St Patrick's Day Party

Decorating for a St Patrick's Day party should be easy, just go green! Add festive touches in the form of shiny shamrocks. Cover the table with a green tablecloth and hang a shamrock garland from the ceiling. Serve the snacks on large green plates and pour the black and tans in clear plastic party cups. Create mood lighting with lots of candles and green votives. Add a touch of Spring with bright yellow daffodil floral arrangements. Greet guests at the door with a fabulous party favor. Give girls shamrock necklaces and guys "Luck of the Irish" beer koozies. Stick a shamrock sticker on guests who forgot to wear green.

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Just because St. Patrick's Day is a beer-centric holiday doesn't mean you can't serve a specialty cocktail at your blowout bash. Whiskey and Bailey's Irish Cream are excellent options, but a classic beer cocktail — the black and tan — will have guests cheering. A black and tan combines two types of beer to make one drink that has a stunning presentation.

Besides the black and tan, be sure to have lots of cold beer, your favorite liquor and mixers, and water. For the recipe for the black and tan, read more

Don't forget to provide guests with some sort of sweet at your St. Patrick's Day event. It's a party, so give the option of indulgence in the form of a dessert. These chocolate shots are great because they highlight the flavor of Bailey's Irish Cream, are gorgeous to look at, and are guaranteed to impress your guests. Even though they look complex, they are surprisingly easy to put together when you use packaged chocolate cups. The filling is a delicious mix of chocolate ganache, Baileys, and orange zest. To take a look at the recipe, read more

Even though Aimee's St. Patrick Day party starts after dinner, she's planning on providing guests with a small selection of Irish inspired snacks. It's always nice to have some food on hand, especially when heavy drinking is involved. This menu twists classic Irish flavors – cheddar cheese, dark beer, corned beef, and smoked salmon — into modern favorites.

An Irish cheddar and stout fondue is gooey and decadent. Smoked salmon puffs are easy to make in advance and divinely addicting. Reuben roll ups are the perfect drunk food because they taste like an Irish pizza pocket. For all of these wonderful recipes, read more

Last year I planned a St Patrick's Day dinner, so this year I'm helping my friend Aimee host a blowout bash for St Patrick's Day. Since St. Patti's is on Monday, the party will take place the Saturday before. I'll be discussing lots of festive ideas all week, so feel free to adapt them to suit your own hostess needs.

Let's get started with the invite. Aimee needed something that was simple to make and easy to send to a lot of people, so we went with a postcard invite. To see how I made it, read more

My half birthday was last Friday, and to celebrate I made myself a decadent chocolate layer cake. The recipe was something I personally devised by combining several different cake, pudding, and frosting recipes. The Bailey's pudding was an excellent consistency for the inside of a cake and the intense creamy flavor intense and insanely delightful. Even those who don't enjoy sipping a glass of Bailey's will enjoy this pudding. I have a delicious chocolate cake recipe that I use whenever I make chocolate cake, but this time I decided to experiment with a new devil's food cake recipe. In the end, I preferred my original recipe over this devil's food cake, but this one came out pretty good too.

Let the frosting rest for several hours instead of just one and you will have a smooth, luscious, deep brown icing. I had a horrible crisis when I went to assemble the cake, the layers were slipping like mad. The frosting would not stick because each layer was sliding every which way. Extreme times call for extreme measures and I asked my dad to help me align the cake with skewers (conveniently he was prepping shish-ka-bobs for the grill and had the skewers handy). We placed a circle of skewers in the cake which looked like birthday candles and easily averted disaster. I popped the whole cake in the fridge for a few hours to chill and it firmed up expertly with the frosting cooling to a ganache like state. The final product was a cake that was dense and delicious, moist and super chocolatey. I can't wait to have another piece today when I finish dinner. For the recipe and a gallery of photos, read more

I've been a wild rover for many of year, and I've spent all me money on whiskey and beer. And now I'm returning with wealth in great store and I never will play the wild rover no more. And it's no nay, never... Yes, I know the lyrics to an Irish drinking song. Ok I confess I know the lyrics to more than one Irish drinking song: when I was little Al, my grandfather, taught me and my sister a whole bunch and we would sing them to our relatives. Tomorrow I'll sing them (with the help of a few beers) to my friends while I celebrate St. Patrick's Day. I've invited them to join me for an Irish inspired dinner followed by a pub crawl. I'm decorating my house with lots of shamrocks and serving green beer. Practically everything is all prepped and it's looking like one fabulous party. I just have to figure out what music will be playing softly in the background while we eat. To see the soundtrack to my dinner, read more

This week I'm killing two birds with one stone by hosting a half birthday St. Patrick's Day dinner party. It's my half birthday on Friday and St. Patrick's day on Saturday so I've combined the two celebrations and invited over a group of friends for dinner before we venture out for a night on the town together. I'm of Irish descent and love celebrating St. Patty's, so I am taking the steps to make my party fabulous, memorable, and successful. The drinks and menu are planned, and today I am decorating my house with shades and textures of green. Creating a look for St. Patrick's Day is quite simple because it's all about celebrating the color green and the rebirth that it symbolizes. To see how I'll transform my house with luck and leprechauns, read more

St. Patrick's Day is Saturday and I can't contain my excitement. I have been obsessing about what to wear internally for a few weeks now, and had intended on wearing this green mini dress until I found this fabulous old football jersey of my mom's with my Irish last name plastered across the front. Now that I have my sporty chic green outfit picked out, I can focus all of my attention on my pre-pub-hopping, St. Patrick's Day themed dinner party. The invites have been sent and the menu (including a vintage Irish soda bread recipe and a glamorous layer cake) has been planned. Today I am turning my thoughts towards a classic St Patrick's Day subject: drinking. To see what I'll be pouring during my dinner (homemade Baileys anyone?), please read more

On Saturday night my friends shall be dining in with me before we head out together. I sent the invites yesterday and today is menu planning. I have been putting a lot of thought into my St. Patrick's Day dinner party menu and I've decided to start with corned beef and swiss appetizers followed by a smoked salmon salad, cottage pie, and Irish soda bread. Since Friday is my half birthday I am going to take advantage of the date and go all out by making a decadent dessert. To see my recipe for a layer cake with a definitive Irish twist - a Bailey's pudding filling - read more