Theme Food Week: Elf Food {December}

{cooking}

Theme Food Week: Elf Food {aka Mini foods}

So, as I was planning out theme food week for December I knew I knew I wanted to do a week of miniature foods, but I was trying to figure out if there was any way to tie theme food week into Christmas. (you know like Frankenstein's Kitchen week, and Thanksgiving deconstrusted), at first I was thinking I would just say it was "toy" food since it was mini, but I'm really glad I thought of the "elf food" theme instead before the week began lol.  Now if you know me you know I am super into anything in miniature (well, although I also like oversized stuff too, so maybe it's just that I like stuff that is just not the size it is supposed to be or normally is.... but especially mini stuff). I love dollhouses, and miniatures, I love ornaments that are little versions of something else (several of the annual ornaments I've made for the past few years are miniatures - such as the mini inflatable boat I made for 2013's ornament), I love making miniature versions of bigger foods for parties, I even had a miniature themed birthday party for my birthday a couple years ago. So, I've been actually holding onto  the ideas for this theme food week since I first had the idea to start theme food weeks, just waiting to be able to use it.  We also did Theme food week at our house instead of my parent's house this time now that we finally got our new kitchen table and can have a decent place to sit and eat (and I'm hoping to be able to do it here most of the time, it's just so much easier for me to be able to start and prep things earlier in the day and I REALLY prefer my stove/oven to my moms lol).  There weren't as many dishes this month that I used a recipe from so for the meals that I don't have recipe links for I'll try to just give a quick description of how I made the dishes, but if you want more detailed instructions, please feel free to ask!

{Menu}
Since we had Theme Food Week at our house I was able to put the menu up on my chalkboard door, but we did end up making a few changes to the days from what's listed in the picture at the beginning of this post.  Namely, we ended up getting dinner out while running errands on Thursday so we had Thursday's meal as lunch on Saturday before heading to the airport to pick up my sister.

Tuesday: Mini Breakfast for Dinner:

 I love breakfast for dinner and have seen so many ideas for mini breakfast foods so this absolutely had to be one of the days! I even used some little pitchers and mini glasses (they had originally been for the miniature birthday party, but the pitchers especially have really come in handy) to serve orange juice.... did I mention I really love little things?.....  I served mini pancakes (made just like regular pancakes just using much less batter for each pancake so it stays tiny) mini breakfast sandwiches (mini toaster waffles with scrambled eggs and small pieces of bacon) Mini cinnamon rolls (the recipe is here .... but I use the term cinnamon rolls loosely for this particular batch, because I realized at the last second the I was out of white sugar and cinnamon so I used brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice and O.M.G. were they good! I plan on always making "cinnamon" rolls that way from now on - and did for Christmas morning.... and I just sprinkled the brown sugar and then pumpkin pie spice on top of the melted butter after brushing it on), and mini fruit salad (just cut up fruit smaller than normal I think I used strawberries, blueberries, and canned mandarin oranges)

Wednesday: Mini Chicken Parms, Mini Garlic Monkey Bread, Mini Pasta and Broccoli

This is the recipe for the mini Chicken Parms, my mom and I liked them, my husband was not as much of a fan (surprise, surprise I think he just decides ahead of time he's not going to like anything that uses ground chicken), I will say that I forgot to serve them at dinner with sauce, other than what was on the pasta, but when I ate the leftovers for lunch the next day I dipped them in leftover pasta sauce and they were sooooo good.  Here is where I got the recipe for the mini garlic monkey bread, they were yummy and easy.  The mini pasta is mini bowties made by Barilla (they make several different mini pastas) just with canned sauce, and the broccoli was just cut into little pieces and steamed.

Friday: Cornish Game Hens, Baby Corn, and Mini Roasted Potatoes

For the Cornish Game Hens I used the seasoning mix from this turkey recipe.  I use this seasoning for almost all poultry I do, I use it for my Thanksgiving turkey, I use it on roasted chickens, and of course used it here too, it is so good!  For the Cornish game hens I stuffed them with a piece of onion, and some celery along with a bit of the seasoning (when I do larger poutlry, i.e. chickens or turkeys, I use onion, orange, apple and celery in the cavity along with the seasoning).  Also, as I do with larger birds, I put some water in the bottom of the roasting pan, tented it with foil for the first quarter or so of the cooking time, and then basted every half an hour after that (these little guys ended up taking much longer than they should have to cook because they didn't get completely thawed out before getting cooked...... I don't recommend that lol, I've had that happen with turkeys a couple times too, just makes them a pain to cook properly), the potatoes were baby red potatoes seasoned with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, and a touch of mustard powder and roasted until done through, and the baby corn was fresh (not canned) baby corn and tossed with melted butter, salt, pepper, and garlic powder then roasted, they were delicious like that!

Saturday: Sliders, Mini Potato Skins, and Green Beans

I made the sliders myself, just use your favorite recipe/ingredients for regular burgers, but make them small, these were beef, but of course you could do sliders with anything you'd make bigger burgers from (chicken, turkey, tuna, salmon, etc). I topped them with colby jack cheese and at the last minute realized we were out of ketchup so I quickly whipped up a roasted red pepper-garlic aioli.... it's something that I can always whip up in a pinch because I try to keep roasted red peppers on hand.... to roast the red peppers I cut them into slices and place then skin side up on a baking sheet and put them under the boiler until the skin is bubbly and blackened, then put them in a plastic container/bag and put them in the fridge, after they have cooled you can use them all right away or keep them in the fridge for a while (I think they usually last me a little less than a week maybe?) peel the skin off before using them.  For the aioli I chopped them up into tiny little pieces and mixed them and garlic powder into mayonnaise to taste.  I also sliced some grape tomatoes for mini tomatoes for the sliders but forgot to get them in the picture.  The Green beans were broken into little pieces (to fit the theme) and sauteed, and the mini potato skins are baby white potatoes.  Slice in half lengthwise and scoop out a little of the insides (you can just use a spoon, just be careful with ones this small not to go all the way through and scoop out too much) brush them all over (both sides) with olive oil and lightly season with salt. bake for a few minutes until the potatoes are almost done then top with cheese of choice (this was mild cheddar) and bacon bits and bake until potatoes are completely done and the cheese is all melted.

I realized after the fact that I should have made mini cakes and pies and such for desserts but I didn't.  I do mini desserts a lot though so that's okay, especially since one of the main points behind Theme Food Week is supposed to be to try new recipes and get out of food ruts. 

I am really looking forward to continuing theme food week throughout the coming year, I already have a couple months planned out (I'm particularly looking forward to April, it will be April Fool's Food Week.............) So keep your eyes out for everything that is to come! And I hope maybe you'll try a few theme food weeks of your own in this new year... it really is a fun way to get creative with dinners at least once a month.