In Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin’s ongoing battle with his mother about food is the stuff of legend. He refuses to eat the homemade dinners she painstakingly prepares, and he loves to fantasize that the sandwich she packs for his school lunch every day is filled with something more exciting (like squid). As a former kid and a current mom, I find myself sympathizing with both parties as I read about their mealtime spats. I remember being a little kid who was grossed out by “weird grownup food” and didn’t understand why I couldn’t have hotdogs for every meal, but now I know the struggle of having my own kid—one who, if I let him, would live on Lucky Charms and ice cream.
This struggle is perfectly shown in the comic’s Dec. 24th, 1988 strip, in which Calvin gives very specific and demanding instructions for how he wants his peanut butter sandwich prepared, only to have his mother prepare it her own way. Today’s recipe is a nod to that strip: a PB&J sandwich made with completely homemade ingredients. PB&J is a classic kids’ favorite, but the wholesome, all-natural ingredients make it a lunch moms can feel good about too.
The white bread recipe from my Lord of the Rings menu makes two loaves, so I actually already had a frozen loaf on hand for this recipe. The strawberry jam recipe is the same one I used for my Hercule Poirot breakfast post. I thought about trying something new for the jam, but I love this version so much that I didn’t think I’d find another that was up to snuff. As for the peanut butter, it’s a quick 5-minute, 2-ingredient version I found on Pinch of Yum. It’s so easy and healthy, I might not buy store-bought peanut butter ever again!
So whether you’re a 6-year-old picky eater or a mom who regularly begs her kid to just try ONE bite, dig in. There’s lots for everyone to love about this sandwich! 🙂
Welcome to our Calvin and Hobbes menu! I’ve been looking forward to this one for a REALLY long time. I’ve been a Calvin and Hobbes junky since I was a kid, so making a menu for it has been on my Must Do list ever since I started the blog. However, like my Lord of the Rings menu, I wanted to wait until my cooking skills had come far enough for me to do it justice.
Our first recipe this month is a tribute to Hobbes and his dashing tiger stripes. They’re the subject of many a poem in the comics, so of course I wanted to make a recipe for them here. I’ve seen lots of tiger stripe breads, cupcakes, and cookies online, but I wanted to do something a little different. Since it’s been UNGODLY hot out lately, I’ve been craving frozen treats, so I decided to make popsicles!
As an appetizer, this recipe needed to be healthy, so I used fresh fruit to make the stripes in these tiger stripe popsicles. The white stripes are dragon fruit, orange are mango, and black are blueberry! Enjoy! 🙂
Time for our Wizard of Earthsea dessert! While I was developing this menu, I knew I wanted to have a recipe dedicated to the dragons. There isn’t a specific one mentioned in the book, and none of the savory ideas I came up with felt right. Then I thought of making a flame-themed dessert.
One of the tricky things about blogging for almost 5 years is that sometimes the ideas you get for new recipes are too similar to something you’ve posted in the past. Flame cupcakes were the first thing that came to mind, but I made them before for my Hunger Games menu and couldn’t think of a way to make a second version unique enough. Then cookies came to mind, but plain old sugar cookies just felt too boring.
Then I thought of meringue! It’s one of my favorite desserts to play with, and I loved that meringue cookies would allow me to make tiny 3D clusters of flame. I whipped up my favorite meringue recipe (a combo of the instructions from my baked Alaska post and this Taste of Home recipe) and started experimenting—and came up with these little beauties! They were SO fun to make. I love that each one is different. It makes you want to take the time to really look at and appreciate them before you take a bite. Enjoy! 🙂
I wanted to continue this month’s Wizard of Earthsea menu with a fun little item we hear about during Ged’s revelry with his friends at a festival on the wizards’ island, Roke. The boys are playing around with various spells, and as Ged’s friend Vetch causes the leftover chicken bones from his dinner to turn into owls and fly around, Ged uses magic to fashion breadcrumb arrows that he sends after the birds. I loved the idea of bread arrows, so I created a recipe for Parmesan garlic basil breadsticks using premade pizza dough and added arrowheads with some extra dough.
They turned out delicious! Everyone in our family loved them, especially the baby. He wouldn’t let me walk by the tupperware container I had them in without grunting and reaching for a piece. I’d say that’s a pretty rave review! 😉
For my Wizard of Earthsea menu this month, I really loved the idea of making a recipe in honor of Ged’s shadow monster, the otherworldly beast he unleashes when he accidentally creates a tear in reality trying to call on dead spirits (y’know…as you do). The monster was a wonderfully spooky antagonist, and its introduction was what really pulled me into the story.
A black food sounded perfect for a shadow monster, and I LOVE black bean soup. This particular recipe from Umami Girl became a quick favorite of mine. Both the ingredients list and the instructions are short and simple, and it’s delicious while keeping the flavors focused on the beans themselves. And it tastes great when paired with with breadsticks!
Welcome to our Wizard of Earthsea menu! I wanted to start the Earthsea series for years, and a few months ago I finally got around to it. It felt a little slow at first, though this may be due to the fact I read it as an audiobook and wasn’t in love with the narration style. However, I stuck with it, and around chapter 5 things REALLY picked up. Forbidden magic, shadow monsters, dragons—I was hooked!
I wanted to start off our menu with a nod to one of my favorite characters: Ogion, the reclusive wizard who lives deep in the wilderness and acts as Ged’s first master. His gentle guidance and wisdom are a great foil to the rashness of Ged’s youth. Since Ogion loves his goats and has been known to serve cheese to his rare visitors, I loved the idea of making a goat cheese appetizer. I hunted through Pinterest for inspiration and came across this recipe for fried goat cheese balls with honey. It sounded just right for Ogion, so I whipped up a batch with a couple changes to make it my own: I mixed chopped basil into the cheese for a bit of freshness and swapped out the original Honey Bunches of Oats coating for panko crumbs. You can definitely try the cereal coating if you want (it sounds delicious!); I just felt like a simple bread crumb was more in keeping with Ogion’s humble home.
I know goat cheese isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and fried goat cheese with honey may sound a little odd, but oh my gosh, guys. The FLAVORS. There’s a bit of tang from the cheese balanced with just the right amount of freshness and sweetness from the basil and honey. You get two different textures too: the crisp outer panko layer and the creamy inner cheese. The flavors and textures all come together to make a perfectly balance bite that, despite having so many distinct components, feels simple and fresh.
So even if you’re not big on goat cheese, I recommend giving this one a try. I DEFINITELY think Ogion would approve. 🙂
Are you all ready for dessert? Because I DEFINITELY am! Jiballian fudge cake is an iconic Star Trek Voyager dessert, and I knew I wanted its blue icing and rich chocolatey-ness to have the place on honor in my Voyager menu. I’ve made many chocolate cakes here on the blog, so I wanted to do something a little different. Then I thought: cake pops! I’ve never done them before, and the concept of a Star Trek-inspired pop intrigued me.
The cake in the TV show has blue icing with a few other colors swirled through (looks like purple and silver/white). I thought it would be fun to make galaxy pops reflecting this color scheme, and away we went! I had to try a few different decorating techniques before I found one I liked, but in the end I think these cake pops turned out super cute. What a fun way to end a Star Trek menu!
Given the title of this post, you’re probably already wondering about the story behind this recipe. It all started with I started hunting through the Star Trek cookbook for any recipes I might want to include in my Voyager menu. I saw the Maquis Breakfast Bars and thought they looked delicious: homemade granola bars with rolled oats, dates, cranberries, dried apples, shredded coconut, and a bit of honey. I haven’t made anything like that before, so I whipped them up one morning. They turned out great…until it came time to cut them. When I tried to slice the giant sheet of baked granola it absolutely crumbled. There was no way I was going to get even a few bars out of it.
Disappointed, I began to nibble on the crumbled bits as I thought about what recipe I should make to replace it. I stopped short. The granola tasted A.MAZ.ING. I couldn’t stop eating it, and after I shared a handful with the Little Mister, he was hooked too. I crumbled up the remnants in the pan and turned it into loose granola, which the Little Mister and I have been eating with our breakfast every morning since (once it runs out, he may mutiny).
Since I loved the flavor so much, it seemed wrong to scrap the recipe in favor of something else. I didn’t want to risk adding more liquid, since it held together really well in the bowl and I didn’t want to risk soggy granola. Instead, I decided to present it here on the blog as granola bowls. I hope you all enjoy it as much as we did!
P.S. The original recipe calls for melted butter and honey to hold the granola together. For a healthier option, I think melted coconut oil would work equally well with the honey. I haven’t tried it yet, but I intend to. I’ll let you know how it turns out! 🙂
Today is the last day to submit entries to my cookbook giveaway! The official end time is 11:59 pm Central Time. Be sure to get your entries in ASAP for a chance to win a signed copy of my new cookbook, A Literary Tea Party, and a Tea with Tolkien mug!
I LOVE the mugs. One is green and says “Tea with Tolkien” and the other is blue and says “Lattes with Lewis”! 😀
As many of you have heard from my posts here on the blog and on social media, I’ve been working hard to get the word out about my book. However, there’s a lot of other new exciting things going on as well! First off, we’re moving! We’re currently in the process of packing and house hunting—with the hope that we’ll be tucked away in our new home before the end of the summer. We’re very excited about this new change for our family and can’t wait to find a new place.
We also have ANOTHER new and exciting thing in the works! The timing isn’t quite right to reveal the details yet, but I’m hoping to spill the beans some time in July. 😉
All that being said, I’m having trouble keeping up with my normal post schedule. And I’ve been just AWFUL at keeping up with blog comments. I’ve tried to work ahead as much as possible, but the fast pace in conjunction with my hectic schedule has created confusion and mix ups (some of you may remember two weeks ago when my Vulcan Spice tea post published a week early…before my Star Trek menu even started! Eek!!!). I was already considering parring down my Tuesday posts, but the Vulcan Spice mix up made it clear that I REALLY needed to.
For the next several months, I’m putting all my regular Tuesday posts on hold (Top Ten Tuesday linkups, reading kits, and tea premieres). I can’t give an exact end time, but it will go at least until the start of October. However, there WILL be lots of new book updates, so I’ll share those on Tuesdays as they occur. Of course, my recipe posts will continue to publish every Thursday as usual.
I’ll see you all on Thursday for my next Star Trek recipe.
It’s a fun one, and I’m happy to say the Little Mister and I are both huge fans of it! 🙂
Chili may not be the first thing you think of when you picture eating lunch aboard a starship, but Voyager’s head chef Neelix takes great pride in creating foods his shipmates find comforting and familiar, no matter what planet they call home. His foray into chili began as an experiment with classic American cuisine…and ended with several crewman in sickbay with heartburn! Luckily, the chili recipe I’m sharing here today has a spice factor that’s easy to customize, so you don’t have to worry about making an unscheduled trip to sickbay. 😉
Fun fact: this is actually my grandma’s chili recipe! Once I decided I wanted to make the Rodeo Red chili from the show, I knew right away this was the recipe I wanted to use. I’ve always loved it, and it’s super easy. It was a go-to cold weather dish for my family when I was a kid, and a lot of times my mom would serve it in delicious sourdough bowls (which is an addition I HIGHLY recommend). It’s actually not that spicy on its own, but I added a few extra ingredients (Tabasco, cayenne pepper, and red pepper flakes) to give it the kick you’d expect from Neelix’s super spicy chili. Enjoy…with some milk close at hand! 🙂
