Can you believe next year, 2023, the movie Elf will be twenty years old?! I'm shocked. It still feels like a relatively new Christmas movie in my mind, but it is a must-watch around here during the holiday season. Raised by elves in the North Pole, a human named Buddy discovers his biological father lives in New York City. He goes on a grand adventure to meet him and brings Christmas spirit to everyone he encounters along the way. Will Ferrell's boisterous acting skills give Buddy the Elf the perfect amount of playfulness and childlike wonder. I love experiencing things through his eyes.
Buddy's excitement about everything contrasts so perfectly with the jaded New Yorkers. Some of his exuberance is experienced after he sees a sign in a window claiming to have the "world's best cup of coffee." He enters the little diner and exclaims "you did it! Congratulations! World's best cup of coffee. Great job, everybody."
That was the scene that started the thought process for the drink, but the coffee scene in the mail room was what solidified the decision for me.
I used this Maple Syrup Coffee recipe from Kitchen Skip. To make it more similar to the mail room coffee you could add a bit of maple liqueur. I used decaffeinated coffee and added extra maple syrup and two out of my three kids liked it! Alternatively, you could make this Maple Hot Chocolate from Butternut Mountain Farm which may be more appealing to our youngest viewers.
 |
| Maple Syrup Coffee |
Our next item and the main dish is a staple in a lot of households and gets quite a bit of attention in Elf. Do you remember the first meal Buddy shares with his family in New York City?
It's spaghetti!
I was not brave enough to try pouring maple syrup on my spaghetti! And though I did consider trying to whip up a dessert style spaghetti like the one Buddy made the next morning. Ultimately, I decided to go with Homemade Spaghetti Sauce from Tastes Better From Scratch. It was tasty and a fairly easy recipe to follow, but I made a few changes. First, I doubled the amount of tomato sauce because we like a lot of sauce around here. Then I added a couple cloves of garlic and swapped out the parsley for basil and oregano. Yum!
 |
| Spaghetti with hearty red sauce |
The same night that spaghetti is served, salad and olives are also on the table so you could go that route or you could try these adorable Cucumber Christmas Trees from How to Make Yummy.
 |
| Cucumber Christmas Trees |
I went with the Christmas tree shape because of Buddy's love for them. When he takes Jovy on a date, he shows her all of his favorite Christmas trees around town. Seeing his excitement, Jovy decides to take him to Rockefeller Central Plaza to view the giant Christmas tree there!
Now that we've figured out the main meal, it's time for the sweets!
The first treat is inspired by Buddy's plan for he and his dad that he expertly wrote out on an Etch A Sketch.
"First First, we'll make snow angels for two hours, and then we'll go ice skating, and then we'll eat a whole roll of Toll-House cookie dough as fast as we can, and then to finish, we'll snuggle."
His dad had to go to work so his plan didn't work out, but that didn't stop me from whipping up some edible cookie dough.
 |
| Cookie Dough |
Did you know that Toll House makes an Edible Cookie Dough? I did not until writing this post, so I went with this Edible Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites from Aleka's Get Together. They held together well and tasted pretty close to the real thing. I think mine were just a tad too floury though so I might change the ratio just a little bit next time.
The next two items are fun, but definitely require a bit of imagination.
 |
| Cotton balls... err Snowballs |
First we have this crunchy coated tootsie roll called "Snowballs" which can be used to represent the epic snowball fight that Buddy and his new younger brother, Michael get into and bond over.
If I'm honest though, I was inspired by the scene when Buddy goes to the doctor and woofs down cotton balls!
I went to the store with the intention of tracking down white cotton candy. If you can find it I bet it'd make an awesome cotton ball substitute, but when I saw the "Snowballs" I knew they'd work perfectly too.
The next one only requires a trip to the store too.
Bear with me! Do you remember the ornery store manager from Gimbel's? Here I'll remind you:
Well, what better way to represent those six inch ribbon curls than with six inch strips of Fruit by the Foot?!
 |
| Edible Ribbons |
Cut them, curl them, or just toss out a few of the surprisingly festive red and green colored packages. These edible ribbons are sure to be a hit!
This menu could not be much simpler and that's exactly what we need for the holidays when things can get so hectic! Remember you can make each item to suit yourself. Use the ready made pasta sauce, grab a bag of salad instead of stacking Christmas tree cucumbers, and take Toll House up on that ready to eat cookie dough option. How ever you manage to add a little pizzazz to this already special movie is sure to be magical!
I hope you and your loved ones have a wonderful holiday season.
See you next time!
Looking for another Food+Film post to carry on the holiday season? Check out The Santa Clause or The Holiday!
Comments
Post a Comment