St. Patrick's Day Sweets (Thin Mint Brownie Trifle, Anyone?)

Once upon a time, Julia helped me sort out Christmas-colored M&M's that I had bought on clearance at Target.  We've been holding onto the green ones, just waiting for St. Patrick's Day to come.  This weekend we put those green M&M's to good use.....

 .....cookies!  We used my chocolate chip cookie recipe, adding in mostly M&M's and a few semi-sweet chocolate chips.  Totally delicious.  And totally festive.

 Our second St. Patrick's Day sweet treat?  A Thin Mint Brownie Trifle.

 Loosely following all trifle recipes I have made thus far (layer brownies/cake, pudding and candy or something crunchy), I created the following minty/chocolate trifle recipe.

Brownie Layer:
one 9x13-size box dark chocolate brownie mix, prepared as directed
10 ounces mint chocolate chips, stirred into brownie batter
* Bake as directed for 9x13 brownies.  Cool completely, then cut into one-inch cubes.

Pudding Layer:
two 3.3-ounce boxes white chocolate pudding mix
3 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon green food coloring
1/8 teaspoon mint extract
* After beating the above ingredients for two minutes, fold in half an 8-ounce container Cool Whip (save other half for top layer of trifle).

Crunchy Layer:
one box of Girl Scouts Thin Mint cookies
* Crunch/crumble all but six cookies (save six cookies for garnish).

Assembling/Layering the Trifle:
1 - Half the brownies
2 - Half the pudding mixture
3 - Half the crumbled Thin Mint cookies
4 - Repeat above three layers
5 - Remaining Cool Whip and (whole) Thin Mint cookies

Enjoy!