St. Patrick's Day Double Post: Irish Shortbread and Mint Sugar Cookies

I didn't just make pretzel bites for our day of St. Patrick's Day performances; I also made Irish shortbread. Amber had asked me one day if I knew how to make Irish shortbread and I said no but I could most likely follow a recipe for it. This basically got the idea in my head that I had to make it for St. Patrick's Day.

My original plan was that I would make a batch then divide it in two: half for performance day and half for work. But I ended up only making about 8 so I figured I'd make something else for work. So I turned to my cookbooks for a sugar cookie recipe (since I wanted to give my hard copies some attention). At the end of performance day, though, I had almost the same amount of shortbread that I'd started with. So I still made the sugar cookies and took both to work on St. Patrick's Day.

Homemade Pretzel Bites

Last year, after an almost 8-year absence, I finally returned to Irish dance. Coincidentally, it was with the same school that I had been with for my first 7 years; it was just under a different director/teacher as my former teacher/the school's founder had somewhat retired from Irish dance (Amber, the new director/teacher, knows Anne through homeschooling so that's how that happened). The day I returned was St. Patrick's Day, a Thursday, with 3 performances.

Apparently, this was a relaxing day compared to their usual (a lot had changed since I left, apparently; I only remember doing a recital when we went through Kent Parks & Rec). This year was more the norm: a weekend full of performances.

To prepare for a day of driving around from performance to performance, I decided to make some snacks for the road (this was also because I didn't know if/when we would eat lunch nor when we would eat dinner). Because of my continuous pretzel kick, I decided on pretzel bites. I even searched for a spider strainer to easily remove the bites from their boiling water bath as I knew the wooden slotted spoon I had wouldn't be effective (finally found one at Bed Bath & Beyond).