Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Cheap April Fools Day Ideas for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner!


I know you're not supposed to let your kids "play with their food", but April Fools Day is a day to encourage it - and Mom and Dad even get to have fun with it!  =)

Last year I whipped up some funzies to entertain the kids for April 1st....I like that these are easy and quick to put together with what you have on hand - a nice last minute "prank" in case you forget.

"Fried Eggs" for breakfast.....Greek yogurt and apricot halves (you could also use marshmallow fluff or Cool Whip for the "whites", and peaches for the "yolk")

{I thought they were quite convincing!!}

{Greek Yogurt + Apricot halves}

Surprisingly, my kids were not too fond of apricots, so I might try peaches next time, but it was still a funny way to start the day.

Meatloaf and Mashed Potato "Cupcakes" for supper....


I just made up a normal recipe for meatloaf and cooked them in a cupcake pan.  First though, I added a Ritz cracker to the bottom of the liner to soak up any extra grease*.



While the meatloaf was cooking, I scrubbed, cut up, and boiled some potatoes until they were nice and smushie.  Then I drained them, threw them into my KitchenAid, and mixed in some cream cheese, salt and pepper, milk....the usual, until smooth.  I added some red food coloring to make them a little more believable as "cupcakes".


When the "frosting" had cooled enough to handle, I scooped it into an icing bag and piped it onto the "cupcakes".  They were a big hit --  the kids were asking the other day if they could have them for supper....almost a year later.  =)  

It was a lot of family fun and laughter, for free!  ....well, the food cost money, but no more than we would have spent for normal meals!

*I used the ground beef I had on hand, which was not lean enough for this, so the grease soaked the cracker and liner and was kind of a mess to eat.......but the kids loved it anyway and I just used a fork for mine.  I would suggest though to use a lean meat!


You can see some more April Fools ideas here from last year's post - Octopus mac n' cheese and Jell-O "juice" I made for my littles (you could make for lunch or dinner), and more ideas from around the web.


What are your favorite pranks - food or otherwise - to play on April Fools Day??


Linking up.....

HookingupwithHoH

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks so much for the cupcake idea! I make "meatloaf mini's" in a cupcake tin and use ground turkey. It works great! I am totally trying the " frosting next time!!!

Mara said...

It's such an easy "extra" that the kids just think is hilarious! They still talk about it and ask for it - 3 years later! =) I wanted to make them again today, but we didn't have any meat that would work. Great idea to use ground turkey - that would make it nice and lean!

~ Mara