Disney Dinner: Luck of the Irish

This movie was fun.  None of us had ever seen it before, so it was nice watching it all together.  It's everything you would expect from a Disney Channel original movie, but those are perfect for LittleCJC right now and Patrick and I don't mind the extra cheese.

As for dinner, this was a super simple night.  Originally, I had thought about serving all green foods like I did the last time we had a Disney dinner around St. Patrick's Day, but then I happened to find these shamrock shaped ravioli and I decided to change everything.  LittleCJC had recently had ravioli at school so she had just been asking if I could get some the next time I went to the store. I took it as a sign and decided this was going to be an easy night.

I served the pasta with some pasta sauce and some cheddar and herb biscuits.  LittleCJC loved it.  

After some thought on dessert and realizing that this dinner would be after LittleCJC's dance dress rehearsal, I decided to send Patrick to the store with instructions to get something festive.  He came back with cupcakes adorned with St. Patrick themed rings.

Disney Dinner: Alice in Wonderland

 This week, we enjoyed Alice in Wonderland.  This meant that on Friday, LittleCGC and I visited Grandma so that she could help us make some cookies.  When we did this movie night 5 years ago, that was the one and only time I have made these fancy sugar cookies.  On that occasion, I borrowed everything from mom including her book with all the tips and instructions.  This time, we just decided to let her help us, and that she did.  LittleCGC was also a big helper.

On Sunday, LittleCGC also wanted to help make the dinner.

We fried up some chicken bites with an oyster sauce.  Patrick was very confused when he saw the oyster sauce and I said it was because of the walrus and carpenter scene.  When he still looked confused, I told him he needed to watch the movie with us and he did.  We also had Cheshire smiley potatoes with bread and butterflies.

LittleCJC loved it at sight, but LittleCGC freaked out a bit when she spotted the eyes on her bread.  Once we took those off, then she was fine and both girls surprised me by trying and liking the oyster sauce.  In fact, this meal was pretty easy and very tasty.  For this week's beverage, I obviously served tea.  LittleCJC was surprised by her first sip, but then she thought it was great.  LittleCGC on the other hand, declared the tea yucky and didn't try a second sip.

For dessert, we of course had the delicious cookies.

Overall, it was a great evening!

Disney Dinner: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

 This past week we had a fun German themed dinner for our Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs movie night.  I was excited when I found these bratwurst at the grocery store.

LittleCJC turned her nose up at first, but then ended up loving these.  She didn't however, try the German fries that I made to go with them.  I guess this meal wasn't themed or special enough, because I forgot all other pictures.  Or I guess I could have just been really hungry, lol.  For dessert, I made apple dumplings.  I actually forgot a picture of those too, but I did get a picture of my leftover dumpling that I ate for breakfast the next morning.

I love these!  As for the movie, it was fun watching with LittleCJC.  She loved the scenes including the dwarfs as she laughed out loud so many times.  I guess she didn't remember all those details and it was fun.  I guess overall, it was a more casual night than it should have been and I plan on making this up next week, so be sure to check out next week's theme and plan.

Disney Dinner: Tangled

 

We had a fun Disney Dinner night watching Tangled.  LittleCJC is fairly familiar with this one, but there were still some parts she said she didn't remember.  For dinner, we had buttered angel hair pasta, a ham and cheese braided bread, and Maximus' apples.

For a drink, I gave the girls some orange juice and called it golden flower juice.  Before we had even finished, eating, LittleCJC was already asking if there was desert.  To be fair, I'm starting to think we're all getting a little spoiled by these desserts.  In all honesty, I got a little lazy this week and just decided to make up something from what I had in the cabinets already.  I came up with a tower parfait.

I started with some yellow frosting that I piped up the side of the glass.  Then, layered some brownie, ice cream, brownie, cool whip, and topped it all with some purple frosting for the roof of the tower.  My glasses were too big and the dessert was a lot.  On the bright side, we didn't end up with a lot of leftovers that I always end up eating.

Overall, it was a very tasty dinner.

Disney Dinner: The Princess and the Frog

 It may have been Valentine's Day, but Mardi Gras was also starting this week.  So, this was an obvious choice for this week.  We started off with some bumblebee stew.  Not exactly like gumbo, but Patrick had been asking for this meal for a few weeks so I thought it was a good time.  LittleCJC suggested that something called bumblebee stew would be better for a transformers movie night.  While I appreciated the thought and told her I would keep that in mind, but in reality she refused to eat it so I don't think it would be a good idea.

I tried a new recipe for a cornbread variation called southern spoon bread.  We all ate this, but none of us were impressed, so I don't think we will repeat this.

For our drink, I followed someone else's idea for their Princess and the Frog movie night, milk punch.  I have no idea if they had a reason for this choice, but I was curious.  Patrick and I added the whiskey and the girls just had milk, ice, sugar and vanilla.  I also added some green food coloring to the girls to add a little more fun.  Again, we all drank, but I don't think anyone was impressed.

For dessert, of course the only option was beignets.  I was surprised that I couldn't fine any beignet mix locally since it was the season of Mardi Gras.  I did find a homemade recipe, but I also didn't have much hope.  To be fair, it wasn't bad and LittleCJC and LittleCGC loved them, but I knew I had a problem when my dough didn't rise at all after an hour.  I decided to try anyways, and like I said it tasted okay, it just was more dense than the airy texture it should have been.

We enjoyed our evening and are now in the mood for some more Mardi Gras festivities.

Disney Dinner: Robin Hood

 This week, was Robin Hood.  I didn't remember all the details of this movie, and LittleCJC didn't remember any of it.  She was excited, and I was surprised that she really watched it and got into it.

For our dinner, we had beef stew and crescent rolls.  I told LittleCJC we should really be having some big biscuits or crusty bread, but we already had the crescent rolls, so I kept it simple.

I think this is the first time I've ever made beef stew.  I'm now wondering why.  It was not a hard meal to make and it was tasty.  In fact, I used my instant pot and it was ready in a little over an hour.  I wasn't sure how well that would work, but it was tasty and perfectly cooked.  As for our drinks, I had a glass of wine, while LittleCJC finally finished off the cranberry grape juice that I picked up for our first Disney dinner, that was pretty close to same color as my wine.  It was cute that when I handed her the drink she asked what it was called, as in what the theme of the drink was.  So, I told her it was called mead, and then explained how back in the day everyone drank wine.  This of course led to a talk about what wine taste like and alcholic drinks in general.

Now, in the movie, they are selling (and then tossing) blackberry and currant pies.  Which LittleCJC definitely called me out on since we had apple instead.  She thought the thrown pie was cherry, but neither her or Patrick will eat a cherry when topped on their ice cream, so I didn't have faith that they would actually eat a cherry pie.  I personally, was just proud of myself.  This was the first pie I think I've ever made as well.  Now, yes, I did use a store bought crust, but I peeled all the apples myself instead of using bought pie filling.  Just like the stew, it took a little time but it wasn't difficult to make and it made me wonder why I've never made a pie before now.

I think I need to start theming my meals every evening, because she actually eats these meals.  I know if I had given her beef stew any other night she would have turned up her nose and said she wouldn't eat it.  Since this was a themed meal, she tried it and said the "chicken" was good.  For some reason, she wouldn't try the potatoes, carrots, or onions, but I'm excited that she tried it at all.  She did ask if the onions were apples and I wonder what she would have done if I said yes, but I just couldn't lie to her like that.  This girl's food logic never makes sense to me, but I'm happy when she eats.

Overall, LittleCJC and I had a great evening!

Disney Dinner: 101 Dalmatians

 Last week was 101 Dalmatians for our Disney dinner.  For the main idea, I repeated my old 101 Dalmatians dinner since I've already learned LittleCJC doesn't remember those at all.  We had spotted waffles with spotted milk.  I also added dog tails, aka bannanas.

I let LittleCGC help spot the milk.  Can you guess which glass she did, lol?

I couldn't help but smile at her excitement to help.

I also attempted a new dessert, Cruella Deville Meringue cookies.  Here's the beautiful example I found online.

I have never made meringue cookies before and I had no idea what I was doing.  I don't know if my peaks were stiff enough, or if it was just that I couldn't find my nice star tip, but here is what mine turned out like.

So first of all, I couldn't find black food coloring so I mixed what I had at home.  Then I couldn't find my star tip, but I found a cheap plastic one and tried that.  In all honesty, I'm surprised these didn't turn out worse than they did.  In fact, the girls loved these.

I don't know why, but I didn't expect them to like them and instead, they devoured them.

I also made some puppy chow in case the cookies were a complete loss.  In hindsight, it was a very sweet dinner, but also a success.

Disney Dinner: Inside Out

 Last week, we had our Inside Out dinner and a movie.  This movie was fun to watch with LittleCJC, because she didn't really remember it, and was too young to understand when she did last watch it.  If you've read my movie review post from last week, you already know this, but it was so cute when Riley got a brain freeze and the characters all froze.  LittleCJC didn't understand until then that the characters were in her brain, lol.  That definitely would add something to the movie.

So, of course, we made little personal pizzas for dinner.  I added broccoli to some, but I knew the girls wouldn't eat those.  Patrick and I were fine with it though.

As expected, LittleCJC preferred the pizza without broccoli.

The girls also had some Anger juice with their pizza.  This consisted of the cranberry grape juice still left over from the Incredibles movie night mixed with some orange juice.  They were a little unsure at first, but they both drank it.

For dessert, we made memory marshmallow treats.  These turned out cute, but I think we all prefer regular rice krispies instead.  We all ate these that evening, but very little was ate afterwards, and I ended up throwing the other half away.

Overall, this was a very simple dinner night and tasty but not over the top.

Disney Diner: Frozen

 Week 1

Yay, Frozen! Lol! Like we don't watch this movie on a daily basis right now in our house.  However, I really didn't want to skip it and it only makes sense to watch it in winter.

Unfortunately, I forgot to get a picture of our dinner, but it was mostly a repeat from the last time we had this movie/dinner night.  Please check out that post here if you want to see a picture.  Basically, we had Norwegian style meatballs and gravy with roasted cauliflower and carrots.  The girls ate maybe a meatball a piece, but Patrick and I were happy with this meal.  We also made blue jello ice cubes, which the girls were most excited about.  Dessert was great, though!  I made some white hot chocolate that I colored blue, added marshmallows and sprinkles and everyone was happy.  LittleCGC didn't drink much, but everyone else loved it!

As you might notice from the picture above, the girls opted to watch the movie on their tablet while doing everything else.  I didn't argue since, like I said, we watch this movie almost everyday right now.  I think the takeaway from this evening is that I may need to make the hot chocolate again!

Disney Dinner: The Incredibles

 Bonus

We started the year off with a bonus Disney dinner before the first week of 2021.  I decided to start with The Incredibles, because I am determined that we are going to have an incredible year.  LittleCJC liked my logic.

So, for dinner, we had Mr. Incredible's Powerful Crunchy Chicken.  I got the recipe from Reel Fancy Dinners, but she said she got it from a Disney cookbook.  We also had Elastagirl's twisty mac 'n cheese with peas, since that's the only way my girls will eat any veggies.  Our drink was Violet's juice.

The verdict...

The chicken was good and everyone ate that.

The mac n' cheese, well, the girls ate it this evening but I learned over the next few days that they didn't like these noodles as they like the pre-packaged, cheap mac n' cheese better.

For Violet's juice, I gave them Cranberry Grape juice that they drank, but weren't crazy about it.

I think everyone was most excited for dessert, Mr. Freeze's Float.

I simply put ice cream in a cup and poured some blue Hawaiian punch over it, topping it with mini marshmallows and sprinkles.  The girls loved this idea, but neither one of them finished theirs.  LittleCGC barely drank any of hers, but neither one of them complained about it.

As for the movie, LittleCGC liked the scenes with baby Jack Jack and LittleCJC watched for most of it, but she did let LittleCGC distract her about 2/3 of the way through.  Overall, we still had a fun evening and an incredible start to our return of Disney Dinners.

The Little Mermaid

This week was another simple week.  We made shells and cheese with sea snails, aka hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls.  If your looking for some more elaborate ideas, check out this post of Littlecjc's Little Mermaid birthday party here.

Pinocchio

This past week, our Disney dinner had a Pinocchio theme.  I decided on strombolli's and actually found a homemade recipe that was so easy and delicious.  Since I figured littlecjc wouldn't eat the strombolli, I also fixed some Pinocchio noses, aka cheese filled breadsticks, and some Geppeto green beans.

Cars

With Cars 3 coming out tomorrow, we of course planned a Cars marathon for this past weekend.  Our meal was super easy, but Littlecjc had so much fun helping me prepare.  We made chicken salad cars.

I had some zucchini in the fridge, so I used that for our wheels and I cut a grape in half for the headlights.  For our stoplights, I covered one side of a Milano cookie with some hazelnut spread so that our m&ms would stay put.

We wanted the tire tower we'd seen online, too, but we actually ended up not watching Cars during diner, so Littlecjc and I had our tire tower for breakfast the next morning when we actually watched Cars.

Now, we're all set to watch Cars 3.

A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, & Pirates of the Caribbean

A Bug's Life

Last week, our themed dinner was A Bug's Life.  I had all kinds of cute ideas for this week, but when the day finally got here, my family had other ideas.  I had planned on "ant hill" hamburgers, but I didn't make that clear and Patrick melted cheese on all of them.  It of course was tastier this way, and I sprinkled some pepper on top, imagining that they were ants.  Littlecjc declared that she wanted mac and cheese, so I told myself they looked like Slim.  Since I had already changed one side, I decided to keep it simple and add peas, or Flik's seeds, since I knew my daughter would actually eat them.

For dessert, I went with the obvious and made dirt pudding.  I intended to pick up some oreos to sprinkle ontop, but with the menu change, I decided not to go to the store just for oreos

Since I haven't been super creative lately, I've been slacking on sharing.  I guess I should catch you up on the last two weeks that I've missed.

Finding Nemo

Two weeks ago, our theme was Finding Nemo.  We had so much fun this weekend getting outside with our water fun, that our meal took the back seat.

Since my daughter will only eat cold hot dogs, I simply cut a hot dog which Littlecjc instantly recognized as an octopus.  I also made mac and cheese, our anemone, and threw some goldfish in as if it were their home.

Pirates of the Caribbean

Going even one more week back, we had a marathon of Pirates movie in preparation of the new release of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.  Again, we could have been more elaborate, but ended up having a busy weekend, so I left it simple.

We had cannonball meatballs, gold treasure corn, and strawberry swords.

I've learned whether it's a fancy meal or not, Littlecjc likes my effort.  However, you never know what she's actually going to eat so sometimes the easier the better.

Wreck it Ralph

Disney Dinners finally made a comeback a few weeks ago with none other than Wreck it Ralph!  We the actually did more of a rolling theme over the week.  The first night, we had the themed dinner.  I made meatloaf cupcakes (mashed potato frosting) and cyborg eggs (brussels sprouts.)

The next day, Littlecjc and I snacked on our Pac-Man cherry gummy snacks that I just happened to come across while at the store.  These were so good, poor Patrick missed out.

Finally, a few nights later we made our candy cars.  Littlecjc had so much fun doing this, even if she didn't quite have it all figured out.  She mostly followed our leads and even asked for a lot of help getting everything done, but she still thought it was great!  And she was so proud of the finished products.  I found chocolate covered twinkies that we used as our car base.  For our additions, we had what was left of Littlecjc's Easter candy, marshmellows, pink ice cream cones and a snack bag mix I found that contained chocolate wafers, mini oreos, and m&m type candies.  As you can see, we then used peanut butter to hold it all together.

This was definitely the most tasty movie night activity we've had so far, and it was a great way to bring back the fun.

Ratatouille

I know I'm late posting our movie night this week, but I did actually make ratatouille.  It may have been a week late, but here it is.

I'm really proud of myself for this one, even though this dish isn't too complicated to make, it just takes some time.  I also really enjoyed this dish and was a little surprised.  Patrick and I both agreed, though, that we're not really fans of eggplant.  I ate mine, just wasn't crazy about it, but I noticed that Patrick left most of his in his bowl.  I probably will never make this again, unless I need a veggie side for a party or something, because it made a lot and Patrick was really missing his protein.  I offered to make him something to go with it, but he said he'd be fine (and then continued to snack the rest of the evening.)

Littlecjc was already asleep this evening when we ate, so we didn't watch the movie, but we definitely need to within the next day or two.  Patrick apparently does not remember this one, since he asked, "so this is what the rat makes in the movie?"  I have to admit I was a little dumbfounded at this and asked him why he thought it was called Ratatouille, in which he informed me that he thought that was the rats name.  Lol, yea, we're definitely watching this movie soon.