The dynamic bloggers behind one of my favorite weekly memes (Pretty on Pinterest) have done it again with a brand new Pinterest-based meme called Don’t Just Pin It…Eat It. Twice a month, Simply Stacie and Sassy Mama in LA will present us with a new food theme. Your task is to head to those Pinterest food boards that we all know you have, choose something that fits the theme, and actually make one of your pins instead of just staring at it longingly. This month’s theme is St. Patrick’s Day, which just happens to be tomorrow!

For my first time participating, I wanted to go with something simple and actually make it myself. In the future, I will most likely ask the boyfriend to make it because he’s a genius in the kitchen while I’m barely even close to mediocre. I can, however, make smoothies and shakes like a pro, so I went with this Shamrock Shake Copycat recipe from Babble.

I’ve never had a Shamrock Shake, so I was really looking forward to trying it. The recipe is pretty simple, with only three actual necessary ingredients. Well, four, if you count food coloring (which was where our adventure began).

You’ll need:
Vanilla Ice-Cream (we bought store-brand, although the recipe suggests premium ice-cream)
Peppermint Extract
1% milk
Green food coloring (optional)
Whipped Cream (optional)
Green sprinkles or candies (optional)

Okay, I misread the directions when I made it. It says to use 3 cups of ice cream and 1 3/4 cups of milk. I shorted the milk by a quarter cup and shorted the ice-cream by a whole cup. Oops! It also calls for 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of mint extract, I almost accidentally put in 1/2 tablespoon because I grabbed the wrong measuring spoon.

We opted to skip the food coloring at first because a small thing of green coloring was $3.99 at Weis market. That’s just insane to me! $4 for colored water?!? Then right before making it, I decided I wanted it, so we went back out to Big Lots and the dollar store looking for some, but they didn’t have any. I was ready to cave and pay the $4 when genius boyfriend suggested just using that bight green “writing” icing in a tube. It cost $1 less, after all.

When I put all the ingredients into the smoothie maker, I discovered that there was some sort of spout malfunction. How did I discover this, you ask? Well, the milk pouring all over the counter and floor kind of gave it away. My mom managed to repair that, and I was back in business. I ended up using the entire tube of writing icing because it didn’t really come out the color I was expecting, but the end result was still pretty and very yummy. Check it out for yourself:

All in all, despite a few missteps and minor disasters, I’d say this month’s “Don’t Just Pin It…Eat It” project was pretty successful!