St Patrick's Day Brunch

You've all read the book Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seus so the idea of green eggs should at least sound familiar! When you're serving brunch for a crowd the easiest way to do eggs is scrambled. When you're whisking your eggs up drop in some green food coloring (but only a drop at the time), the amount you'll need to add will depend on how many eggs you're cooking.

Sausages and bacon can both be cooked on the side and if there's any vegetarians then make sure to get some vegetarian sausage, but keep it separate%u2026..there is a story about that which really didn't make a certain friend of mine very popular!

Make your toast as normal and then just use a shamrock cookie cutter to cut them into shamrock toasts! If you have lots of children who want to help then you can get them doing this job :)

Put out both lime and orange marmalades for people to choose from (despite the greening of St Patrick's day orange is also on the Irish flag!).

When I have friends around I like to fill their mugs about 2/3 of the way with black coffee (whether it's instant or percolated), then I heat up some milk in the microwave and use my milk frother to create delicious coffees. On St Patrick's Day I simply add a couple of drops of green food coloring to the milk and the result is a green froth on top of a delicious coffee. The coffee goes a greenish color as well, how green is dependant on the coffee you use, but my last attempt was very green.

What I find interesting about this coffee is that even though I've made it and know that there is no mint in it my brain expects a minty flavor! It you have anyone keen for alcohol at brunch then add a dash of crème de menthe or peppermint schnapps.

Now if the above menu doesn't quite appeal to you there are some other ideas for brunch such as a green omelet or Lou's Irish muffins.

Green Omelet

Dice up some bacon, green capsicum and green onions (spring onions).
Saute your bacon for a few minutes until it starts to color and then add the capsicum and continue sautéing for another couple of minutes before adding your green onions (spring onions) and continue to saute for a minute before taking off the heat and draining on a piece of paper kitchen towel.

Mix your eggs and milk up and add a couple of drops of green food coloring.

Make omelete

Lou's Irish Muffin

Make basic muffin mix, adding a couple of drops of green food coloring, chopped green glace cherries and candied orange to stir into the mixture.

If you want to serve something cold as well as the Green Coffee then you can do something as simple as adding green food coloring to lemonade or sparkling water or you could make a refreshing iced tea.

Peach and Mint Tea

This is a really refreshing 'tea', not really a tea it's just a really nice drink to make.

1 1/4 cups fresh mint leaves
3 ripe peaches
4 cups crushed ice cubes

Pour 6 cups of water into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add 1 cup of the mint leaves. This mixture needs to be covered and allowed to steep for at least 30 minutes. Strain the 'tea' into a pitcher discarding all of the mint leaves and pop into the fridge until cold. To be perfectly honest I would do this part the night before - you've got enough cooking to do this morning!

Pit the peaches and chop 2 of them up and pop into a blender. Puree them until smooth (if they aren't very juicy you may need to add a tablespoon or 2 of liquid, use the mint tea). Strain the peach puree and chill.

This makes 4 tall glasses so get them ready on the side. Thinly slice the remaining peach and you're ready to prepare your drinks.

Layer the glasses with some crushed ice, thin slices of peach and the remaining mint leaves until they're halfway filled. Divide the peach puree between the glasses and then top up with the mint tea - delicious!

This webpage was last updated by lou16 on 4th February 2012.