April Fool's Day Mashed Potatoes and Meatloaf

April Fool's Day is coming up soon and I'm getting prepared to trick my kids! (Ha, ha, ha...evil laugh) I recently purchased a great book called "Fake out Food" which is an AWESOME book for food ideas to trick your kids. My boys don't like meatloaf, but I'll bet that they'll love this 'meatloaf' with marshmallows, chocolate, and fruit snacks. I love how it looks so real. Have fun coming up with different ways to present your food. You'll be surprised if you start looking at food and thinking of other ways to make it look like something else. In fact just the other day I thought to myself "I think that scallops look like apple chunks. Hmmmmm" What are you making for your April Fool's Day trick?

Posted by: Jen

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp butter

6-8 c cocoa rice krispy cereal

2 Tbsp cocoa powder

1 10 oz pkg mini marshmallows

1/3 c Craisins

2-3 pkg fruit snacks

other dried fruit, optional

frosting and red food coloring

The Instructions:

Melt the butter in a large nonstick pan. When butter is melted, stir in the cocoa powder until it is smooth.

Add the marshmallows, and stir occasionally to melt all the way through.

While your marshmallows are melting, put the cereal in a gallon baggie and pound with a meat mallet or roll with a rolling pin to crush the cereal. Don't worry if it's not all crushed. It adds to the texture of the 'meatloaf'.

Chop your Craisins, fruit snacks, and any other dried fruit into small pieces. Attention, this can be sticky on your knife. I wonder if it would help to spray your knife with nonstick spray first. Add the fruit snacks to the baggie of crushed cereal and mix it all in well.

Add the cereal mixture to the melted marshmallows and stir in until all the cereal is completely coated with marshmallow.

Grease a loaf pan. (or even also line it with parchment paper and spray that.) Pour your marshmallow/cereal mixture into the loaf pan and press down to make it all firm. (spray your hands with nonstick spray before doing this.) Let cool for about 1/2 hour.

If desired, coloring your frosting red and spread a thin layer on top of the 'meatloaf'. (I should have used a deeper red food coloring. Oh well, Next time)

Now for the mashed potatoes. All you need are:

Ingredients:

Vanilla ice cream

caramel sauce

yellow soft candies (ie, Starburst)

You'll want to prepare the 'mashed potatoes' immediately before serving your family. It will take you a grand total of maybe 3 minutes to prepare. Scoop out some ice cream and place it on your serving plate. Gently press in the middle of your ice cream scoop to resemble the cavity for gravy in your mashed potatoes. Drizzle caramel sauce into the cavity and let some drip down the side of the ice cream. Press your yellow candy into a flattened square to resemble a pat of butter. If your candies aren't so soft (like mine were ), then nuke it in the microwave for no more than 10 seconds. I placed my candy on a piece of wax paper (parchment would be better). When it was softer I pressed it down and immediately placed it on top of my 'mashed potatoes'.