Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [Themed Dinner]

Banyan Beef Skewer, Turkish Stewed Green Beans, and rice.

When you think of Indiana Jones - what do you think of? Snakes? Rats? Nazi's melted faces? Monkey Brains? Yeah, it's not the easiest theme to go with... unless you like Monkey Brains and BBQ'd rat (I don't). So I went with a benign option. With it being The Last Crusade I thought middle eastern meets Germany somehow...

With our themed meals also working towards a countdown to a Disney trip (Disneyland this time) I also decided that we could use a recipe or two from the parks - which comes in handy with Indy as Adventureland's food cart is basically outside of the Indiana Jones ride. So off I went to scour the internet for inspiration.

I came away with the Banyan Beef Skewer recipe for our main course. Anytime beef is involved I'm pretty much there. And then I went with a Turkish stewed green beans dish and rice for the side dishes. It tied together very well. The family liked it (I didn't, but that's because I'm picky). There was just enough kick in the sauce to grab your attention and get you ready to fight off the Nazi's to save the world and find the Holy Grail.

The colors and smell were divine.

For dessert we traveled to Germany as I created a Bienenstich, which translated means Bee Sting Cake. I was very nervous on how it would turn out as I am not the best at doing cake layers with filling, but I was determined to get it right. I spent most of Friday afternoon and evening preparing it. After it set overnight I was excited (and still nervous) to serve it, but all things considered (I put a little TOO much filling) it came out great! And I even enjoyed the cake! We all agree it could easily be a frozen/ice cream like cake. YUM! Germany, you do things fantastically!

Because Mom is Gluten Intolerant she couldn't have the Bienenstich, so I made her a gluten free black forest type cake. She ate it before I could snap a picture.

Recipes used to create this menu:
Banyan Beef Skewers from Bengal BBQ
Turkish Stewed Green Beans
Bienenstich from EPCOT's Biergarten Restaurant
1-minute Black Forest Cake (Gluten Free)

Walt Disney's Mary Poppins [Themed Dinner]

I originally posted this on my personal blog (Reitter's Block) on January 17, 2013 as part of my "Tasteful Countdown" project counting down to the family trip to Walt Disney World in October of 2013. This is the project that gave me the idea to create this blog. And then life got in the way... so I am starting it up again in the New Year.

Shepherd's Pie - everyone likes it but me!

Well it was a Jolly Holiday in the kitchen tonight with our Mary Poppins themed dinner tonight. We went with a very British main course of Shepherd's Pie (during the viewing of the movie I decided that Fish and Chips would've been better considering they plan on doing just that in the film, oh well, live and learn). The dessert was a raspberry tart and raspberry ice.
The shepherd's pie was the easiest thing on the menu after all was said and done. Not much excitement there. I've learned I don't like it very much, ha ha. Yup the picky eater is still a picky eater, however it wasn't bad. Just not my thing. Dad and mom gave it two big thumbs up, though. Mom went back for seconds!

Dessert proved more challenging. What I thought would be simple turned out not to be. I started with the raspberry ice, but that took more work than expected. It was simple enough to make the syrup and puree it with the berries, but when it came time to pour the mixture through the strainer the seeds kept clogging up the little holes! So I spent almost an hour stirring the stuff in the strainer to get the liquid into the dish to put in the freezer! ACK!

At least it looked good when it came out of the oven.

Then for the tart I used the same recipe for the crust as I did a few weeks ago for the peach tart. It is gluten free and has chocolate - what could go wrong. I tried to make it work better than the last time, but the problem was the raspberries melted when I put them in with the sugar to make the syrup. The extra berries I planned to bake on top melted into the syrup when I mixed the two. So I ended up with several cups of syrup on top of this already wet dough. The crust on the bottom didn't bake, and the filling didn't set up. Not my best baking experience.

Parents didn't mind though, and said it was good. Duane loved the raspberry ice judging by how he ate it when he got home from youth group. So still successful even if it wasn't "practically perfect in every way."

The funniest part of the night was when mom came home from the store. She went to put the ice cream in the freezer. Not knowing what was in the pan on the shelf she when to fling it somewhere else and ended up with not so chilled raspberry stuff all over the freezer. It looks like a bloody mess in there now. But at least if we need a snack in a pinch we can make raspberry snow cones! I'll admit I was ticked when it happened - I worked hard on that stuff! - but everytime we open the freezer door and you see the bright red going all the way down the shelves it's too hard not to laugh!

Gluten Free Shepherd's Pie - http://www.ziplist.com/recipes/1157673-Gluten_Free_Shepherd_s_Pie?return_to=/recipes/box%3Fpage%3D4%26partner_content%3Dziplist%26partner_key%3Dziplist-web%26theme%3Dziplist%26user_scoped_search%3Dtrue&_szp=40285
Raspberry Ice - http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/raspberry-ice