Yesterday, we had a little April Fool's Day celebration. Normally I don't really go to much trouble for holidays - even Christmas is a little low-key around here, compared to other Texas-sized celebrations. But this was too cute to resist. Yes, it involves food - however did you guess???
I know I have both sung praises to and cursed the name of Family Fun magazine; this is a praise. They have several ideas for April Fool's Day pranks each year, and this year we tried "Chicken Not-Pie." The recipe is here. Basically, it's a "pie" made with vanilla pudding and various candies cut or shaped to look like carrots, peas, bits of chicken, etc. Not hard at all to make, but sort of frustrating to have to buy a whole bag of a particular kind of candy just to use a few pieces. Buying from the bulk candy aisle is cheaper (money- and calorie-wise, since if you buy the whole bag of candy, *someone* has to eat all the pieces that don't go into the pie). This gave me an excuse to visit a vintage candy store in our city's historic downtown area, which has dozens of jars of all kinds of candy sold by the quarter pound. I used green apple Now & Laters for the peas, orange and lemon Starbursts for the carrots and corn, and Squirrel Nut Zippers for the chicken. And I only had to buy a few pieces! I made enough pies for the kids (the results were just too sickening-sweet for their parents' palates) and Flip was pretty much the only one who ate some, but this really didn't bother me. Maybe it was because I got to have my fun trying it out, and I wasn't out that much money. It was enough of a celebration for our family, and just like Christmas, the ratio of the time spent in preparation to the time the kids spent enjoying the results was typically out of proportion, but it wasn't the end of the world. What'll we tackle next April 1st? Maybe a larger-scale prank, food-involved or not! Thanks for reading!
I know I have both sung praises to and cursed the name of Family Fun magazine; this is a praise. They have several ideas for April Fool's Day pranks each year, and this year we tried "Chicken Not-Pie." The recipe is here. Basically, it's a "pie" made with vanilla pudding and various candies cut or shaped to look like carrots, peas, bits of chicken, etc. Not hard at all to make, but sort of frustrating to have to buy a whole bag of a particular kind of candy just to use a few pieces. Buying from the bulk candy aisle is cheaper (money- and calorie-wise, since if you buy the whole bag of candy, *someone* has to eat all the pieces that don't go into the pie). This gave me an excuse to visit a vintage candy store in our city's historic downtown area, which has dozens of jars of all kinds of candy sold by the quarter pound. I used green apple Now & Laters for the peas, orange and lemon Starbursts for the carrots and corn, and Squirrel Nut Zippers for the chicken. And I only had to buy a few pieces! I made enough pies for the kids (the results were just too sickening-sweet for their parents' palates) and Flip was pretty much the only one who ate some, but this really didn't bother me. Maybe it was because I got to have my fun trying it out, and I wasn't out that much money. It was enough of a celebration for our family, and just like Christmas, the ratio of the time spent in preparation to the time the kids spent enjoying the results was typically out of proportion, but it wasn't the end of the world. What'll we tackle next April 1st? Maybe a larger-scale prank, food-involved or not! Thanks for reading!
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