to a pitcher of milk, and shake or stir. Repeat the process until you have the desired shade of green.

Other green non-alcoholic drinks for Saint Patrick's Day include lime Kool-Aid and Shamrock Shakes. I'm sure everyone knows how to make lime Kool-Aid, so we'll skip the instructions. For Shamrock Shakes, you can buy them at McDonald's or make your own. To make your own, use vanilla ice cream, mint extract, and green food coloring, or use ice cream that's already green- like mint chocolate chip. If you really want to go out on a limb, use green pistachio ice cream for a Shamrock Surprise Shake! (Some people don't like mint, so they'll appreciate this.)

Beer. To a lot of people, that's what Saint Patrick's Day is all about- drinking beer! Two great beers of Ireland are Guinness Stout and Bass Pale Ale. if you want to have a truly "Irish" Saint Patrick's Day party, go with Guinness and Bass. Be warned that these beers aren't for everyone, though, and they're expensive. If you have a strong feeling that Budweiser or LaBatt's Blue would go over better with your crowd, stick with that feeling.

Libations. (What a fancy name for booze!) Jameson's Irish Whiskey is (for obvious reasons) a popular choice on Saint Patrick's Day. If the hard stuff is too much for you, tone it down a bit with Bailey's Irish Cream. It's nice straight, on ice, or in coffee. If wine is more your thing, the only way to go on Saint Patrick's Day is Wild Irish Rose! (You saw that coming, right?)

Now that you see how easy it is to plan food and drink for your Saint Patrick's Day party, all that's left is to have fun!