Today we’re going to have a bit of fun with an episode about the fun days each month that involve food. I’m working from a website called timeanddate.com if you want to look it up there, but I’m going to give you some of my ideas for each of the days.
So, let’s start with January. I’m going to do the days in January to June today, and then I’ll do July to December another time. January the 3rd, a couple of days after New Year’s Day, is Fruitcake Toss Day. Perhaps you have some leftover Christmas cake, you want to play some games, and you haven’t got much to do on this particular day. Collect all the fruitcake you can find, look for a good empty space outside, and start tossing your fruitcake. You can compete for the highest throw, the farthest throw, the messiest throw, or anything like that. It’s lots of fun together. Then, of course, eat some!
Then the 15th of January is Strawberry Ice Cream Day. It’s pretty easy to know what to do for this. You could do an afternoon snack of strawberry cones. You could practice making strawberry ice cream at home. You could do strawberry sundaes in a glass with some toppings, such as chopped strawberries and strawberry sauce. To make strawberry ice cream in a very easy way, you can use one tin of condensed milk, one cup of cream, a few strawberries, and a little bit of salt. Blend it all together, and then freeze it. It’ll be delicious!
The 15th of January also is Bagel and Lachs Day, so you could have this as a snack or a meal on this day. Of course, you need bagels, and “Lachs” is from the Yiddish word for salmon. You can have some smoked salmon on the bagels with cream cheese, the smear. Just grab some bagels, smear on some yummy cream cheese, and put some smoked salmon or trout on top for your meal.
On January 19th, it’s Popcorn Day. This is easy to do; just watch a movie and make some popcorn with butter on the stovetop. The easiest way is to put a little bit of oil and kernels into a pot with a lid, preferably a heavy bottom pot. First you put three kernels in, and you wait for them to pop. As soon as they do, you take it off the heat, add the rest of the kernels, give it a shake, wait 30 seconds, and then put it back on and leave it there till they’re mostly all popped. Remove from the heat and put them in a bowl. Then, melt some butter in the pot, and pour it over with some salt. Delicious!
The 27th of January is Chocolate Cake Day. You could bake a cake, buy a chocolate cake, smear chocolate icing on each other’s faces, or whatever you feel like, but enjoy some yummy chocolate cake. There’s German black forest cake, chocolate fudge cake, or even molten lava cakes. There’s flour free chocolate torte – all of those are great.
Then the 30th of Jan marks Croissant Day. You could use French croissants at your breakfast meal with some scrambled egg and bacon, and a bit of grated cheese on top, or you could have them for lunch with shredded chicken, or chicken salad with mayo and some chopped celery put inside the croissant, or with some sliced ham and cheddar. Those ways are all amazing.
Then in the month of February, 1st is Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day. This is great – all of these help with your meal planning, as then you don’t have to decide what to make on these days for this meal, because you’ve got the plan, and then you can get your kids involved. I’m sure they’ll be very enthusiastic! You could replace the milk in your cereal with ice cream, sprinkle cereal on top of your ice cream, or have ice cream with fruit salad. Put ice cream on top of pancakes, crepes, or crumpets, and add some bacon; maybe chop some bits to add to your ice cream. See how creative your kids would like to get.
The Day of the Crepe is the 2nd of Feb – you could do that instead. These are thin pancakes made from a batter of flour, eggs, milk, water, and then butter. When you fry them in the pan, they just fill the whole pan, and are much softer than crumpet style pancakes.
You could celebrate the 3rd of February as Carrot Cake Day or Carrot Cupcake Day with lovely cream cheese frosting. That’s always amazing.
Then the 4th of Feb is Stuffed Mushroom Day. You can put any kind of topping on mushrooms, for example, cream cheese with some prosciutto, or some bolognese and vegetables – anything you feel like. You could make a hamburger style mushroom where you put layers of tomatoes, cucumber, avocado, and cheese on top of the mushroom. Do whatever you feel like.
The 5th of Feb Chocolate Fondue Day. This is one of my favorite things to have besides cheese fondue. To make chocolate fondue, you melt some good quality, maybe 70 percent dark chocolate with a little bit of cream in it. Once it’s melted, you put it in the middle of the table, and everybody can dip their fruits into it. Alternatively, they can each have individual bowls of chocolate. You can dip banana, apple, strawberries, marshmallows, or even nuts in the chocolate. Make an event of it, or plan it for after your dinner.
The 24th of Feb is Tortilla Chip Day. You could have them with a dip as a snack, perhaps hummus or some guacamole. You could have nachos as a meal. Have your tortilla chips and your chicken chilli or your bolognese, and have some guac on the side, as well as some sour cream and salsa.
The first fun holiday in March that involves food is the 24th of March, Chocolate Covered Raisins Day. These are easy to buy, or you could use grapes and dip them in chocolate yourself, like with the chocolate fondue. Maybe just grab some yummy chocolate covered raisins for your dessert.
Then the 25th of March is Waffle Day. There’s Belgian waffles and Swedish waffles. Top them with cream, melted chocolate, blueberries, some boiled fruit, or just fresh fruit. We had whipped cream and maple syrup on ours for breakfast for my daughter’s birthday recently. Waffles for dinner could even be a thing! You could have chicken salad, or some sort of savory meat or cheese on top of your waffles, and then have sweet waffles after that.
The 27th of March is Spanish Paella Day. Paella is typically rice with seafood, and sometimes there’s beans or chicken. Making a delicious paella is a great dinner for this day.
Here’s a fun one – the 28th of March is Something On a Stick Day. In our new appetizers recipe book, which is coming out sometime in the next month, we have salad kebabs and fruit kebabs. You could also just do typical meat on a stick on the grill, or even bread on a stick. Just make your usual bread or pizza dough, and fold it over the stick. Squeeze it on so that it sticks in a long piece on top of the stick, and grill those. That’s a great bread to go with your meat.
Grilled Cheese Day is the 12th of April. These are in April now. Grilled cheese sounds like the best day! You can add some ham, and then you can make it into a croque monsieur by adding bechamel sauce on top. That’s a real comfort food. Have it with some tomato soup on the side – actually the cheese toastie or snackwich is on the side, and the soup is in the middle. Have a cheese sandwich and use different kinds of cheese all together on it. Personally, I like to have cheddar and mozzarella combined. Your kids can get involved with making these. Add a little salt to the cheese as well to make them extra yummy.
The 16th of April is Eggs Benedict Day. English muffins or breakfast biscuits are great as the bottom layer. Then put some ham, bacon, even some smoked salmon, or any kind of meat really as the next layer. Then put poached eggs, or for something easier, just bake some eggs in the oven in muffin cups, or even just do fried eggs, and then make some hollandaise sauce to go over the top. Hollandaise sauce is basically egg yolk and butter with a bit of salt. You can look for a good recipe online – it’s really not that hard to make. You make it over a steaming pot of water with a bowl on top.
Then the 22nd of April is Jelly Bean Day. Jelly beans have been known to come in all kinds of strange flavours, so see what you can find, and make a game out of it. Enjoy a jelly bean eating game, and perhaps a throwing game. You can toss them into cups or buckets. You can toss them to each other. See what kind of games you can come up with.
The 26th of April is Pretzel Day. You can get small, snack size, salted pretzels that you buy in a bag, or you can get a large fresh pretzel from a bakery and have that as part of your meal. Combine it with some deli meat – wrap it around the pretzel, or break up the pretzel and put butter on it. You can make it into an unusual meal.
Then in May, the 3rd is Herb Day. Maybe you can use this as a day to do that thing with herbs that you’ve always wanted to do, whether it’s planting a few herb bushes in the garden, or getting some herb plants for your kitchen, and making a little area with your favourites. My favourites are basil, oregano, maybe parsley, thyme for fish, and rosemary for lamb. Oregano is great on pizza. Basil is also great on anything Italian, including pizza. Set up some useful herbs and label them, teach your children about them, and arrange them in a way so that you can easily use them in soups, stews, and whatever else you make. It’s so much more delicious than dried herbs.
The 15th of May is Chocolate Chip Day. You could have chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip muffins, chocolate chip, pancakes, or even chocolate chip banana bread. Go wild, and enjoy those chocolate chips.
The 16th of May is Pizza Party Day – no explanation needed! Make your own pizzas, or buy pizza bases and get everybody to put their own toppings on. You can use everything that you can think of. There’s meat, vegetables, extra kinds of cheese, or even pineapple, if you’re daring. That’s the best!
Then the 28th of May, which happens to be my birthday, is Hamburger Day. You can do hamburgers on the grill – they definitely taste best when they’re grilled with a little bit of BBQ sauce on. Then for me, the burger’s all about the other things, not just the patty. Use mushrooms, cheese, tomato, cucumber, all kinds of sauces, whether you like mayonnaise, Thousand Island, or tomato sauce, and of course, onion rings, crumbed or not crumbed, raw or cooked, and even a pineapple slice or a fried egg. Go crazy. You can make a build-your-own-burger bar.
Then in June, National Donut Day is the 6th of June. I can just hear my kids licking their lips, and they’re gonna tell me we’ve got to do this one. There’s all kinds of donuts. Buy some donuts, or if you’re really adventurous, you can make your own, but I’ve never done that. You can buy a little donut maker machine. We’ve put cupcake dough in there to make a sort of donut. The best, though, are the different kinds of iced donuts that you can buy.
The 10th of June is Iced Tea Day. Iced tea is made by cooling or chilling any kind of tea. The best teas to chill are fruit teas, and you can do that by putting it in the fridge with ice and lemon, and having it on a hot day.
The 11th of June is Corn on the Cob Day. I like to steam mine so they’re nice and soft, and then possibly put them on the grill. Some people put them straight on the grill, and then they’re delicious with butter and salt, or even a dip. Enjoy some good corn on the cob.
The 17th of June is Eat Your Vegetables Day. For this, you should definitely refer to the previous episode, which is about helping your kids to enjoy vegetables, cooking more with vegetables, and some creative ways to put them into your meals.
And then last of all, the 26th of June is chocolate pudding day. You can have any kind of dessert that’s chocolate, such as chocolate Marie Callender pie, or again, chocolate lava cake with that delicious gooey inside. Chocolate brownies are good – your kids can make them.
So, have some fun with some of these days!
