A Tasteful Countdown: Mary Poppins

Shepherd's Pie - everyone likes it but me!

Well it was a Jolly Holiday in the kitchen tonight with our Mary Poppins themed dinner tonight. We went with a very British main course of Shepherd's Pie (during the viewing of the movie I decided that Fish and Chips would've been better considering they plan on doing just that in the film, oh well, live and learn). The dessert was a raspberry tart and raspberry ice.

The shepherd's pie was the easiest thing on the menu after all was said and done. Not much excitement there. I've learned I don't like it very much, ha ha. Yup the picky eater is still a picky eater, however it wasn't bad. Just not my thing. Dad and mom gave it two big thumbs up, though. Mom went back for seconds!

Dessert proved more challenging. What I thought would be simple turned out not to be. I started with the raspberry ice, but that took more work than expected. It was simple enough to make the syrup and puree it with the berries, but when it came time to pour the mixture through the strainer the seeds kept clogging up the little holes! So I spent almost an hour stirring the stuff in the strainer to get the liquid into the dish to put in the freezer! ACK!



At least it looked good when it came out of the oven.

Then for the tart I used the same recipe for the crust as I did a few weeks ago for the peach tart. It is gluten free and has chocolate - what could go wrong. I tried to make it work better than the last time, but the problem was the raspberries melted when I put them in with the sugar to make the syrup. The extra berries I planned to bake on top melted into the syrup when I mixed the two. So I ended up with several cups of syrup on top of this already wet dough. The crust on the bottom didn't bake, and the filling didn't set up. Not my best baking experience.

Parents didn't mind though, and said it was good. Duane loved the raspberry ice judging by how he ate it when he got home from youth group. So still successful even if it wasn't "practically perfect in every way."

Anyone want a snow cone??

The funniest part of the night was when mom came home from the store. She went to put the ice cream in the freezer. Not knowing what was in the pan on the shelf she when to fling it somewhere else and ended up with not so chilled raspberry stuff all over the freezer. It looks like a bloody mess in there now. But at least if we need a snack in a pinch we can make raspberry snow cones! I'll admit I was ticked when it happened - I worked hard on that stuff! - but everytime we open the freezer door and you see the bright red going all the way down the shelves it's too hard not to laugh!

Next week is Jungle Book. I have to work on finalizing it - and finding a dessert.

A Tasteful Countdown: Sleeping Beauty

A meal fit for royally hungry people.

We are 271 days away from Disney World! After taking a couple weeks off from the whole dinner themed stuff we were back to it for this week.

The movie is my favorite of all time: Sleeping Beauty. I can't think of a time when I wasn't in love with this story and movie. I love everything about it - even the pink element, if you can believe that - the characters, the animation, the music. It's the perfect "Fairytale Come True." So it was alarming that I couldn't figure out a menu right away. In fact, I didn't come up with a full menu until the day of, so it was a menu based on stuff we already had in the house.

This was a big night for me because it meant I had to use the grill. I hate the grill, not because it doesn't cook the food or anything (it does a great job at that) but it uses fire and they can go BOOM and I don't like that. I'm very very scared of cooking after the fire when I was 16. Aunt Judy got me over the fear of the stove, but a BBQ is a whole new realm of scary for me. Dad said he would help me on that one, so it was set. Why the grill you ask? Well, mainly because of the Dragon element of the movie. Everyone knows I LOVE Maleficent's Dragon (you should see me during those scenes, or the ones during the Park show Fantasmic! LOL), so it should be no surprise that this is the route I ultimately took in theming the menu.

So the menu consisted of Honey Brined Grilled Chicken with a roasted red pepper, tomato, almond, and garlic relish (they call it a romesco in the recipe, all done on the grill). For our side it was herb roasted (in the oven) potatos and carrots. The whole house and outdoors smelled divine while it cooked! For dessert I went super simple with Vanilla Ice Cream (admittedly not homemade, maybe next time!) with a mixed berry syrup (which I did make from scratch - remember Briar Rose goes into the woods to collect berries - lots of berries - even though she picked berries the day before because her aunts - the good faries - told her to).

We did manage to have left overs, but it was a definite hit with dad - he immediately informed us of what he was taking for lunch at work Friday. He told all of his coworkers about it - it smelled great in the lunch room - and now I have several requests to share the recipe.

All in all another successful night. Next week we are going back in time - movie list wise - and will watch a double feature of Saludos Amigos & The Three Caballeros, so it will be Mexican. After that who knows, we're debating if we want to go live action, Pixar, or what animated movie to do next (next in line would be 101 Dalmations).



 

Before going into the oven.

The relish all ready to go.

The chicken was sooooooooooooo goood!

Mom may have licked the bowl clean...

Here are the links for the recipes I used for dinner:
Grilled Chicken and romesco
Herb roasted potatos and carrots
Mixed Berry Sauce

WDW 2013: Bambi Themed Dinner

Main dish of Cheesey Chicken and Veggie Chowder.
Side dish of roasted stuffed red bliss potatos. yum!

I am once again fighting a sinus infection/cold. Third one this year that's laid me out flat. Not happy about it, but I at least fought through it to keep working and of course I made dinner for this week's movie. Now before you go all sick and twisted like my dad went with the theme, we did not have venison or rabbit (or skunk). Originally we were going to go straight up vegetarian, but whatever I suggested was vetoed by the othere members of the family, so we compromised and did another chicken dish (bird, bird, bird-bird-bird!).

Finding a menu with a woodsy theme that didn't just mimick Snow White's theme proved pretty impossible, so it wasn't as cohesive as I wanted, however the results were yummy - which I think is all anyone really cares about. So I went with comfort food (let's face it, Bambi is traumatic to the psyche). With the weather being as cold as it's been, and me being sick, a chowder was in order. I still wanted to go with the roasted veggies, though, so I made a stuffed roasted potato dish as well. Dessert was a cop out as I just had no energy to be creative, so we went with a box mix Angel Food cake. I should've still found something green and leafy to go with my favorite line of the movie, though:

"Eating greens is a special treat, it grows long ears and great big feet... but it sure is awful stuff to eat! I made that last part up myself." - Thumper

I'm still learning how to pace myself as far as what and when to start so that the meal comes together at the same time. I got closer with this one, but the chowder needed to be stirred almost cosntantly so that the cheese didn't burn to the bottom. Mom came and helped me out a bit - mainly because I was moving in slow motion as doing anything while I have this cold seems to wear me out in just a few minutes, and this meal took an hour total. Probably couldn've gotten in done a little quicker if I'd managed my time better, but it is what it is. The recipe, though is enough to feed a small army - we have lots left over even after we all had seconds - and I had to switch to a bigger pot than what I started out with. We should have halfed the recipe, but after last week we wanted to make sure we had enough!

Stuffed potatoes were a hit with the family.

With the chowder safely taken care of I worked on the potatoes. I boiled them but they weren't soft enough in some people's opinions so they threw them into the micro. They were too soft after that which made it difficult to scoop them out correctly, but I did it well enough that I had enough potato to mix with the other ingredients. My family loved them, but I was not a fan of the thyme - just don't like a lot of that - and so I let dad eat my portion!

Dinner was finished while the football was still going (what a game, right?!), so we ended up finishing eating before the movie started. I haven't actually watched Bambi in years, it's just so sad!, however I was able to remember many of the lines - enough that it annoyed my mother when I began quoting what would be said or done next. Oops.

Dad didn't last very long into the movie before he headed into the kitchen for dessert. He loves Angel Food cake. You ask him what he wants for his bday and this is what he begs for. So when he found out it was Angel Food for dessert he was a happy camper. It's no wonder he sped through dinner, ha ha! I made mini cakes, or tried to, using mom's mini bundt cakes. I must have put a bit too much in teh cups, though, because they baked up and over by a lot, but it worked out because they look like mushrooms you'd find in the woods! So I'm making a claim that I planned it that way!

The "mushrooms" before the "snow".

The "mushrooms" looked good covered in "snow" (whipped cream) which also fit the theme of Bambi. Except it's the winter scenes that are sad, we all know what comes with the snow in that movie. Thankfully I could blame the tears on my sinuses being hyperactive.

We have tons of leftovers, anyone want some? Next week we have Cinderella, and I'm still debating if I do a breakfast for dinner or go with a menu that follows "Cinderella's royal palace" there at Walt Disney World. Any ideas?

Cheesey Chicken & Veggie Chowder recipe
Stuffed roasted red bliss potatoes recipe