I don’t understand the green food thing for St. Patrick’s Day. Someone emailed me (and several other women who bake for a biweekly Tea at Stamford Hospital, sponsored by our local Hadassah group) and suggested that we could, if we wish, bake something and color it green because the next Tea will be a St. Patrick themed event.
Nope.
When I bake with my grandchildren I let them use food coloring and we frequently have lavender or cerise blue or fuchsia butter cookies or layer cake. I have lots of little bottles with lots of colors that they can mix together.
But they’re kids.
Green bagels, green cake and so on is just not happening here. I don’t remember when that whole thing started.
Green Ireland is an amazing country, one of the most gorgeous I’ve ever been to. Emerald Isle is a good name for it, so true, so lovely. It rains a lot there and then it stops and the grass and the leaves, the bushes and plants and everything else is incredibly beautiful. To me the green in nature conjures up hopeful signs of life. But green, fake-colored food? Nope.
I’ll be making:
Oatmeal Cookies
10 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanila extract
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups quick oats
1 cup raisins
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a cookie sheet. In the bowl of an electric mixer set at medium speed, cream the butter and sugar together for a minute or so until creamy. Add the brown sugar and blend it in thoroughly. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract. Add the flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt and beat until the ingredients are well blended. Stir in the oats and raisins. Drop mounded tablespoons of the mixture onto the cookie sheet, leaving some space between each lump of dough. Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Repeat with remaining dough.
Makes about 4 dozen