Photo taken by Darwin Bell on Flickr.com

Top ‘o the morn’, to you! It is St. Patrick’s Day.

Now, I am not Irish.  Ethnically, I am more Scottish than anything else, but I love an opportunity to have fun and celebrate a culture.  If I needed a reason to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, it could be in honor of my sister-in-law whose ancestors left Ireland during one of the potato famines.  They entered America through Ellis Island.  It is truly an incredible story.

St. Patrick’s Day honors the death of the patron saint of Ireland.  Though not Irish himself, St. Patrick devoted his adult life to converting the Irish to Christianity.  Legend has it that he used the shamrock to help explain the holy trinity.  The Irish Christians wore shamrocks as a symbol of their faith.  There are many sites on the internet full of good information, fun ideas, and recipes.  My favorite site is the Holiday Spot.

My family is not doing anything spectacular today.  We are not drinking green beer or dying the lake behind my house green.  Although if you ever get a chance to see the Riverwalk in San Antonio green for the occasion, it is cool. I know other places do similar things.

My kids and I are going to make the gluten-free cookies that I talked about around Valentine’s Day, except we are making green icing.  They love to make these cookies and so will you.  For the recipe go to my article, “Valentine’s Day Cookies.”

I am preparing corned beef for dinner along with cabbage and potatoes.  Some say that it is a traditional Irish dish while others completely disagree.  I do not know the truth, but the recipe can be found on the Holiday Spot as well as many cookbooks.

Some clover is beginning to grow up in the pasture.  It will be a great time to add a drawing of clover to our Creation Notebooks.  I will have my kids explain the significance of the shamrock on St. Patrick’s Day.  I also like for them to copy a poem or verse in their notebooks.  There are many to choose from, but I chose the last stanza from the St. Patrick’s Breastplate Prayer.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same.
The Three in One, and One in Three,
Of Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

Whether you are Irish or not, I wish you a Happy St. Patrick’s Day.  I leave you with an Irish blessing.

May you always have
Walls for the winds,
A roof for the rain,
Tea beside the fire,
Laughter to cheer you,
Those you love near you,
And all your heart might desire!

When you first get diagnosed with a food allergy, you go through a mourning period.  You grieve for the foods you think you can never enjoy again.  Bread, cakes, cookies, rolls, pie crusts, etc.  Throughout the year, you adapt, you cope, you manage.  You are doing great!  Then the holidays roll around and the grieving process resurfaces.  You think of all the traditional family dishes you cannot eat.  You think of dressing, dinner rolls, gravy, pies, and in our family, cheesecake.  My grandmother makes the world’s best cheesecake.

Cheesecakes use a graham cracker crust as do a lot of different kinds of pies.  One of my husband’s favorite pies that he makes is called a Hershey Bar Pie.  It uses a graham cracker crust too.  I am sure that your family has some dessert that depends on a graham cracker crust.  Until now we could not eat it because it contained wheat.

Occasionally we buy Snackimals Animal Cookies for my boys.  They are organic, wheat-free oatmeal cookies.  They are good.  One day I was eating a few of the animal-shaped cookies and I thought, “This would taste great with cream cheese.”  Well, it did not take long before I was looking up my grandmother’s cheesecake recipe.  I gathered up the ingredients and proceeded to try to create a wheat-free “graham cracker” crust.

I am happy to report that it worked.  I was so excited.  The holidays do not look so glib now.  My family will have a dessert after Thanksgiving dinner to eat.  With this crust, the possibilities are potentially endless.  You can fill it with a variety of fillings.  Experiment with your favorites.

Wheat-Free “Graham Cracker” Crust

1-1/2 cup wheat-free cookie crumbs*
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 of a stick of butter, melted

In a food processor, finely chop the cookies into crumbs.  Add the sugar and melted butter.  Then combine well using the processor.  Pour the mixture into our pan, whether it is a springform pan or pie plate.  With your fingers or the back of a spoon, push the crust into the shape you desire.  Place in freezer for 10 minutes.

Fill with the filling and cook according to your recipe’s instructions.  If the crust needs to be pre-baked, cook at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.  Cool.  Then fill with the filling.

*For this recipe, I used Snackimals Animal Cookies by Barbara’s Bakery.