Happy St. Patrick's Day + Chocolate Covered Pretzel Tutorial

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Ever since I was a young girl, I've always loved to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. We always donned our finest green apparel on March 17th every year. In addition to traditional foods like corned beef and cabbage, my mother would always have other "green" food, including mashed potatoes and something yummy for dessert like green cake.

As I grew older, the holiday took a slightly different turn, but it was always fun. Between parades and parties, we celebrated for at least a week. But apparently I must be getting officially old because I saw a group of St. Patrick's Day revelers on the metro this weekend who were participating in a pub crawl. Although there was a time when I would have loved something like this, now just looking at them made me tired.

I'm also a HUGE fan of Irish music. It does not take much to persuade me to sing and dance in an Irish bar on St. Patrick's Day. My favorite songs are the Unicorn Song and Harrigan!

I made monogrammed shamrock shirts for Natalia and Alexia. They loved the end result. I designed the graphic on my Silhouette Cameo and cut it out on heat transfer vinyl. Finally, I ironed it on some plain white tees that I picked up on sale at Joanns. I plan to make some shirts like this for Easter with a Peep motif.

Here's another shirt that I made for St. Patrick's Day! Everything is better when it's personalized.

Everyone loved chocolate covered pretzels, so I decided to make a batch for St. Patrick's Day!

I've tried to make chocolate covered pretzels many, many times, but have finally found the secret to success. The Wilton Chocolate Pro melts chocolate perfectly and evenly. I use the Wilton's chocolate (also from Joanns)

Tips for Success for Perfect Chocolate Covered Pretzels

• Add a teaspoon of vegetable oil to the chocolate as it is melting.
• Use thin layers of chocolate. As tempting as it is to put as much chocolate on the pretzel as possible, it's better to have several thin layers that have time to dry than to load on the chocolate all at once.
• Coat pretzel rods about 3/4 using a spoon to evenly distribute the chocolate.
• Add sprinkles, crushed nuts, mini chocolate chips or whatever you would like while the chocolate is still wet.
• Put non-stick cooking spray on cooling racks and allow the pretzels to dry on the racks.
• Allow the pretzels to cool and dry thoroughly before drizzling on a different color of chocolate.

Finally, we're enjoying shamrock ravioli for dinner! Yummy!

How are you celebrating St. Patrick's Day!

xoxo