Skill Level: Intermediate (good
shopping skills help)
We so enjoyed Oliver Jeffers’
Stuck, that I started reading some of his other books and came across this
one. The youngest grandchild saw the
back of the book and started yelling “IT’S MINE IT’S MINE IT’S MINE” (he didn’t
stop after three times, I just didn’t feel like typing the other 739 iterations.)
I guess he thinks that anything that he’s licked or has a bite out of it is
his. He’s generally right since nobody else wants what he’s licked or bitten.
This story is about Henry who
loved books. Like I love ice cream. As he ate books he became smarter and
smarter. However, because this is a
story which ends well, he couldn’t continue to eat them.
First, I used my handy pasta
recipe with a bit of red added. I took
my 2 ¼ cups of flour, 3 eggs and dash of salt and added about a tablespoon of tomato
paste. I mixed this, then rolled it into
a ball and set it aside to rest. The
color, by the way, looked like a fine aged red book … sort of orange.
While the dough was resting, I
had to run to the store for ingredients for my dessert idea. While there, I made a visit to the salad
bar. I gathered a nice salad of
broccoli, cauliflower, corn, peppers, cherry tomatoes, snap peas and a wee bit
of ranch dressing. Perfect side dish.
It’s already assembled.
When I got home, the pasta was
well-rested, so I rolled it out thin, and cut some pages. I made my pages twice the length of my baking
dish, but only one times the width.
This
way, I could fold them over to make pages.
Because I wanted the noodles to
steam a bit, I put about a teaspoon of water in the bottom of my dish. I layered the noodles with sliced provolone,
thinly sliced mushroom, thinly sliced white onions and ricotta (note the white
theme here?), repeating and “opening” the red covers as I went.
Technically, I had a lot more covers than
pages, but as I told the boys, that happens.
In retrospect, I could have made a half recipe of red pasta and a half
of white. Then I’d have my pages as
white pasta. I’ll know better next
time.
I covered this with foil and
baked it for about a half an hour.
For dessert, I cut
some puff pastry into rectangles. I gave
the boys plastic knives and told them to press the handle down the middle so it
looked like an open book. I baked these
while the boys were eating, and then served them with some chocolate syrup for
dipping.
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Title
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The Incredible Book Eating Boy
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Author
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Oliver Jefffers
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Illustrator
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Publisher
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Philomel
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Highlights
/Tie in
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Books Books Books
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Reactions
to the Book
|
·
We eat books
Grummy! Only you cook them first.
·
IT’S MINE IT’S
MINE, etc.
·
I like green
books. Grummy you need to make me a
green book. Not for the others, just
for me.
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Meal
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·
Books (lasagna)
·
Broccoli salad
·
Puff pastry
books with chocolate sauce
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Reactions
to the Meal
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·
Grummy, why
aren’t there any noodle pages?
·
Youngest
grabbed his lasagna and took a bite, the others ate it in pieces. Lots of pieces.
·
The puff pastry
books were a huge hit. Page by page by
page … dipped in chocolate. A lot of
dripping chocolate.
·
This meal
required more cleanup than I’d anticipated.
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