This summer has been a “Pokémon Summer,” which was Turkey’s idea after we started playing the trading card game. We’ve had a really fun time playing, and once a week, we have a “Pokémon Night” which features something of a tournament. We all have at least one deck to play with, but none of them are adequate to defeat Turkey, the house Pokémon champion!
To go along with our game nights, we also made lots of recipes came from the My Pokémon Cookbook and My Pokémon Baking Book! For our first themed dinner, I made a Flygon Pan Pizza. We also had a Musharna Strawberry Taro Slush, which was light and lovely. For dessert I made Morpeko Double-Dipped Viennese Cookies.
Our second Pokémon dinner was nothing short of amazing! We had Charizard Spicy Arrabbiata with Chikorita Cheesy Pesto Brioche Rolls…they were outstanding! Our drink was the Bruxish Slush, which made use of butterfly pea tea to change the color of the blue ice to purple! Finally, for dessert, I made Sylveon Strawberry Shortcake, which was as delicious as it was pretty.
Our third Pokémon dinner started with a fresh and tropical drink, the Alolan Exeggutor Tall Tropical Slushie featuring pineapple and mango. I made Darumaka Tomato Soup with homemade cheddar croutons for the main course, and Bunny made Floette Focaccia to go with it (I enjoyed using the leftovers to make some amazing sandwiches!). For dessert I made the Sandile Butterscotch & Brownie Parfait, which featured a homemade butterscotch crème pátissière and a crispy brownie topped with strawberry whipped cream.
The theme for our fourth Pokémon Night was “beat the heat” by using the oven as little as possible! We started with a Tsareena Roast Beet Salad…It featured a delicious orange shallot vinaigrette, and the combination of beets and goat cheese was outstanding! The main course was Flygon Avocado Toast. The cream cheese spread had dill and lemon, and I will definitely be using it on other sandwiches! For dessert we had Relicanth Chocolate Malts…they were extra chocolatey!
For our fifth Pokémon dinner I made Dragonite Butternut Squash Gnocchi topped with fried sage.The drink was the Seaking Dragon Fruit Agua Fresca. It had a base of dragon fruit, coconut water, and lime juice, and the ice cubes were made with grapefruit, orange, and lime juices…it was really good, and somehow, it tasted a bit like bananas! For dessert, we made Whismur Lemon-Lavender Bars.
We had breakfast-for-dinner for our sixth Pokémon Night. The main course was Gogoat Breakfast Burritos. They had spinach, mushrooms, avocado, and refried beans in addition to eggs and shredded hash browns. Our drink was Shuckle Berry Juice. It was very similar to the smoothies we usually make, with frozen berries and vanilla yogurt, but it also had pomegranate juice, which was a new and delicious addition for us! For dessert we made Drifloon Blackberry Marshmallows. This was our first experience making homemade marshmallows, and was one of my biggest kitchen disasters to date when marshmallow ended up stuck to EVERYTHING, but they were really delicious!!!
Our seventh Pokémon Night dinner was a little different because I started running out of main courses to try from our cookbooks. I mixed things up with recipes a bit, and we started with an appetizer of Pyroar Bruschetta. It had a bit of spice from the addition of Calabrian chili crisp! I made a side dish of Pansear, Pansage, and Panpour Roasted Cauliflower. It was served with a trio of dipping sauces: buffalo (which I have to confess, I did not make from scratch), green chutney, and blue cheese. They were all good, but I liked the cilantro-based green chutney the best! Our drink, Clobbopus Vanilla Punch, was like a second dessert! It had the flavors of vanilla, orange, and ginger, with a few blueberries thrown in! Our actual dessert was Igglybuff Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes. The chocolate spirals were a lot of fun to make!
In between Pokémon Nights, we made a stand-alone dessert…Kricketot Chocolate Strawberry Sandwich Cookies, only we used raspberry jam for the filling because that’s we had on hand. The recipe suggested using a music note-shaped cookie cutter because crickets sing, and it just so happens that I have one of those!
Our eighth Pokémon Dinner was another breakfast-for-dinner featuring Furret Fluffy Pancakes. They were vanilla-cardamom pancakes alternated with chocolate to mimic his stripes, and they were both delicious! Our drink was Ampharos Lemonade. It was light and refreshing, and I especially enjoyed the addition of lemon ice cubes! I decided to really test my baking skills with dessert, the Koraidon Mixed Berry Soufflé. It was made (and topped!) with two different berry purées, and was lighter than air…I wish I had gotten a picture before they started to fall, because they were extremely puffed when they came out of the oven!
Next we had kind of a mini Pokémon Night with a special side dish and dessert. I made the Magby Spicy Cherry Tomato Galette. I’m not going to lie…this is my least favorite thing we’ve tried from these cookbooks. The recipe called for smoked paprika, and that was all I could taste, which was unfortunate, because there was a really good combination of other ingredients here. The dessert however, a Cufant Thai Iced Tea Float, made up for the disappointment of the side dish. It featured a homemade cardamom-vanilla ice cream with chai tea, coconut milk, and boba pearls.
We kept making dessert once I ran out of dinner ideas, including a pair of desserts from the My Pokémon Baking Book, starting with Buizel Apricot Thumbprint Cookies. We also made a Bidoof Peanut Butter Pretzel Tart.
The most iconic dessert from the My Pokémon Cookbook has to be the Pikachu Lemon Tart…it featured a smooth and delicious lemon curd. Making Pikachu’s face with candy melts also made me realize that his ears look like pencils!
The final Pokémon dessert of the summer was Oshawott Blueberry Meringue Tartlets…the were both delicious and adorable!
This has been a really fun and special thing to do this summer, and I’m really glad we took the time to choose and try some new recipes!