Last year on Dole Whip Day, I made cupcakes inspired by the ones offered at Contempo Café at Disney World’s Contemporary Resort. They were amazing, and I thought I might make them again this year, until Disney Eats shared a new recipe for Pineapple Upside-Down Cake with Frozen Pineapple Treat Inspired by Dole Whip. I’m always up for trying something new, and I wasn’t disappointed…I already knew we would like the unofficial Dole Whip because I’ve made that before, and the pineapple-upside down cake was the best I’ve ever had!
I wonder what kind of recipe they’ll come up with next year?
We’ve been working our way through Sonic the Hedgehog: The Official Cookbook for a few months now, and we’ve been been very impressed with everything we’ve tried, including four different types of “chili” dog (only two actually had chili, and the other two were a bit controversial featuring tuna and egg salads as toppings, but even though they were different, they were good!). This cookbook also gave me an excuse to finally try my hand at making tortillas, which was a lot of fun!
Piko Piko Slammer
Villain Subs
Blue Hydrocity
Sonic’s Signature Chili
Knuckles’s Fruit Punch
The Perfect Chili Dog
A Rival’s Chili Dog
Perfect Note Waffles
Catch O’ The Day Dog
The Perfect Eggdog
Charmy’s Sweet Treat!
Charmy’s Other Sweet Treat!
The Garlic Collector
Imperial Tea
Unlimited Potential tortillas
Burrito Blasts
Island’s Bounty Salad
Cream in a Sweet Conclusion
I’m looking forward to continuing to try more recipes from this book!
It’s been quite a few years since we last had a German feast for the Fourth of July, so that’s exactly what we did last week. The menu was somewhat different…this time around, we made all of our Oktoberfest favorites, starting with pretzels:
And pretzels call for fondue for lunch, which I served with pickles and brats as well:
The main course was schnitzel:
I served it with family favorites such as spaetzle, red cabbage, pickled beets, and sauerkraut:
It’s one of my favorite dinners, no matter what time of year it is!
The real star of the feast in my opinion, though, was the dessert. I decided to deconstruct the components of my Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte recipe, and serve Black Forest sundaes. They were so delicious, and I’m pretty proud of my culinary creativity!
It’s fun to plan an unexpected meal for a holiday every now and again!
Time for a look back at two days of Star Wars celebrations!
This year, I have a new cookbook, so many of the recipes are from Star Wars: The Ultimate Cookbook…as a matter of fact, unless other noted, all of them were! We started day one of the celebration, May the Fourth, with “Kand and Zand Rolls” and “Hyperspace Brew.”
I made “Kyber Scones” for a lunchtime treat:
I baked “Lira San Crackers” to go with dinner:
Our beverage of choice was the “Cantina Crush,” which is very similar to our favorite Brazilian lemonade recipe, but served over ice cubes instead of crushed ice:
For dinner, I made “Batuuan Ronto Wraps” with smoked sausage and roast pork, spicy slaw, and a peppercorn sauce, just like we had at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, according to the recipe from Delicious Disney: Walt Disney World. I served them in “Ronto Wrappers” according to the recipe from the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge cookbook.
For dessert we had “Carbonite ‘N’ Cream Pie,” which not only had chocolate and vanilla ice cream, but also Oreos!
Day two of the celebration, Revenge of the Fifth, isn’t quite as involved, but we still had a special drink, “Rim’s Edge.”
And a full dinner, featuring “Roasted Arkanian Tenderloin,” “Hynestia Spheres,” “Lammas Tree Bites,” and from the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge cookbook, “Mustafarian Lava Buns.”
For dessert I made “Lha-Mi Glacier Bars.”
The Star Wars days have really taken on a life of their own, and I tend to do as much food prep for them as I do a more commonly-observed holiday. I love that we’ve really made this celebration a big deal, and something we all look forward to!
“I didn’t hear you say that. Because it isn’t possible. It’s inhuman to serve the same food, day after day. The Geneva Convention prohibits the killing of our taste buds!” Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce on M*A*S*H
Happy M*A*S*H Day!
Ok, I made that up. But today is 4/07…and that’s as close as I could get to the 4077th date-wise, but that’s good enough for me! Really, I was just looking for an excuse to make a themed meal from Secrets of the M*A*S*H Mess by Private Igor, I mean, Jeff Maxwell. We started the day with “Klinger’s Section 8 Omelet,” which included spinach, mushrooms, and salami, and was crazy delicious!
For dinner, I made “Fractured Fusilli with Balsamic-Pepper Sauce” which was a nice departure from tomato-based pasta sauces. I think it will make an especially nice, light summer dinner!
For dessert, I made “Charles’ Blueblood Berry Cake with Lemon Frosting.” It’s a classic flavor combination, and it was so delicious!
Secrets of the M*A*S*H Mess is a really fun book. I was super excited when they released a new, updated 50th anniversary edition last year, because I hadn’t been able to find it anywhere. The recipes are fun (and occasionally frightening, like the “River of Liver” and “Creamed Weenies,” both dishes actually mentioned in the show), but the real draw of the book is the letters home from Igor, behind-the-scenes tales, and cast photographs. It’s perfect for a M*A*S*H fan like me!
On this date in 2063, in Bozeman, MT, Humans will meet the Vulcans for the first time…only 39 years to go! To celebrate, today I made recipes from The Star Trek Cookbook. For dinner, we had Gagh (udon noodles mixed with paprika-seasoned beef “noodles”), with homemade Grapok sauce. I’m not well-versed enough in Klingon cuisine to know exactly what kind of gagh it was, but hopefully it was none of the types mentioned here: “Torgud gagh wiggles. Filden gagh squirms. Meshta gagh jumps…Bithool gagh has feet.”–Ezri Dax
Here’s a closer look at the Grapok sauce. It featured beet juice, with a bit of soy sauce and balsamic vinegar. It was very thick and surprisingly delicious!
I also made an Icoberry Spritzer made with a blueberry-blackberry syrup…fortunately no one here suffers from adverse effects from icoberry juice like itchy spots!
For dessert I made Kalavian Biscuits, which are kind of matcha crinkle cookies. I had to make some substitutions, so the texture was all wrong, but they still tasted good!
I really enjoyed trying some new recipes from this cookbook, and I’m already thinking about a Captain Picard Day celebration this summer!
This year, in order to take a look back at our Easter celebration, we have to back way up, to before Holy Week even began! While Bunny was home from college on spring break, I made hot cross buns, and we made the paschal candle for the year, so she wouldn’t have to miss out on everything. Unfortunately, she had to go back to school the day before Palm Sunday, so she didn’t get to join us for that (or any of the church services that followed).
Our Holy Week was pretty standard, even though we were missing having Bunny at home. We went to church on Maundy Thursday:
On Good Friday, when I wasn’t teaching school, I was working in the kitchen, chopping things and making pita bread. Ladybug helped out by baking and decorating some cupcakes for me:
And then we went to church. The service was beautiful, as was the sunset we were treated to upon leaving the building:
On Saturday, I was back at work in the kitchen, making baklava, tsoureki (a Greek Easter Bread), and prepping other various components of our Easter dinner:
I also did a little work on decorating, including pairing some linens in a new way for the kitchen island and making our napkins look like bunnies!
And then it was time for the best church service of the year, The Great Vigil of Easter!
On the way home, according to tradition, we stopped at Wendy’s for Frostys and fries, and watched Rick Steves’ European Easter.
Back to church this morning for a service filled with joy and beautiful music!
It was weird taking pictures of only four of the children. Since things were already different, I decided that instead of taking my usual pictures by the font, I’d go with the Paschal Candle as the backdrop instead:
And a picture of…the Fab Four? Nope…that just isn’t right!
Also a picture of 6/7 of our family:
I planned a special Easter breakfast this year…I finally learned how to make omelettes! So we had a made-to-order omelette bar, featuring ham and smoked salmon, dill, chives, mushrooms, bell peppers, and two kinds of cheese:
We also had mixed berries, 13(!!!!) kinds of mini donuts (Seasonal varieties included carrot cake, blueberry, peach cobbler, spring sprinkles, honey bun, strawberry shortcake, plus the standards: powdered, old fashioned, glazed, frosted, zebra, crunch, and double chocolate ), pink pineapple, and the requisite Easter candy:
Here’s a look at our completed Osterstrauß, which was the centerpiece of our buffet:
I chose a smoked salmon, dill, and mushroom omelette, and it was delicious! I also really enjoyed the pink pineapple, which I thought tasted a little bit like watermelon…it might have just been a mental thing because it looked kind of like watermelon, though!
I didn’t have a whole lot of work to do this afternoon since I had prepped so much of dinner, so I had plenty of time for setting the table while we watched the first two My Big Fat Greek Wedding movies:
My family requested gyros for dinner, so I seasoned some sizzle steak with gyros seasoning we found at the international market and cooked it in my best approximation of gyros. We had all our favorite toppings: homemade tzatziki sauce, tomatoes, onions, and feta cheese:
I decided to go full-on Greek with our dinner, including a Greek salad, spanakopita, the previously-mentioned tsoureki, and because I’m still scared of making saganaki, fried feta coated in sesame seeds. The only thing missing was dolmas (stuffed grape leaves)…maybe someday I’ll tackle those!
I’ve been thinking about doing a Greek Easter dinner for a few years, so I really enjoyed it!
In keeping with our Greek theme, we had baklava sundaes for dessert:
And I found some time to stop by and say “hi” to Zipper T. Bunny!
This was our first big holiday without all of us here, which was weird and sad, but we made the best of it, and it was still a lovely Easter!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We actually celebrated yesterday, right after we picked Bunny up for spring break. I’m so glad she could be home with us for all of our St. Patrick’s Day traditions.
We still haven’t caught the leprechaun, but this year, for the first time, we did see him!
In addition to a minty treat, he left us with Lucky Charms…this time, with dragon marshmallows!1
In keeping with the theme of the day (green), I made some matcha milk boba tea, and topped it with lavender-lemonade whipped cream:
We had our traditional dinner of corned beef and cabbage, roast carrots and potatoes, and soda bread with Irish butter:
And a Guinness cake for dessert!
Tomorrow, we get to celebrate Turkey’s 21st birthday (also a day early!).
On Tuesday we had Chicago Day; yesterday was STL Day (and what a day it was, with baseball-size hail and tornados not too far from us!)! 3/14 is a day to celebrate all things St. Louis, because the city’s area code is 314 (also the first area code we had when we moved to the Dogtown neighborhood of St. Louis over two decades ago). For dinner, we had some of St. Louis’ finest…Imo’s pizza from the freezer section (the best frozen replica of a restaurant pizza we’ve had!), toasted ravioli, and Fitz’s Cardinal Cream soda. And for dessert, I made another St. Louis classic, gooey butter cake:
We still have a whole slew of special days coming up, first next week, and then on through Easter, and even beyond…stay tuned!
Yesterday, 3/12, was “Chicago Day” or “312 Day” because the original Chicago area code (the first area code for my home phone number when I was a child!) was 312. It split several times over the years (I had two additional area codes as the Chicagoland area codes continued to be exhausted), and now the city itself has more than code, just like New York and Los Angeles. Anyway, to celebrate Chicago, I made one of our favorite dinners, Chicago-style pizza, and a new dessert, Chicago-style cheesecake (which has 8 oz. more cream cheese than New York-style, making it a fluffier dessert).
And I’m not done, because tomorrow is STL Day, celebrating the 314!
