Fun Food Quiche

Eggs plus cheese plus bacon and now PLUS potato chips – Quiche is Fun Food! This recipe by Chrissy Teigen is for Loaded Potato Chip Mini Quiches. A muffin pan has never been so useful! And I am betting the Spanish may not have seen this twist on their Tortilla Espanola.

There is also a NY Times omelet recipe that has potato chips from Ferran Adria! Having made it multiple times with different types of chips, I find crinkled thick chips work best for me and I remember to let the mixture soak a bit before cooking for maximum “potato-ness”! Chrissy also recommends letting her chip of choice, crunchy kettle cooked, soak.

New Chip Flavour Alert – this info filled Thrillist article advises Lays has 2 new cheese flavours! I’m keeping my eyes open for them to see if they are good in either of these recipes, or just on their own, or with dip, or with soup, or …

Fun & Fat Tuesday – Pancakes on Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras is Fat Tuesday! It is also Shrove Tuesday and Pancake Tuesday – so it is the perfect excuse to have pancakes for dinner!!

This interesting article from The Compass explains the religious origins of pancakes on Mardi Gras and what Shrove means!! It is the eve of Lent as Ash Wednesday is the next day and kicks off the 40 days of Lent before Easter.

One of these years I’ll make it to New Orleans for Mardi Gras – which is SO much more than pancakes. This People article outlines Mardi Gras’s history and origin & PureWow shares 11 Traditions and 34 New Orleans Fun Food ideas.

PS – March 1st is also National Pig Day – for this year’s Mardi Gras, a pancake “pig out” seems appropriate. Esther the Wonder Pig loves pancakes and would agree!

Reminder that 2/22/22 is …

Thank you Sandra Boynton!!

Ants are Fun Food IF…

If you are a Pangolin! Today is World Pangolin Day and hopefully pangolins everywhere are eating as many ants as they can find – and grubs and termites and other small insects – as they are insectivorous.

80 million years of existence and holding an unfortunate World Record, there is lots to learn about Pangolins in this World Animal Protection Fact Sheet or, if you feel confident in your knowledge of what Pangolins like as their Fun Food, here is their Pangolin Quiz!

Pangolins need help, both in Africa and Asia where they make their home. As of 2016, CITES has forbidden the commercial trade of pangolin parts to give the strongest protection and stop the over-exploitation of these scaly anteaters. They are now listed on Appendix I due to the threat of extinction. Unfortunately, Pangolins are considered a delicacy & tasty in some nations – Pangolins are NOT Fun Food.

Here is a link if you would like to adopt a Pangolin thru Born Free and help rescue & release orphaned pangolins at Sangha Pangolin Project in the Central African Republic.

Happy World Pangolin Day!

Another Fun Food Occasion

Super Bowl – A Fun Food fiesta that often includes chicken wings – this is quite a statistic, 1.42 billion chicken wings are eaten at Super Bowl celebrations…

OR, here are 65 Fun Food snack ideas for the occasion – this handy PureWow article gives LOTS of choices and yes, there is some overlap with the 75 New Year’s Eve Appis. How about salty, cheesy, & kinda healthy Crispy Parmesan Tomato Chips OR sweet like Cake Batter dip!! Perhaps with a Pineapple Lime Beer Margarita!?

My Loaded Baked Potato “Chips” did not make it to Kick Off…!

Fun Food Flower Arrangement!

It has been established that ALL things Cheese can be Fun Food. How about a cheese board masquerading as a flower arrangement!!

This flower arrangement could be perfect for the honey bunny in your life as February 14th is approaching fast. I just learned (thank you Wikipedia!) that Valentine’s Day or Saint Valentine’s Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine was originally a feasting day – a beautiful edible arrangement really may be perfect!

Marissa Mullen is successful again with this wonderful Fun Food idea and beautiful photo.

Or, instead of flowers, why not bring this to the next party or celebration you are invited to since entertaining could be a real possibility in 2022. The how-to is in this helpful Food52 article.

More New Years mean more Fun Foods

February 1, 2022 is the Lunar New Year and celebrations = Fun Food!!

The Korean Lunar New Year is a 3 day celebration that starts today, January 31st in 2022. Tonight is a night of fireworks & crackers as tomorrow is the official family New Year holiday in South Korea. The traditional dish of Mandu (korean dumplings!) is always eaten as the various types of Mandus (kimchi!) are a symbol of good luck for the coming year. This helpful article gives history & recipes for this Fun Food.

Tet Nguyen Dan is the Vietnamese New Year and we are currently in day 3 of the 2022 celebration that started Jan 29th! The most popular food is Banh Chung or Chung Cake that takes more than half the day to prepare & cook – this recipe from Sophie at Delightful Plate outlines how much work this cake is – it must be a Fun Food!

PS – 2022 is the Year of the Tiger and to get Tiger luck this year, these colours (Blue & Green) & numbers (1 & 3 & 7) are important for us all.

Potatoes – a Fun Food but…

I LOVE potatoes. All forms of potatoes are Fun Food – baked, roasted, boiled, hash browned, mashed, scalloped, german fried, especially french fried!! But potato milk or mylk…

Yes, potatoes are the newest plant based milk alternative and I want to try it! This informative Thrillist article gives you the lowdown on potato milk and the new brand DUG which has originated in Sweden. We can’t get it in North America yet, but it is only a matter of time as one of my fave grocery stores in England, Waitrose, is forecasting it to be a 2022 Food Trend.

I want to be loyal to oat milk but potato milk seems to be more nutritious & twice as land efficient to my beloved oats… I’m not seeing chocolate potato milk but DUG’s Potato Power may win out!

Melty Cheese Ideas for National Cheese Lovers Day!

HAPPY National Cheese Lovers Day!!!

Cheese is best when it is melty! Melty = Fun. I’ve posted this before but it deserves reposting as we start 2022 and celebrate National Cheese Lovers Day.

Melty cheese – on a burger – on french fries with gravy – fried & flambeed in a pan (Saganaki) – in layers between pasta or pastry – in the center of chicken – on top of a pizza (next layer to the sauce or on the very top or both!) – floating on the top of French Onion soup – baked brie with or without a topping – grilled in a sandwich/panini, see these new ones from IHOP, Sandwich Melts.

And a VERY melty cheesy Fun Food is fondue – it is the ultimate in melty cheese. This killer recipe for Junk Food Fondue is from Chrissy Teigen and is now on my to-try list. Her key idea is what you DIP in the fondue – tater tots, chicken or chick’n nuggets, piggies in a blanket, sausage rolls, maybe onion rings!! Or baguette / crackers / pretzels if you run out of other Fun Foods. I would only change one thing, “Fun Food Fondue” may be a better name.

Enjoy National Cheese Lovers Day!

Lockdown 2022 – Fun Food Recipes Revisited

To help us thru the first COVID-19 months of 2020, famous recipes for fun comfort foods were shared by Disney & Shake Shack & Ikea & Chipotle & DoubleTree to help us not feel cut off. While our COVID World is radically different now than early Spring 2020, we didn’t know then how long lockdown would last and this is currently the case with the Omicron variant.

Hope these 5 Fun Food recipes will add some ideas for your time near your kitchen –

Gooey Grilled Cheese from Disney so both comfort food and fun memories!
Cheese Sauce from Shake Shack makes already fun French fries even “funner”!
Swedish Meatballs from Ikea need no introduction nor explanation!
Guacamole from Chipotle is a dip but so much more!
THE Welcome Chocolate Chip Cookie from Double Tree Hotel is legendary!

Right now, any comfort food IS a Fun Food.