Chim-chiminey, Chim-chiminey, Chim-Chim cheree chim cheree, Let’s have some sandwiches to go with our tea. Chim-chiminey, Chim-chiminey, Chim-Chim cheree chim cheroo. It goes with a movie we just had to view. We went into the kitchen and made a drink too!
We have ourselves a magical cookbook here called “The Wizard’s Cookbook”. It delves into the most mystifying and whimsical franchises like Harry Potter, Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and Bewitched to name a few. The sequel to the Mary Poppins movie is supposed to come out December 19, 2018. Lauren really wants to go see it. She and her mother consider it a classic with the greatest performers in the starring roles of Burt and Mary Poppins. Mom loved the story and played her record of the soundtrack often as a kid, later playing the songs for me on her flute while I danced around the living room. To this day, she still sings along with “Spoonful of Sugar” and “Feed the Birds” whenever she’s in earshot. I prefer “Jolly Holiday”, “Chim-Chim Cheree” and in first…STEP IN TIME!
She loves the message of mixing fun with practicality and connecting as a family. No, we will not see the overly cheery Broadway show that follows the books rather than the film. Needless to say, it was required viewing for me. So, we decided to give it a go. While we were enjoying a nice lunch at our favorite Sushi Nah-Rah, we broke out the magical cookbook and started flipping through when we found these smelt sandwiches. These looked simple enough and healthy too.
I loved reading the instructions for this one! It was almost interactive and playful in the steps for example; “I hear you tittering!” and “Now is not the time for jokes and funny anecdotes,” encouraging you to embrace the character, the mood and the enjoyment of cooking. I highly recommend “The Wizard’s Cookbook” to parents to help kids get into the kitchen. This was a straightforward recipe. Smelts are a small fish found in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. They tend to be very salty, a big turn off it you ask me. Fortuitously, Lauren happened to have some tuna in a packet on hand. We followed the book’s advice and mixed it with some lime juice and herbs for a bit of zing and flavorful emphasis. Just what it needed, since normally the tuna is all one-note, and bland in my opinion. Whilst that sat, Lauren toasted up some bread, and chopped up some cherry tomatoes. Just like with our Toad-in-the-Hole recipe, we cookie-cut stars out of the toast to look like the picture. The book recommends using star, parrot or umbrella shapes for your sandwiches and once you finally let your laughter out, enjoying them on the ceiling.
They tasted practically perfect in every way right down to the lowest charge for ingredients we’ve ever had after a trip to the grocery store. I just wish we had used tooth picks to hold them in place. (So THAT’s what those do!) I concur, these sandwiches were just right. A perfect portion if you asked me, even though I (being one to eat quite a bit) decided to sauté some chopped mushrooms to go with the meal. We decided to use the crusts from the stars to feed the birds.
Meanwhile, I took care of the drinks. It’s an elixir said to be served during the horse races in the chalk country side. We didn’t want to buy grapefruit juice and peach juice from the store. The cheap ones tend to be full of added sugar, while the pure stuff costs more than a few tuppence. You really have to investigate before buying.
So we decided to puree a whole grapefruit and a peach. We were left with a bunch of pulp which Lauren strained. We reserved the pulp, since it could be used in Greek yogurt for breakfast – waste-not, want-not. Some of the rind of the grapefruit was still on (even when I tried to be careful) and the resulting product tasted very tart.
The vanilla extract and maraschino cherry water (couldn’t find cherry syrup anywhere!) helped cut through a lot of the bitterness, but ultimately this was a problem of proportions. The recipe originally called for a 3:1 ratio for the peach to grapefruit ratio. We kind of flipped it around, so instead it was more like a 1:3 ratio. I guess we were too dizzy from the carousel ride to think straight! I wouldn’t exactly call it supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I think it needed a spoonful of sugar to help that rind flavor go down.
Best of all, my brother was able to hook up the VCR into the TV so we could watch it the same way I did as a little girl, only this time, with a dance partner! Our version is from the original 90’s “Masterpiece Collection”. We may not have done well at making drinks, but at least we dressed it up right and enjoyed our evening dancing along with Burt and Mary Poppins. It goes to show that as the movie portrays; it doesn’t have to always be tea and cakes to have a jolly holiday. What really matters is being wit those you love while you still can and make the very most out of everything. A little magic never hurts either!