Happy St Patrick's Day!

 Happy St Patrick's Day to one and all! Today is the day of the year when I most miss my homeland (Ireland, for those of you who don't know who Patrick is the patron saint of!). It conjures up visions of going to the parade in Dublin when I was little and reminds me of where I grew up. Consequently, I think of it more as a way to celebrate my roots and not, much to the confusion of many of my friends, as an excuse to drink a lot of Guinness (although that's not to say I'm not going to have one later on...) 

In any case, when we moved to England, St Patrick's day, which had been a day off each year with fun and revelry, became just another day on the calendar. To counteract this, a tradition somehow developed. I cannot for the life of me remember how or why but every year we've lived in England on St Patrick's day, we have eaten green pancakes. 

Strange perhaps, but it's a tradition now and who am I to question (especially if it means I can eat pancakes!).   

 I used Nigella's pancake recipe, which is deeply ingrained into my brain from many uses. What I did, to make them as wonderfully green as they turned out was about halfway through step 3 (before adding the wet ingredients to the dry) was add blue and yellow colouring (I use Wilton paste colourings, as they don't dilute the mixture) until I had my preferred green and then added the dry ingredients. The advantage of doing it this way seems to be that the colour isn't diluted by the flour whereas if you add the colouring after the flour etc it tends not to be so vivid.

 

And, fantastically, they kept their colour and even deepened a bit as they cooked! The picture is making me hungry again...where's that leftover batter...?

 We had them with maple syrup that was brought back from a recent trip to Canada which is really delicious...I think we'll all be sad when it's finished! 

So there's my crazy Paddy's day tradition for you all, give it a try!

  

I have, of course, been dressed in green all day and, this afternoon my mum came home and presented me with this:

 My very own shamrock! He's been put in a little green dish to continue the theme.

Happy St Patrick's day everyone!