Playing with my food is hard work!

Once a year, I play with my food - the rest of the year is serious business. And if you believed that then I sure April Fooled you! I must admit, today was a rough day to be taking on the April Fools Food challenge but we did it! It wasn't a total success but it ended up being very fun. This year I added "Appeteasers" to the menu, so now that we've finished our feast, it is your turn to feast your eyes upon this year's fun food:

Appeteaser #1: Ladybugs. I got this recipe from my Taste of Home's 2003 Quick Cooking Annual Recipes. I haven't used this cookbook much but they have a kids/theme section that featured these critters. I actually made these a couple years ago for a halloween party but since Aedan gets excited about bugs now, I thought these would be fun for him. This is just a cream cheese + sour cream + chopped parsley and chives + garlic salt mixture spread on Ritz crackers, with half a cherry tomato split down the middle for the wings with food colored spread piped on to dot the wings. The head is a diagonally slice olive with two chives for antennae. Easy-peasy.

I went to a bookstore today to let Aedan play and this recipe caught my eye. It is from What's Cooking? A Cookbook for Kids featuring the Ratatouille movie gang. I thought it would make the perfect Appeteaser #2. Take a flour tortilla, spread it w/cream cheese, or in my case, the leftover from #1, and spread it on the tortilla. Layer fresh spinach leaves, deli meat, and thin slice cheese on top. Roll it up tight, trim off the ends so you get a nice flat spiral, refrigerate until ready to use. When you assemble it, cut the rolled tortilla wraps into maybe 1 inch thick spirals. Cut some baby pickles diagonally (I am a dill fan) to make the body and using a toothpick, poke some holes in the 'head' and then add some chives. Slip the body under the shell and you have yourself some "Easy Faux Escargots"! I used cajun turkey deli meat with pepper jack cheese for one wrap and roast beef with sharp cheddar for another wrap.

So for the "dessert" I was thinking of ice cream cones and so off the top of my head, I made up these ice cram taco cones. For the cone, I used corn tortillas and rolled them up (had to microwave for a few secs to soften them up so they didn't break) and to hold them together, I sort of had to wrap the base with a strip of aluminum foil and stuff a foil ball inside to hold the shape. Then bake in oven at 375 degrees for 15 minutes, turn over, them bake another 15 mins or until they are golden.

I stuffed them with fresh spinach leaves and some ground beef cooked with onions, some Bold Penzey's taco seasoning, some chopped cilantro, and a splash of lime juice. Now this is where I failed but could improve on - the 'ice cream' was pureed canned beans, a mixture of red beans and black beans, to give a nice chocolatey look. Also added in some garlic salt The problem was that the mixture was too droopy. Maybe if I would have thrown some potato flakes in there or pureed some cooked rice in there, I don't know, something to stiffen it up a bit. This was topped with some melted cheese and a cherry tomato.

Aaahhh, but the 'main course' I am very excited to tell you about! We had Swedish Meatballs! These are chocolate cream puffs with a whip cream filling and covered in carmel sauce. I have never had chocolate cream puffs but they were easy to make, just follow the puff part of this recipe. I will put in another plug for Penzey's spices here, I used their Dutch Process Cocoa Powder which is magnificent stuff! Make the puff, using a small scooper for the dough, and you could do just about any cream puff filling but I just did the whipped cream (from scratch) because it wasn't too sweet so we didn't get too overwhelmed by all of the carmel. You can use any carmel sauce but I would recommend something on the runny side so it drizzles nicely. Print yourself a flag of Sweden and stick it on a toothpick for effect - I don't know if I've ever had a platter of Swedish Meatballs without the flag, isn't that funny?

This is what he thought of the ice cream cone...

I didn't fool anyone here - Aedan could tell there was something wrong with his ice cream. He did like the snails, nibbling on the pickles yelling "I like it! I like it!", and he of course, loved the meatballs.

After I had planned the meal, I noticed many more ideas on the web, namely on Family Fun. They look better than mine so maybe next year!

Happy April Fools Day everyone! I can't wait to see all of the event entries!