April Fool's Dinner

I usually don't post twice on the same day, but today I did. When I scheduled to post my Twice Baked Potatoes recipe I wasn't going to be doing an April Fool's dinner this year. At least that's what I thought.

I'm not really a prankster. I'm very literal and while I have a sense of humor I can't tell a joke to save my life. Jokes have always been my husband's department. In fact, when I tell a joke a lot of times people don't pick up on it because they don't expect it from me. There have been a few times that I have told a great joke and only my husband picks up on it. I've been know to tell him often for a few hours afterward about how it really was a great joke. He will usually agree with me throughout my multiple pleas for acknowledgment.

So, back to our April Fool's dinner. Last year I was able to really pull a prank on my husband with the Chicken Not-Pie. I knew I probably wouldn't be so lucky this year seeing as how he is at home during the day now, and because I've done a few food pranks over the last few years. Instead I decided to go a more subtle route and introduce our son to the joys of prank food on April Fool's. Technically this wasn't a prank, no ketchup in the doughnut here, just a fun meal to enjoy at dinner as a family.

I introduced our son to the joys of a TV dinner. I don't know that we've ever eaten one since we had him 4 years ago. Of course, he thought that because it was a TV dinner it was supposed to be eaten in front of the TV. That is the idea, right. Right away he decided that he would eat the chocolate cake. Well, that's for dessert, you need to eat some fried chicken, mashed potatoes, or peas and carrots first. Okay then, I'll take the peas and carrots. Okay. He was a little stupefied when I popped the "peas and carrots" out of the pan and he took a bite only to realize it was a cupcake. Prank #1 done, cupcake off to the side to be saved for the real dessert. Now, do you want a cupcake with white or pink frosting? Meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato frosting just isn't as exciting.

What's funny is that even though he knew the "peas and carrots" were really a cupcake when we started divvying out the other TV dinner components he decided that he did not want the fried chicken because he didn't like chicken. He was adamant about not having the fried chicken. It took me taking one out and cutting it in half on my plate before he realized that this too was a cupcake and not the real thing.

It was kind of fun seeing April Fool's day through his eyes this year. The silly statements he made followed by "April Fool's" were priceless.

TV Dinner Cupcakes from Hello Cupcake

Meatloaf Cupcakes with Mashed Potato Frosting
Source: Bake at 350

 
Meatloaf:
3/4 cup Italian-style breadcrumbs
1/3 cup milk
1 small carrot, chopped
1/2 large onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 or 2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 lb. ground chuck
1/2 lb. ground pork
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan
2 eggs
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease 12 regular size muffin tins.

Soak the breadcrumbs in the milk and set aside.

Saute the vegetables in olive oil until softened. Transfer to a food processor and process until very finely minced.

Mix the meat, eggs, breadcrumbs, parmesan, parsley, salt & pepper and vegetable puree in a large bowl with your fingers.

Place meat mixture into the muffin tins and bake until brown and pulling away from the sides, about 20-25 minutes. Remove from tin and cool on rack.

Mashed Potatoes:
2- 3.3oz. packages instant mashed potatoes (I used butter flavored to stay away from any "bits" in the mix)

Follow the instruction on the packages. Once finished, divide potatoes in half. Add a small amount of beet juice to one half and whip together (for pink frosting).

Let cool slightly, transfer to a piping bag fitted with a star tip and pipe the frosting on the cakes.

Easter Egg Cupcakes

 

Anybody want to find these Easter eggs hidden around their house? These "eggs" were my first attempt at using an idea from my cookbook Hello Cupcake. I think they actually turned out pretty well for my first try at constructing a multi-step cupcake where the presentation pretty much makes or breaks the dessert.

The base is a chocolate cupcake (I believe I used a "dressed up" box mix), the grass is green tinted frosting, and the eggs are graham crackers that have been frosted and decorated. Creating the eggs is the most time consuming part of this dessert. Using a tracer, you cut each graham cracker into an egg shape by filing down the edges. Then you carefully frost the top and sides of the cracker (without getting your fingers onto it and smooshing the frosting) then sprinkle or dip it into decorating sugar. You attach the egg to the cupcake with a glob of green frosting, then you pipe the grass around the edges of the cupcake underneath the cracker. After it is attached you can decorate your Easter eggs however you like.

Be warned, when eating it is a bit difficult to get all the components in one bite, especially if you try to eat them right after you make them. If you wait a few hours, or better yet the next day, the graham crackers have softened enough that they don't break to bits immediately upon biting into them. Enjoy!

Chicken Not-Pie

April Fool's 2010 can be counted as a success! Don't you love the look on your husband's face when he just put something in his mouth that he was not expecting. I love trying to find a good food fool for at least one of our meals on April Fool's Day. Last year it was ice cream sundaes that took on the appearance of taco salad bowls followed by a meatloaf with mashed potatoes that looked like an iced sheet cake. Yes, both the food and the order of food last year had to do with April Fool's. This year I was planning to do another main dish and a dessert but time just got away from me. Plus, logistically I figure that if they already know the prank for the first part of the meal it kind of takes the fun out of the second part and it's a bit of work to connive and plan in secret and pull these things off.

This year I found a website that had many, many, many (did I already say many) fun ideas on ways to dress up your meal for April Fool's. Some were dinners, some were breakfasts, but most were desserts that were made to look like breakfast and dessert. By the way, even though the breakfast pranks look really fun I still have yet to make one. There is something that feels inherently wrong about serving my family pound cake for what is supposed to be one of their healthiest meals of the day. You could surmise that we don't have any sugary breakfast cereals hanging around our pantry and you'd be correct.

Let me introduce you to this year's April Fool's food prank, Chicken Not-Pies!

It might look like an uninteresting, completely bland and boring chicken pot-pie, but au contraire. It still has a flaky pie crust for the top, just like a regular pot-pie but the filling is where we steer away from the norm. Instead of a gravy base with chicken, peas, carrots, corn, and potatoes, we have a vanilla pudding base with candy and fruit pieces mixed in. The chicken is replaced with pieces of white chocolate bar, the corn and carrots are shaped pieces of starburst, the peas are shaped pieces of jolly rancher chews, and the potatoes are small pieces of bananas.

You might be thinking, okay that looks neat but I bet it tastes terrible. I thought the same thing but it is surprisingly good. It's not like creme brulee or anything (which by the way I have never made nor eaten so I wouldn't technically know what it tastes like), but it is pleasantly nice. The veggies are a bit chewy for my taste but the flavors actually mixed pretty well. A bite consisted of a bit of crust, a bit of pudding, and a bit of fruit flavor. Not too bad once you got used to the chewy vegetables. Maybe if vegetables always came in this form more kids wouldn't have an aversion to eating them!

If you want the recipe you can click the link here. There are many other fun fake-out foods to peruse as well. Enjoy!