I Got Her

She commented that it looked like someone had already had some of the Koolaid. Then she tried to pour it out. She actually tried for a while but it wouldn't come out... because it was Jello. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

I also made "garlic bread", some of it having garlic salt, some of it having cinnamon sugar. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

My kids are okay with the April Fool's jokes where we can all laugh but still get something good out of it.

A Few More Celebrations and Shelf Cooking

February 21 was the Anniversary of when the first Legend of Zelda video game came out. Jeremy and I celebrated it observed earlier in the month when we watched a special concert online of Zelda music.

 

February 22 was National Chili Day. I made chili and garlic bread. Yumm.

February 23 was National Banana Bread Day. When I went shopping earlier in the week, I bought bananas and hid them when I got home. Bananas don't last very long when Jet knows where they are. I was able to make them last long enough on this occasion so I was able to make Cinnamon Crumb Banana Bread for the holiday. The recipe came from "A Season of Family Meal Plans volume 1."

With the banana bread we also had Pizza Pinwheels and Seven Layer Salad also both from that book. That salad is not something I would normally make (it had peas in it and I don't like peas) but it actually tasted really good.

Speaking of that book, we're still enjoying trying out new tastes. And I'm learning better about adapting, substituting, and repurposing leftovers. Yay, shelf cooking. 

For example, I made Thai Peanut Lettuce Wraps. The recipe called for ground turkey but I used rotisserie chicken. We had Classic Fried Rice on the side.

Later, I used some corn tortillas and a bit of cheese, the leftover Thai peanut chicken, and made quesadillas. Jet and I ate a few and put the rest in the freezer for quick lunches or whatever.

 

Here are some other things we tried.

Hawaiian Pork Sandwiches with leftover Seven Layer Salad.

Sheet Pan Greek Chicken with Lemony Greek Rice. 

Easy Broccoli Pasta. The other recipe for that meal was Tomato Basil Salad. Since I didn't have enough fresh tomatoes, I used canned tomatoes and cooked it all up to make a sauce that we ate on toasted baguettes. #shelfcooking

I already talked about Leap Day but February 29 was also National Toast Day. So for dinner we had BBQ Pork Quesadillas with rice and toast and Lost Mesa Corn Avocado Salsa (that last recipe came from the Fablehaven Cookbook).

Even More Celebrating in January

January 19 was Whisper "I Love You" Day. I whispered it. I tried whispering while texting but it didn't translate over very well. I had to explain to Jeremy that what I was writing was whispered.

It was also National Popcorn Day but we were so busy that we celebrated National Popcorn Day Observed. Jeremy tried some new flavors of popcorn seasoning (at the same time but in different bowls). Thank you, Jeremy.

January 20 was Penguin Awareness Day. Lucky created a slide show of penguins to the music, "Ride of the Valkyries," and called it "Ride of the Penguins."

The kids watched Penguins: Spy in the Huddle that day. It's become tradition when we can manage it. We also ate fish sticks which is also tradition because penguins eat fish.

 

January 21 was National Hugging Day. You better believe there was hugging. It was also Granola Bar Day and people did indeed eat granola bars.

 

January 22 was National Hot Sauce Day. I made baked mac 'n' cheese that had sauce in it and added cooked ground beef that needed to be used. #shelfcooking

We also took our last baguette and Jeremy made garlic bread out of it. 

That evening for FHE treat, we had cake batter blondies for Blonde Brownie Day but we didn't have white chocolate chips and I wasn't going to go to the store for them so I used regular chocolate chips and Jr. called them "brunettes." Heh Heh.

January 23 was National Pie Day. We celebrated that one observed because I was too tired at the end of the night but when we did celebrate it observed, we had vanilla pudding pie with pumpkin pie ice cream on it like we did for Thanksgiving. I forgot to take a picture but I put a picture of our Thanksgiving pie and ice cream on my blog January 2 of this year.

 

January 24 was National Compliment Day. Lucky and I gave each other compliments. It was also National Peanut Butter Day. Jet had peanut butter on a tortilla. He loves that.

Garlic and Fries

April 19 was Garlic Day. I made garlic bread to go along with lasagna that I didn't get pictures of. What I did get pictures of was the beautiful dough after it raised and before I shaped it into french bread loaves. I like baking.

I also got a picture of the ricotta cheese before I used it in the lasagna. The seal on it says EZPEEL. Sigh. I could NOT get any more of that seal peeled off. I just couldn't. So much for Easy Peel. I ended up scooping it out through the section I did get off. Sigh.

April 20 was Cheddar Fries Day. I was going to make a cheddar cheese sauce but I ended up just getting some nacho cheese out of the freezer and using that. Then I thought I'd add some chili to make it a good rounded chili cheese fries side dish.

I also spent I don't know how much time debating whether to run to the store to buy hamburger buns or not. There wasn't time to make hamburger buns and the rolls I made previously were too small for the size of hamburgers we had. I finally decided to use bagels we had in the cupboard. Of course later it finally donned on me- how many times in the past have we used regular bread when we had burgers? Duh. But the bagels worked nicely.

O.K. And I didn't get any pictures but April 21 was Yellow Bat Day and I did check out some books about bats at the library and Jet did look at some.

March 32, 2020

There is a tradition in our family for me to fool the kids by making "Kool-Aid" with dinner on April Fool's Day. I make Jello and let it set in cups with straws. Last year I let it set in a pitcher and watched the kids' reaction as they expected the drink to just flow freely.
This year I even heard Jr. Jr. earlier in the day mentioning that we were going to have Jello with dinner. Little did he know what I had planned. I prepared dinner and had the kids set the table, except for cups. Mom would take care of cups. That made them suspect Jello all the more. So when we all sat down to dinner, this is what we got:
Actual Kool-Aid. They were able to suck it up so easily through the straws. "Wait. Is this Kool-Aid?"
Red-and-White Mostaccioli from The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner. I used a few different types of pasta in the dish for a little April Fool's fun. (I also used homemade alfredo sauce and homemade spaghetti sauce not from The Food Nanny recipes)
"Garlic" bread. I made two loaves. The first loaf the kids got into turned out to have cinnamon sugar instead of garlic salt. Surprise. When they asked to have some from the second loaf, they were surprised again to find it was actually garlic bread.

These are the kinds of April Fool's Day jokes I like. Nobody gets hurt or mad and everyone gets something good out of it in the end.