Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Even though its a somewhat silly holiday--St. Patrick's Day has always been one of my faves. I had so much fun setting up this Top of the Morning brunch--I felt like it was a fitting theme for St. Patrick's Day!



I had a blast trying to pick out foods that were green and gold--and also fit the brunch theme. I tried to use ingredients that were naturally green or yellow, because no one wants to eat something with a bottle of food coloring in it! The pancakes were fabulous--colored with spinach and layered with some cream cheese frosting. The recipe is available here. The scrambled eggs cooked up to a lovely golden color. One of my favorite touches were the bell pepper shamrocks--just slice a pepper, pour in some eggs and cook over low! And there were quite a few green and yellow fruits to choose from--kiwi, pineapple and grapes.



And no party is complete without sweets! Rice Krispies, shamrock macarons, homemade marshmallows and chocolate covered pretzels were a few of the goodies we enjoyed. The pretzels were so fun and easy to make--tutorial available here!



To decorate the table, I grabbed as many green and gold things I could find around the house and played around with the table until I was happy. The background cost me less than $10 to put together and was fairly quick too! I love the way it filled in the wall and mimicked the stripes in our printables. All of the printables are available for free download below. The cute treat bag toppers are a fun gift for friends and the banner is a fun way to spruce up your mantle!



All of the decorations are available for download here! (Free until March 24th, 2015, then available for purchase on Etsy.) To say thanks, we'd love it if you'd like us on Facebook or pin an image to share the love (or luck!) with your friends.

I'm terrible at dipping things in chocolate. It's a fact. I can never melt it to the right consistency and I make a mess and I'm impatient.  BUT--these chocolate pretzels? They are adorable, simple and pretty much impossible to screw up. And easy enough you could make them with kids!



St. Patrick Day Chocolate and M&M Pretzels
Pretzel Snaps
Hershey Kisses or Wilton Candy Melts
M&Ms (green and gold!)

Pot of Gold Pretzels
For these, I used dark chocolate kisses for the pots and peanut butter M&Ms for the gold so that the pots would be a little darker and there'd be a little more gold in the pot.

1. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
2. Unwrap kisses and put them in the center of the pretzels.
3. Bake at 200 degrees for about 7 minutes--you can test an M&M and see if they are soft all the way through or if they need a few more.
4. Press a yellow M&M into the center (M side down!)
5. Wait to cool and enjoy!

Lucky Shamrock Pretzels
For these, I used yellow candy melts and green M&Ms--although they'd be just as cute with kisses!

1. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
2. Unwrap kisses (or don't, if you are using candy melts) and put them in the center of the pretzels.
3. Bake at 200 degrees for about 7 minutes--you can test an M&M and see if they are soft all the way through or if they need a few more.
4. Press four green M&Ms into the center (M side down!)
5. Wait to cool and enjoy!




All of the decorations are available for download here! To say thanks, we'd love it if you'd like us on Facebook or pin an image to share the love (or luck!) with your friends.

For our St. Patrick's Day brunch, we HAD to have green pancakes. And I wasn't crazy about dumping a bottle of green food coloring in the batter, so I did what any reasonable mother would do--I threw in a bunch of spinach! (Cue evil laughter.)

1 1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup vinegar
2 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
 2 eggs
1/4 cup butter, melted
handful of spinach
chocolate chips (optional)
cooking spray

1. Combine milk and vinegar. Let rest 5 minutes. This is essentially making buttermilk.
2. Blend milk & vinegar mixture with spinach--adding spinach until you get the desired shade of green.
3. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
4. Whisk buttermilk, eggs and melted butter in a separate bowl. Once whisked, combine with the dry mixture and mix until all lumps are gone.
5. Use cooking spray to coat griddle or pan on medium heat. Pour 1/4 cup batter onto griddle and cook until top starts to bubble. If adding chocolate chips, sprinkle them on before flipping.
6. Flip and cook on the other side until done. (If you want to avoid browning the top, cook on a lower temperature for longer without flipping.)


Since we were eating a reasonable amount of spinach, I felt like we earned some frosting, so I layered in some cream cheese frosting and did not feel bad about it at all. Not. At. All.

All of the decorations are available for download here! To say thanks, we'd love it if you'd like us on Facebook or pin an image to share the love (or luck!) with your friends.