We are reading Harry Potter to our youngest. We started reading Harry Potter to him a couple years ago to encourage a love of reading. And Harry Potter certainly has worked its magic just like it has on many other kids. He loves to read now.
As he finishes each book we have had a special themed dinner and watched the corresponding movie after. Discussing the differences between the book and the movie have been a great learning opportunity too (and just plain fun).
All of the items I used were things we already had. Many of them from our Halloween decorations. The fake fire is an item I have used as a prop over and over again (camping themed party, How to Train Your Dragon party, Halloween, Science party and more). It has been so fun. You can find it on Amazon here.
Menu
I tried hard to get input from Kian, which made it so much more exciting for him. He had a lot of ideas for sweets but not so many for a main dish or side dishes so we did some brainstorming and came up with serving quiche. Fleur is about to marry into the Weasley family in book 6 and Quiche seemed like a nice light French food she might want to eat.
I used my favorite Spinach Quiche Recipe
Spinach Quiche
Nice light quiche filled with bacon and spinach. This quiche is actually even better cooking from frozen in my opinion.
Ingredients
- 1 Pastry Crust
- 6 Slices Cooked Bacon Cut into small pieces
- 8 Eggs
- 1/2 Cup Sour Cream
- 1/2 Cup Milk
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 3 Cups Fresh Spinach Chopped
- 2/3 Cup Mozzarella Cheese Shredded
- 1/2 Cup Swiss Cheese Shredded I've made this with any shredded cheese I had on hand and it was still good!
Instructions
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Prepare pastry crust in pan. If you plan to cook immediately cover with foil and bake at 450 for 8 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for an additional 4-5 minutes. If you plan to freeze to use later skip cooking the crust.
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In a medium mixing bowl, beat eggs slightly. Stir in sour cream, milk and salt. Add bacon, spinach and cheese.
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Pour the egg mixture into the pie crust. If cooking immediately back at 325 degrees for 45 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes. If you are freezing place in freezer overnight. Then cover or put in a ziplock bag.
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When ready to cook from freezer, cover crust with aluminum foil. Cook at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until a knife comes out clean. Remove and let sit 10 minutes.
Professor Sprout’s Vegetables have made their appearance at almost all of our Harry Potter dinners. The books simply do not reference healthy food all that often so there isn’t much to work with. However these are easy to do and they still fit in well.
A lot of time is spent in potions class and discussing potions in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. So a few potions were a must for our dinner. I used a plastic cauldron from our Halloween decor and discovered it fit perfectly in a cake stand. We put our “fire” underneath to complete the look.
Our potion is actually Spinach and Artichoke Dip; a favorite at our house. Unfortunately I am allergic to onions and garlic so I’ve spent a lot of time coming up with a recipe that tastes good without them. If you have a favorite version or a different favorite dip, dips look like a lot of the potion descriptions from the book.
Spinach and Artichoke Dip (Instant Pot Recipe)
This is one of our family favorites. It's creamy, tasty, cheesy with the salty kick of canned artichoke hearts.
Ingredients
- 3 cups Chopped Fresh Spinach
- 1 can Artichoke hearts drained
- 1 8 oz pkg Cream Cheese Cubed
- 1 Cup Sour Cream
- 1 Cube Chicken Bouillon
- 1/2 Cup Water
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/4 tsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
- 1 tbsp Parsley
- 2 Cups Monterey Jack Cheese Shredded
- 1/2 Cup Fetta Cheese
Instructions
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Put all ingredients except cheeses in Instant Pot or Pressure Cooker.
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Stir until well combined
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Select manual setting. Set time for 5 minutes on high pressure.
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When finished cooking quick release.
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Stir in cheeses until melted. Serve warm on crackers or bread.
Liquid Luck or Felix Felicis was something Kian felt absolutely needed to be included in our dinner. I had a hard time figuring out how to do that. I ended up following a recipe provided by Inliterature.net. You can get the recipe here. We used apple juice and it was very shimmering and cool to look at.
Breadstick wands have been in all of our Harry Potter dinners too. Usually I roll them out and make them look a bit more like wands, but I was pressed for time. We dipped them in the Spinach and Artichoke dip. I’ve included a simple breadmaker recipe, but frozen bread dough or canned biscuits would work too.
As You Wish Breadsticks
I can’t remember where I got this recipe. I wrote it into my recipe book years ago, but it is our all time favorite breadstick recipe. The breadsticks are soft yet a bit chewy.
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Milk
- 2 tbsp cooking oil
- 3 Cups Flour
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 3/4 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Yeast
Instructions
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Put all ingredients in breadmaker pan.
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Set to dough setting.
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When complete remove from pan. Roll out and use a pizza cutter to cut into sticks.
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Bake 350 degrees 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.
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Immediately after removing from oven brush with butter and add any seasonings such as Parmesan cheese or garlic salt.
Chocolate Cauldrons were the first thing that came to mind when we were thinking about food for the dinner. They are laced with love potion and meant for Harry, but Ron ends up eating them. The scene in the book got the most giggles out of our kids. I thought about using unwrapped Reese’s cups and spreading some green frosting on top (however they are a favorite in our house and when I went to get them out found that only 2 were left). So I mixed up a brownie mix and put them into a mini muffin tin. If I were to do this again I would use mini muffin liners. They were a bit hard to get out of the tin after cooking. When they were cool we topped them with some green frosting to make them look more like they came from the wizarding world.
Crystallized Pineapple was a food specifically mentioned in the book as Professor Slughorn’s favorite. Kian was especially intrigued by it and since we are currently supposed to stay home, I did not want to go to the store looking for them. So we tried a recipe to make some. It wasn’t too bad, it just took a long time. Everyone agreed that Slughorn was right to like them. They are very sweet! If you want to give making them a try, I’ve included the recipe (but I think it’s totally worth it to just buy them if you find them).
Crystallized Pineapple
Super sweet, and fun to try even if they take a bit of time.
Ingredients
- 1 Can Pineapple Chunks Drained
- 2 Cups Water
- 1 Cup Sugar
- 1/4 Cup Sugar For dusting on pineapple
Instructions
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Put the water and sugar in a large saucepan and set on high heat.
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Stir continuously until sugar is dissolved.
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Bring to rolling boil.
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Put in candy thermometer and bring up to 235 degrees.
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Add pineapple and bring back to a simmer.
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Cover and let simmer for about 1 hour. The pineapple will start to look translucent.
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Stir occasionally to make sure pineapple is not sticking.
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Remove from pot and transfer to a wire rack with a pan underneath to allow the pineapple to drain and cool. When most of the syrup has dripped off move to a pan covered with foil.
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Make sure the pineapple is very spread out.
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Set oven to lowest baking temperature. If you have a convection oven use the fan.
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Cook until dried. About 3-4 hours.
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Allow pineapple to cool slightly then place in ziplock bag with remaining sugar and shake to coat.
Another of our desserts was “Treacle Tarts”. I had intended to make real treacle tarts but the crystallized pineapple slowed me down so we ended up having lemon bars because I had some in the freezer.
To finish off our dinner we also had Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans and Sour Strips like the ones candies found in Honeydukes, and of course Butterbeer. There are so many recipes out there for butterbeer and I’m sure your favorite will do, but I often go the easy route and just mix some caramel ice cream sauce and a few scoops of whipped cream into a pitcher of cream soda and stir.
I’ve included the food labels we made for our dinner. There are a couple of blank ones at the end so you can write in anything else you add to your own dinner. I hope this gave you plenty of ideas to create your own fun Harry Potter dinner party!
