Happy St. Patricks Day!

Forget streets paved with gold, at this time of year America goes green. Chicago is graced with a green flowing river and magically delicious mint and green treats flow from every candy, cupcake and ice cream store.

I first caught the St. Patricks Day “bug” during a shop at Safeway. Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly squeeze another thing into my basket, I was a confronted by an entire wall of these…

…Limited Edition Lucky Charms cereal with Green Clovers to boot! Needless to say a box was nicely balanced on top of my already overfull shopping cart, nervously teetering and threatening to fall with every pigeon step I cautiously made towards the till.

Since then I’ve experienced a million and one new ways to celebrate St. Patricks Day via my tastebuds and belly, be it good ole Shamrock Shakes at McDonalds, rather posh “Lucky Pints O’Beer” jellies from Sugarfina, or Milk Chocolate Treasure Coins from the end of the rainbow – A.K.A my favourite place in whole wide world, See’s Candies!

To nicely frost this layer cake of edible celebration, March is also Girl Scout Cookie month – the only time in the world when you needn’t feel guilty for buying (or eating) boxes upon boxes of cookies, so I intend to make the most of it!

I always like to make a stop by Ken’s Market on Queen Anne to buy a box (well, maybe more than just one) from Girl Scout Sammie, who regularly pitches outside the store eager to achieve the highest cookies sales in her troop (and she usually does), as well as greeting everybody with her warm and friendly smile – great work Sammie, you make us all proud!

So what better post to share with you today, than a Girl Scout Cookie inspired dessert, Thin Mints® Cookie Ice Cream. So now you can show your support for the Girl Scouts and celebrate St. Patrick’s Day – now that’s what I call killing two birds with one delicious bowl of refreshing, minty, awesomeness!

You don’t need a degree in rocket science to make this ice cream and you won’t need an ice cream maker either. Simply add some vanilla ice cream, mint extract and green food colouring (optional) into a blender and blend on the ice cream setting until everything is completely combined.

Pour into your ice cream tub and set aside.

This next step is extremely important… eat one Thin Mints® cookie to be sure they taste good. Yes? Well, I suggest you try a second, just to be sure! Now add the Thin Mints® cookies – if there any left – to a ZipLoc bag and lightly bash with a rolling pin to break them into chunks.

Stir the cookie chunks into the ice cream and then place in the freezer until the ice cream becomes solid.

While waiting for the ice cream to harden, sit back with a cup of tea and indulge in any remaining cookies from the box – because everyone knows that an open packet of cookies is an unhappy packet of cookies.

Serve your Thin Mints® Ice Cream in a cone, or bowl, and top with oodles of chocolate sauce – yum!

For details on where to buy Girl Scout Cookies visit the Girl Scout website.

I always store my ice cream in a Tovolo Glide-A-Scoop Ice Cream Tub. It’s the perfect tub for storing home-made ice cream, gelato and sorbet. The insulated double wall design ensures your ice cream stays frozen for longer when out of the freezer and the narrow shape of the tub guides your ice cream scoop to get the perfect scoop every time.

The Tovolo Glide-A-Scoop Ice Cream Tub is available in three bright colours (strawberry red, raspberry pink and pistachio green) in a 1.5 litre capacity, or if you are a real ice cream lover it is available in a large 2.5 litre capacity tub in white. All four tubs are available to buy from the Arugula & Rocket store.