"I specifically bought enough food to last me till January. How much emotional eating have I been doing?"
- The Grinch
The Grinch and his loyal dog, Max, live a solitary existence inside a cave on Mount Crumpet. His main source of aggravation comes during Christmas time when his neighbors in Whoville celebrate the holidays with a bang. When the Whos decide to make Christmas bigger and brighter, the disgruntled Grinch with help from Max, hatches a scheme to silence the Whos' holiday cheer once and for all.
THE MENU
Grinch Fruit Kabobs, Grumpea Soup with Sourdough and WhoVille Cupcakes
Grinch Fruit Kabobs
Lets start off this menu with something a little sweet maybe a little sour? These super easy and delicious fruit kabobs are a great starter for this movie. Your kids and anybody else who's around will eat these all up for sure. Best part is the kids can do this one themselves, maybe a little help with the cutting of the marshmallows and strawberry stems but for the most part they can do it with little to no supervision and most importantly no mess! I have seen this recipe using bananas for the bottom of the Santa hat but I felt the proportions were off and they didn't look as nice so I went with the all marshmallow version. What you see is what you get with these so no recipe is really needed but if you do need step-by-step instructions check out ameessavorydish.com.
TIP: I used the mini marshmallows for the top of the hat and jumbo marshmallows for the bottom of the hat, those proportions worked best.
NOTE: I didn't have these long kabob sticks so I used toothpicks instead, just let whoever is eating them know that there is a toothpick in there so they don't bite into them and stab their mouth.
Grumpea Soup with Sourdough
There were so so many fun food ideas for the Grinch but unfortunately they were all sweet dishes. Trying to find a main course that's relevant to this movie was not easy but I did come across a pea soup but who wants boring, ugly looking pea soup? I'll be honest I never had this soup and never wanted to make it but pea soup reminded me of the Grinch character so I decided to experiment. I tried out a couple of recipes and man was I in for a surprise. These soups were pretty damn good! There was one in particular that was hands down my favorite, it had Thai flavors so it tasted like a curry and it's vegetarian! I served this soup with a side of sourdough bread, which I used to pretty much clean off my bowl. I also used a small red bell pepper to cut out a tiny heart just like the Grinch's and added it as a small decoration to my soup. Check out food52.com for the recipe.
TIP: The best part of this soup is that you can add just about anything to it. With my leftovers I added carrots, potatoes and chicken breast to it and topped it off with cilantro, it was just as delicious!
TIP: This is the kind of meal you can make a couple of days before, it reheats beautifully.
WhoVille Cupcakes
Whoville really knows how to celebrate Christmas so I wanted a desert to reflect their beautiful and colorful town during the holiday season. I went with cupcakes because they are not only easy to make but they are customizable. Here is what you'll need if you want to recreate what I've done.
Mini M&M's and any additional sprinkles you'd like to add
Graham crackers
Icing sugar (to hold graham crackers in place, you wont need a lot)
coconut for the snow (optional)
Your favorite cake mix from the box (I used chocolate)
Sugar cones (for the Christmas tree)
Vanilla cake frosting (to frost cupcakes and cover sugar cone tree)
Green food coloring (after cupcakes are frosted add to frosting to cover the cone)
NOTE: I really felt that using a sugar cone and not filling it with something was a waste of sugar cone so I made some Mascarpone and filled the cones with it but this only made decorating the tree more difficult, it also added weight on top of the cupcake so it made moving them a little tricky, definitely had to eat them asap. However, it was absolutely delicious and my kids loved it! If you don't mind the extra work then I highly recommend it!
Q&A with the kids
1. One act of kindness can change a persons life. What act of kindness would you do and for who?
2. For the residents of Whoville Christmas was more then gifts under the tree. What does Christmas mean to you?
3. When someone is unkind it's usually something deeper causing them to act that way. Why do you think it's important to be kind to people like this?