Updated!
The new movie How To Train Your Dragon, The Hidden World is out and adorable! My two loved it – Teeny cried at the sweet ending! I love his tender little heart! The post below was originally posted last year, but I thought it might be a good time to update and revisit these treats!
This week, we had a play date with Ladybug, Firefly and Mommy Bug, Dancing Queen and her Mom. Along with my two, these are some kids that love a theme night! At the request of Firefly, Mommy Bug’s oldest and my oldest’s best friend, we are having a How to Train Your Dragon night! How fun. Usually, I’m more of a princess and talking mice kind of gal – Cinderella will forever by my favorite princess – but today I am channeling my inner Viking for our party. I have to admit, it was kind of fun to get out of my frilly little craft box and think in terms of dragons and Viking hats. As always, I turned to Pinterest for inspiration. Lots and lots of inspiration for this one! Lady and the Tramp and Valentine’s Day were complex, I’ll admit. But theme night doesn’t have to be complex to be fun and creative. Today, we are taking it a bit easy. Almost everything either has a pre-made, store bought base, or is easy easy easy.
Our menu this week includes Viking ships (hot dogs), peg legs (chicken legs), tossed sheep pops, Toothless cookie pops, dragon scales (Dorito’s brand chips), deviled dragon eggs, chocolate dragon eggs and apple ring shields. The apple ring shields, chocolate dragon eggs and dragon scales are pre-made and transferred to serving bowls before guests arrive. Love it!
The Viking hat juice boxes are only one level more difficult. For these little guys, I took brown paper lunch bags and measured the length of the juice box. Using a couple of pieces of tape, secure the bag edge to the juice box. Wrap the bag around the box, cut, and secure with more tape to the back of the box. For the horns and rim, I picked up a piece of craft paper from Michael’s in a slivery gray. Along the bottom of the hat, I created a rim of paper and secured with tape. The horns were freehanded, so no pattern needed. I folded the paper so that I could cut in duplicate. Secure to the juice box with tape and done. Finish with three little rivets down the front, courtesy of your favorite sharpie and you have Viking fuel!
Our Viking Ships are just as easy. Grill or boil your hot dogs and brats and place in buns. The sails are just squares of craft paper – I know it is a bit more pirate than Viking, but the red stripe grabbed me! I took 6 inch skewers and poked them through the squares and pushed the ends together to make it look like they are wind filled. Stick a sail into the center of your “long boat” and use bamboo forks as oars that angle down to the “water” from your ship. Viking boats are adorable and done!
The toothless cookie pops and tossed sheep were a little more complex, but still pretty easy. I used mega stuffed Oreos coated in black chocolate that I picked up at Michael’s. I also picked up some lime green chocolate, Ghirardelli white chocolate and milk chocolate, small eyes, and nonpareils and sprinkles in white, and a few lollipop sticks while I was there. To make the toothless pops, I inserted a lollipop stick into the Oreo, coated all over in melted black chocolate and placed on foil to let harden. Once hardened, I piped a large mouth, three ridges on the forehead (dots) a double dot for his nose – all in black. With the green, I piped angled eyes – they look a little creepy without the pupils, and went back over them with a single black dot for each pupil.
The tossed sheep were my favorite. I used jumbo marshmallows for the core of their bodies. I dipped their tips into black for a face and let it set. I placed the eyes while the chocolate was still wet so that they would harden into the chocolate when it set. Once the faces s are set, I coated them in white chocolate and then in nonpareils or sprinkles. Since I ran out, you will see some colored mints, chocolate chips, and even one little black sheep of the group (the Momleficent of sheep) made from black sesame seeds. Cute! I inserted lollipop sticks into the bottoms while the chocolate was still wet so that it would harden and support my fluffy little friends. I arranged them into glasses on the table and we were ready to go!
The deviled dragon eggs were just traditional deviled eggs. I love egg salad and deviled eggs. First, we boil and peel the eggs. THEN we dye them. The color really penetrates the flesh of the egg and lets you play with color and texture a bit. If you want a speckled pattern, crack the shell and dye. These were striped and splattered with dots of dye, straight from the bottle. For solid colors, peel the egg completely then dye. Cut the eggs in half and remove the yolk. I don’t like really mayonnaisey egg salad or deviled egg – just a touch for binding and flavor. Mix salt and pepper to taste, a couple tablespoons of sweet pickle relish, and about 3 tablespoons of mayo to start. Begin to mix and adjust your ratios of ingredients to taste. My mix will leave your filling a bit dry, so you will want to add a bit more relish or mayo as you go, but it is always better to start with too little and add – you can always add – yo….u can’t remove ingredients after you have added too much and the mixture no longer holds together.
I added star fruit star fish for dragon food (and because we needed more than apple rings for vegies and fruit options) as well as strawberry fireballs.
My final addition to the menu was peg legs. These little guys are just roasted chicken legs. You can roast in to oven or pop them in your grill or smoker like I did. My favorite meal to cook on a barbecue grill or smoker is chicken, and dark meat is usually more moist. Since we are not in the amazon – breasts were out (get it – if not, look it up, I’m witty and hilarious – or just a dork with a Wonder Woman obsession even though she had both of hers), as were thighs since those would have just confused the kids. Chicken legs it was – and an added bonus, they look like little peg legs (sortof). I seasoned them with salt, pepper, garlic and paprika after marinating them with apple juice and lemon with some parsley and oregano. I smoked them for 2 hours and then threw on the hot dogs and brats. There is nothing like smoked meats, the flavor is amazing! Once the play date is over, we’ll make some chicken salad out of the left overs for next week and potentially have some egg salad to go with it! Can’t wait!
We had one unexpected surprise. Daddy bug brought socks, cotton balls, black poster board and googley eyes and we made Sheep Toss! Daddy bug made those little guys all by himself – you can see his hands in the photo above which I call “Master of the Glue Gun.” He rolled men’s tube socks in on themselves to form a little doughnut shape. He hot glued cotton balls on to form their backs, and freehanded their little faces out of poster board. How cute! The kids went crazy and we hid those little suckers until the stress of being found caused their cotton balls to fall off. Ok, maybe it was the stress of being handled by Teeny after they were found, but they may have had a bald patch or two by the end of the night. Daddy bug and I had to get creative when hiding a few of them.
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Thanks for stopping by and reading about our squeal-fest. I love it when the kids all converge and play together. It is so nice to see the two big ones play so well with the tinies. Happy Theming!
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