The Wizard of Oz Cookbook Themed Dinners - Saturday

Tonight was our last night for The Wizard of Oz themed dinners.  We finished up with the following menu...

Toto's Hot Dog Bar

Bicycle Wheel Pasta Salad

Homeward Bound Berry Pear Crumble

I know you're saying a Hot Dog Bar themed after a dog!!!  That's not right.  Well, I figured it wasn't to weird seeing as how Toto actually eats a hot dog in the movie.

I fired up the grill, since that is the best and most tasty way to have a hot dog, and got our our toppings for the bar.

Hot Dog Bar Toppings

BBQ sauce, yellow mustard, ketchup and relish

Bacon Bits and Coleslaw

Fritos and potato chips

Hot dog chili and cheese sauce

The hot dogs came out great.

I also had Bicycle Wheel pasta salad, which was just a boxed pasta salad mix that I used Ditalini pasta instead of the pasta shells that came with the kit.  I tried to get Wagon Wheel Pasta but couldn't find it anywhere.  Ditalini was the next best thing.

For dessert, I took a recipe from The Wizard of Oz Cookbook.  

HOMEWARD BOUND BERRY PEAR CRUMBLE

makes 6 servings 

DOROTHY:  ...there's no place like home; there's no place like home...

INGREDIENTS:

3 medium pears, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced

1/2 pint reaspberries

1 pint blueberries

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped out

juice of 1 lemon

1/2 cup sugar

Topping:

3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

vanilla ice cream or whipped cream (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

Grease a 2-1/2 quart baking dish.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a medium bowl, gently toss fruit with vanilla bean seeds, lemon juice and sugar.  Arrange evenly in baking dish.  In a small bowl, stir together ingredients for topping.  Sprinkle over top of fruit.  Bake for about 30 minutes, until top is golden and pears are cooked.  This is especially good served with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

To top off a great Wizard of Oz week I also finished a really great book called Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts.

 This richly imagined novel tells the story behind The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the book that inspired the iconic film, through the eyes of author L. Frank Baum's intrepid wife, Maud.

"A breathtaking read that will transport you over the rainbow and into the heart of one of America's most enduring fairy tales."--Lisa Wingate, author of Before We Were Yours

Hollywood, 1938: As soon as she learns that M-G-M is adapting her late husband's masterpiece for the screen, seventy-seven-year-old Maud Gage Baum sets about trying to finagle her way onto the set. Nineteen years after Frank's passing, Maud is the only person who can help the producers stay true to the spirit of the book--because she's the only one left who knows its secrets.

But the moment she hears Judy Garland rehearsing the first notes of "Over the Rainbow," Maud recognizes the yearning that defined her own life story, from her youth as a suffragette's daughter to her coming of age as one of the first women in the Ivy League, from her blossoming romance with Frank to the hardscrabble prairie years that inspired The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Judy reminds Maud of a young girl she cared for and tried to help in South Dakota, a dreamer who never got her happy ending. Now, with the young actress under pressure from the studio as well as her ambitious stage mother, Maud resolves to protect her--the way she tried so hard to protect the real Dorothy.

It was a great book and I highly recommend it, especially if you are a fan of the books or movie.  Finishing this book, this week, really put the cherry on top of a great week of yummy themed dinners.

Thanks for joining us on this adventure.  Next week I'll be taking a break but beginning July 19th we'll be making our way down to New Orleans for a Princess and the Frog theme week.  Hope you'll join us.