Break Out the Mos Eisley Canned Tuna! It's Star Wars Day Food!

A few days ago, knowing that May was fast-approaching, I asked my Facebook friends for ideas of what to serve my Star Wars-loving children on Star Wars Day (May the 4th). A very talented and awesome friend went to town with some amazing puns and got so into it she lost some sleep over it. Since lots of her friends wanted a way to pin her incredible list of ideas, I volunteered to post this absolutely amazing list on my blog so that many more people could partake of her exhaustive list.  So without further ado, here is the list of Star Wars food options - even lots of ethnic options! - to make all your May the 4th dreams come true (as posted to Facebook by the incredible Margaret Peterson):

"For all of your May the Fourth (Star Wars Day) dining needs:

If you’re in the mood for Italian there are many Wampas-tas to choose from: Boba Fetticinni, Obi-Wan Canolli, or Bow-tie Fighters. Or maybe you’d prefer Pizza the Hut*, Rey-sotto, or Poe-lenta.

French maybe? Try DeathStarGo, Coq au Finn, RataR2Dtouille, Princess Souffléia, Lardon Calrissian, Wilhuff Tartine, Cheese Fondooku, Macaron Solo, BouillaRebelBase, or Emperor PalpaGratin.

How about Indian? Darth Vada, Darth Dahl, Obi-wan Tandoori, Padmé A-masala, Laddu Calrissian, Rose Tikka, Lamb Finn-daloo, SaMos(Eisley)as, Cucumber Rey-ta, Padowan Papadum, Princess Lassi, Saag Poe-neer, aLuke Gobi, and Naan Solo (or maybe Alder-naan) are all good choices.

Would you rather eat Mexican? Try the Huevos Kylo Rencharros, Darth Verde, Maize Kanata, Rose Taco, Flan Solo*, Admiral Ackbar-itto, Barbacoa Fett, Poe-zole, Chile Rey-leno, EnchiLeia, Dulce de Luke, Darth Molé, Chewie-changa, Lando Chorizo-an, and EmpanYodas. Or go Tex-Mex with Fritos Stormscoopers and Seven-Leia Dip*.

Would Chinese hit the spot? WonTaunTauns (also known as Padowontons* or Obi-Wanton Kanobi), C3POrange Chicken, Rey-king Duck, Egg Foo Yung Padowan, ChewBakChoi, Mon Mothma-po-do-fu, Szechuan Solo, Fortune Wookies, Kung Poe Chicken, and Shark Finn Soup are all great dishes to make in your E-wok.

Or maybe Japanese food like Rey-men noodles, Supreme Leader Poke, Bento Solo, YakiYoda noodles, Udon Jinn, a Tatuna-ine Roll, General Leia Onigiri, Katsu Ren, or Tem-Poe-ra is more your style.

What if it’s just all Greek to you? Then try Tzatziki-Gon Jinn, Han-akopita, Count Dooku-scous, Hummus Eisley, Souv-Luke-i, Boba Ganoush, Philo Ren, Padmé Ama-dolma, Mox Moussakanata, and some Chewbaklava for dessert.

But what if you just want to eat at a good old American Diner? Start with some Chicken Finn-gers and Mashed Poe-tatoes. Or maybe you’d rather have X-chicken-wing fighters and some Fry Fighters. Admiral AckBar-B-Que, Darth Taters, Hoth Dogs, or an R2-DTuna Melt made with Mos Eisley Canned-tuna. Order an Iceberg Wedge Antilles Salad, Yodagurt, Endor-itos, or Watto-melon on the side. On the light side, try a Bagel-bah with Lox Kanata. Wash it all down with a Captain Fanta, Yoda Pop, Qui-Gon Jinn and Tonic, or Iced Emperor Palpa-tea. And for dessert, choose from Banantha Cream Pie or a big slice of Aunt Baru-barb pie.

Hope that got some Endor-phins flowing!

(most of these are from my demented brain, but the * ones were shamelessly stolen from other people, but I can't remember where I saw them- obviously, there are many people on the internet who have also independently come up with many of the other ones that I think are my creation, so I'm happy to be one of the great minds that thinks like you if I've inadvertently stolen them - MP)"

Some more random ones that I came up with:
Aunt Beru-berries, BB Tom-8-oes, Hoth Chocolate (served Luke warm???), Jakku-cumbers, Obi-Wan Corn-obi, Tuscan radishes. And of course, Calamari is always a good choice for May the 4th.

One of my son's lunches:

You can download a decently convincing-looking Star Wars font for free if you google "Free Star Wars Font." I just typed out these foodie-puns onto labels, added some Star Wars stickers, and voila! A very festive lunch.

For dinner, we went with a "Mexican" theme (in quotes, because what's more American than a burrito?).

 We had Admiral Akbar-itos. The ingredients were: Maize Kanata (a nice fresh salsa made with roasted corn, cilantro, onion, and green pepper), Lavender Cal-rice-ian (have you tried purple rice? If not, you should because it has great flavor - find it in bulk food sections in stores like Whole Foods), POE-rk, Han Solo Cream (lame, but it worked), C-3Pico, Cheese-bacca, Tractor Beans (a runner up was REY-fried beans), and Darth Verde sauce.

Also, we served Yoda Soda, which was a little bit of sprite with a small scoop of sherbet in it (I could only find rainbow, but lime sherbet would definitely work better).
Dessert was Storm Scoopers of the Dark Side Sundaes (AKA: dark chocolate ice cream) with a Wookie Cookie, and topped with Mace Whip Cream. 

Birthday Fruit

Remember those party invitations from way back when?  Well, the party finally arrived yesterday.  What's better than a sunny day at the beach/park with a bunch of 4-yr-olds and their younger sibs?  Not much, not much.
I decided that since the party was in the morning, we should probably try to offer the kids good food before sugaring them up with the requisite cupcakes.  I got a little creative and made a bit of a sculpture out of the fruit.  Here it is in all its glory:

This is the second or third time I've made something like this, and I've even made a bowl out of a watermelon for a fruit salad once.  These sculptures are surprisingly easy - anyone can do this, you don't need to be a master chef (I surely am not).  To make this particular one, I cut a small watermelon in half, scooped out the inside with a metal tablespoon (or a mellon baller would work if you have fancy tools) and set the chunks aside.  I think stuffed the hollowed half with dry paper towels and turned it over on a plate.  The paper towels absorb the remaining moisture so  you don't have a soupy disaster on your hands.  I then poked the watermelon with all of the wooden skewers, arranging them the way I wanted them (make sure they balance pretty evenly).  Then I just started placing the fruit on the sticks.  I chose to make all the skewers the same, but it is cute any way you decide to do it. I finished the tops off with marshmallows.  The one downside is that you need to prepare this very close to when it will be eaten.  They do not keep well.  Also, don't use fruits that brown, like bananas or apples, unless you plan to heavily coat them in lemon juice.  I ended up using whatever was in good shape that I found at the grocery store during a 10pm run.
The kids were very enthusiastic about eating fruit-on-a-stick and it was mostly gone before I knew it.  Give it a try at your next party!  You'll be surprised at how festive it can make a table look.

Buying Groceries

Let's all admit it: we like to read blogs at least in part to be voyeuristic, am I right?  No, I'm not going to share any big secrets, but I did think it might be entertaining to discuss what almost exactly $100 bought me at the grocery store on Saturday.  I happened to have a trip that included no baby necessities or pharmaceuticals, just groceries, so let's look at it and analyze it a little bit, just for kicks.
Here we go...in the order in which it went across the scanner:

• 1 gallon of whole milk
• 1/2 gallon orange juice (with calcium)
• Morton's sea salt
• Bulk ground cumin (buying spices in bulk is WAY cheaper - try it out)
• Ziploc snack-size bags (I know they're bad for the environment but I'm addicted)
• Wheat thins
• Wheel-shaped pasta (the boys love it)
• Whole wheat bread
• 4 bell peppers
• 1 lb ground Italian sausage
• 1.5 lbs lean stir-fry steak
• 1 dozen naturally-nested eggs
• Cantonese Oyster sauce
• Tillamook low-fat sour cream
• 2 packages of peach-flavored Yo-Baby yogurt
• 2 large carrots
• 1 lb bulk orzo pasta
• 1 cucumber
• 1 bunch cilantro
• fresh grated parmesan cheese
• Smuckers simply-fruit raspberry jam
• 3 lbs boneless chicken breasts
• 1 yellow onion
• 1 white onion
• 1 shallot
• 1/2 lb cremini mushrooms
• 1 lb white mushrooms
• 4 tomatoes on the vine
• 1 lb organic strawberries
• 3 large avocados
• 3/4 gallon of Tillamook chocolate ice cream
• 2 bottles of Mexican Coke
• Baking cocoa powder
• 1 cup of quinoa in bulk

...and there you have it.  That is one week's worth of groceries for our household on a week where I have actually planned all of our meals.  I am not a coupon clipper, but I do try to buy what's on sale when the option is available.  While I consider myself to be a fairly cheap person and a bargain-shopper, I am not big on skimping on groceries.  I am somewhat discouraged about how few things $100 buys these days.  This was maybe 3 bags of groceries and I don't think there is anything super-fancy in that list of stuff.  Sigh...we still must eat.
Some explanations of my groceries:
I prefer to buy whole foods (as in not packaged stuff or mixes) whenever possible.  I do not use cake mixes, no rice-a-roni kind-of-stuff and we do not use cream-of soups except for the rare breakfast casserole or cheesy potatoes.  We eat very little cold cereal and if we do it is only cheerios (well, we prefer Joe's Os) or raisin bran.  I actually bought more meat on this trip than I normally would since I needed to stock up a bit.  We tend to mostly use meat as more of a flavoring than a main-dish.  My son is currently obsessed with chocolate ice cream and insists that it is the ONLY kind of ice cream he will eat.  We use ice cream as a reward for actually eating meals or for being "brave" and trying new foods.  The Mexican Coke is my splurge and I tend to only drink it during dinner prep on nights when my kids are driving me insane.  You might say it's my own equivalent to a glass of wine.  We all have to have our "something"...