Chocolate Martini

Ingredients: Serves 1

2 oz Vodka

4 oz Chocolate Crème liqueur (my favorite is the brand Valmas)

Chocolate syrup for your glass

Instructions:

Add the vodka and chocolate cream liqueur to a jar and shake to combine. Store it sealed in your refrigerator until it’s time to serve. This is a great item to make before so you can save time with the other prep. I usually premix my drink a day or two before movie night and it gets nice and cold in the refrigerator. Before you are about to serve this drink and start the film, drizzle rings of chocolate syrup inside your martini glass and pour the premix in the glass.

The focus of this scene is waffles so no pressure on how you choose to serve them. I served mini waffles, Eggos, from the frozen section of the store because I don’t have a waffle maker and I wanted to save time. I chose mini versions because it’s easy to get full during these movie nights so smaller is better! I also paired it with some of the cream sauce from the mini Napoleon cakes. See that recipe if you want to use the same sauce. I drizzled chocolate syrup on the stacks since I had it from the chocolate martinis and I topped it with a cherry. Basically, just try to use what you already have on hand so you can save time and money.

If you want to make waffles from scratch, here is a good recipe!  

For this dish, I tried to recreate the tray of food Shrek makes for his lonely dinner at the Swamp. This includes the slug (which I turned into a loaf of bread I painted with food-safe coloring), a jar of eyeballs (which are really mozzarella balls with carrot eyes), worms in a pumpkin dish (which is actually a classic pasta with meat sauce), brussel sprouts (which are just brussel sprouts LOL), and earwax (which is butter I dyed green).

Slug Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp instant yeast

¾ cup warm water

Two food dye colors (I used blue and red because that is what I had) White food paint

Instructions:

1. Add the flour, salt, instant yeast, and warm water to a large bowl. Mix until combined and cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
2. Once the dough has risen, place it on a floured surface of parchment paper. Flour the top of the dough as well and shape it into a loaf/slug shape. Cover it with a damp towel and let rise for another 30 minutes.
3. While it’s rising, mix your food coloring with the white food paint. It’s important to use the white paint because it helps keep the color vibrant while the bread is baking. Just keep in mind that the white paint will make the food coloring more of a pastel color so you might need to add more of your colored food coloring to get it to the right color. I made this mistake, so the paint came out much lighter than the slug from the scene.
4. When the dough is done rising, preheat your oven to 400 degrees F and place an oven-safe container filled with water in your oven so steam starts forming when you bake. The steam is an important part of the bread forming a crispy crust.
5. While the oven is preheating and the steam is forming, paint your bread to look like the slug. Also, cut slits on one end of the dough to be the antenna. I wrapped each slit around the metal cocktail picks and propped it up so when it baked, the antenna would stick up.
6. Place the parchment paper holding the slug loaf on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes. I recommend making this the day of the movie night. You can store the slug on top of your oven and it’ll be fine. This scene comes early in the movie so I recommend heating it up in the oven for about 5-7 minutes right before you start the movie and it should be ready to consume when the scene comes.

Jar of eye balls– This was an easy one to assemble and it can be prepped the day before to save you time the day of the movie night. I bought medium-sized mozzarella balls and carved out thin, circular pieces of carrots to be the pupil of the “eye”. I stored it in a mason jar and when it was time to serve this dish, I just had to grab the jar and add it to the cutting board I served everything on.

Worms in a Pumpkin– For this dish, you want to pick a spiral-type pasta like fusilli, cavatappi, or rotini to give it the worm look. For the actual pasta, I just made a basic meat sauce. You can use a premade jar sauce to save time or if you want to make it from scratch, here is a good recipe!

Here is the link to the pumpkin. I’ve used it so many times since purchasing it for this movie night. I love it!

Brussel Sprouts– I have no idea what the green thing Shrek is eating but it immediately reminded me of brussel sprouts so that’s what I served. I actually love brussel sprouts after hating them as a kid. This trick is roasting them in the oven so they become crispy. I decided to not roast them too crispy, however, to make it look more like the scene.

To make it how I did, I cut and cleaned the brussel sprouts, drizzled olive oil, and tossed it with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. You can use your favorite all-purpose seasoning if that is easier for you. Then place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes. I usually like to make a fancy Asian-style, crispy brussel sprout but for this dish, and movie night, simple was better. This is also something you can make in advance. I did, and then I plated them and I just had to microwave before serving.

Earwax butter– This is a very simple one to make but there are a few steps that take time. The night before you make the earwax, leave a stick of butter out of the refrigerator so it comes to room temperature. The next day, add your butter and a few drops of green food coloring to a medium-sized bowl and mix until the butter resembles a pale green color. Let the bowl sit in the refrigerator for 5 minutes to harden slightly. Then mold the butter with your hands to resemble the earwax mold Shrek creates. I did this on top of an upside-down small bowl. You can store it in the refrigerator and when you are about to start the movie, leave it out on your counter so it is softer when you serve it.

Serving tips: This dish has a lot of components, and the scene comes shortly after the pancake scene so it’s important that you have as much premade and plated as possible. The eyeballs, bread, and butter can be easily placed on the serving tray/cutting board with no additional prep. The pasta and brussel sprouts will need to be reheated in the microwave before serving.

This is the Gingerbread Cookie Recipe.

To make the shape of Gingy, I personally could not find a cookie cutter that matched his personalized shape, so I molded the dough by hand to make him. Pull up a picture of him for reference, roll out the dough, and start molding. It was pretty easy and this way you can make Gingy into whatever pose you want! To decorate Gingy, I used this icing recipe.

Please note that this recipe also contains a sugar cookie recipe. You will only need to pay attention to the icing part of the recipe.

You will need a light blue food coloring gel for Gingy’s eyebrows, and red for his mouth. You will also need to buy gumdrop candies and pick out purple for his buttons. To pipe everything, I used this kit.

Coquito Recipe- This is a good recipe for this Puerto Rican holiday drink. If you don’t want to make this drink, you can serve Gingy with milk like in the film, but I will warn against serving him in the milk. Because Coquito is thick, it doesn’t dissolve the cookie as fast as milk would.

Here is the recipe I used for the onion rings. You can save time and buy frozen onion rings too!

Here is the In-N-Out sauce recipe I used! I now make it for everything because it’s so good and easy!

I’ll refrain from explaining where this inspiration came from… LOL!

I went with a nutty, green pistachio cookie that is now officially my husband’s favorite cookie! The inside was deliciously chewy and it wasn’t overly sweet. Here is the recipe I used.

The only thing I did differently is press my finger in the center of the dough ball before baking to make a dent and I filled it with some crushed pistachios.

Serving tips: This is one you can make the day before to save time. Store them in an airtight container and before the film starts, plate them and leave them on your countertop for easy access when the scene approaches.

Sweet and Sour Fried Eggs– You can choose to serve regular fried eggs here to match the eggs they eat in the movie but I wanted to do something extra. The scene where Fiona kills the mama bird and eats her baby’s eggs is a bittersweet moment, so I thought sweet and sour eggs would perfectly embody the scene. LOL! Here is the recipe.

Serving tips: Fried eggs are better served fresh, however for the sake of time, I made these in advance. I plated them and put plastic wrap on top. I also chopped up some green onions, wrapped them up in a paper towel, and kept them in the refrigerator too. Then, when it was time to serve the dish, I microwaved it and added the green onions on top before serving.

Rum raisin cocktail

Ingredients: Serves 2

¼ cup raisins

4oz rum

Sprite

Raisins for garnish

½ cup of Marshmallows or marshmallow fluff for garnish

Instructions:

1. The night before, add the ¼ cup of raisins and rum to an airtight jar or container and let it soak overnight.
2. The next day, use a muddler to crush the raisins and strain the mixture so the raisin/rum liquid has no chunks of raisin remaining. Store the liquid in the refrigerator until it’s time to serve.
3. Before the film, set up your glasses with the marshmallow cobwebs and raisin “flies”. To make the cobweb, I microwaved the marshmallows for about 20 seconds. You want the marshmallow to be sticky to the touch but not so hot you can’t touch it.  When it’s ready, dip your fingertips in the marshmallow and separate them to stretch out the marshmallow, making a web effect. Decorate each glass with the webs and stick raisins to the top of them.
   • If you don’t want to deal with the hot marshmallow, another option is to use a jar of marshmallow fluff. It already comes sticky so you don’t have to worry about heating it.
4. When you are ready to serve, add ice to your glasses, split your rum raisin mixture between the two glasses and top off your drink with sprite.

One thing I love about meatballs/kebabs is how you can basically shape them into whatever you want and it’ll hold its shape well during the cooking process. For this reason, I chose to serve kebabs shaped like the weed rats Shrek cooks in the film. This is the recipe I used.

You can use any meatball recipe for this dish. To make the kebabs, you just have to press the meat very firmly, so it holds its shape. Shape the little head and body around the stick, connect the tail, and cook!

Serving tips: I had the tzatziki already in the serving dish and covered it with plastic wrap in the refrigerator. I also had parsley prechopped, wrapped in a paper towel, and stored in the refrigerator. On a separate dish, I stored the weed rat kebabs and when it was time to prepare to serve, I microwaved the weed rats, added them on top of the sauce, and garnished them with fresh parsley.

Mini Napoleon Cakes

For this cake, I followed a video on Tiktok but it’s not there now so here is a similar recipe that honestly looks better!

Fun Fact: My husband actually gave me the idea for the name “Napoleon Bon-ap-petit”. I served these cakes because Lord Farquaad has a Napoleon complex, but I was struggling with thinking of a name. My genius husband reminded me Napoleon’s name is Napoleon Bonaparte, and the joke pretty much wrote itself after that!

Pistachio Martini

Ingredients: Serves 1

4oz Pistachio cream liqueur (my favorite is the brand Valmas)

2oz vodka

Pistachio cream spread (optional garnish)

Cocktail onion for garnish

Instructions:

1. Add the pistachio cream liqueur and vodka to a jar and shake to combine. Store in your refrigerator until it’s time to serve. This is a great item to prep ahead of time to save time the day of the movie night.
2. I didn’t think about this until after but to decorate your glasses, you can smear pistachio cream in your glasses. Also, set up your cocktail onions before the movie night starts and store them in the refrigerator. Here are the picks I use.
3. When it’s time to serve, pour your premade drink mix in your glass and top with you cocktail onion.