Magic Milk for St. Patrick's Day

Lucky the Leprechaun has visited our house for years. At first, my mom was the culprit, playing pranks and leaving green donuts and dying our toilet water green, but she passed away when my girls were still very small, so I took over.

One of my girls' favorite St. Patrick's Day traditions has always been to drink green beverages.

I am not much a fan of artificial food coloring, though, and I have to really concentrate to choke down a bunch of green milk or green water.

This is so weird because I used to enjoy all foods artificially colored. Fruity Pebbles? There was a time when I would eat them every day! Remember blue ketchup? Loved that! Green chocolate sauce? I used it for years. Pink butter? I ate a lot of it, and blue butter too. Purple and orange cauliflower? I look for them every summer. Golden raspberries? I grow them in my yard! Rainbow bread, sweet potato chips, beet chips. I really like strangely colored foods. I can't say why, but it appeals to me.

But I draw the line at water or milk loaded up with green food coloring.

It gives me the heebie jeebies.

How weird am I? I know. You don't have to tell me.

Anyway, the easiest way to give Grace green milk and green water is to color the whole jug, but I just can't.

So I make magic milk.

This is so easy I can't believe I'm writing about it. Once you know the secret, you'll do it too, and your kids will think your leprechaun is the most magic one in the whole world.

I do this in plastic cups if I have them because it adds to greenness. (Is greenness a word?)

Step 1 - Put food coloring in the cup. That little dot doesn't do it justice. Use a lot, like 10 drops or so. Put the cups back in the cupboard for up to a couple of hours, but not so long that the food coloring dries. It won't work if the food coloring has dried.

Here's what makes the milk magic. Do step one when the children are asleep or otherwise occupied.

You can put the food coloring in many cups and stack them or put them in the cupboard, ready to use when the children are awake.

Step Two - In front of the children, pour white milk into the cup. Let them pour it in if they want to. Mine never notice the blob of food coloring in the bottom of the cup. They just don't see it.

Step Three - There is no step three. Pouring the milk mixes the food coloring, and by the time the glass is full, it is thoroughly green and ready to drink.