AND – in total Dating Divas style we have prepped and planned everything for you to easily surprise your family with a goofy, crazy, topsy-turvy and most importantly FUN family dinner that they will never forget!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. To learn more about ’em, click here. First things first, if you are concerned that putting together a Fool’s Cafe in your own home is too much work, let me tell you—it is not. Prepping and planning all this cutesy stuff—who has time for that? We get it. Carisa from Messes to Memories has designed the cutest printables for you so that all you have to do is print and then make your dinner as usual. This family dinner idea is totally customizable to any meal that you already planned to make and includes items you already have on hand. Here are a few things that I LOVE about this family dinner idea:
Easy Prep: This wacky and wild dinner is super easy to put together. All you need to do is print everything out and gather supplies that you already have in your kitchen. You likely have everything you need and can do this with any meal you already planned to make. April Fools’ Day Dinner Idea: You could surprise your family with this fun family dinner game any time of the year, but it could be EXTRA fun for your kiddo’s birthday dinner OR this would be perfect for an April Fools’ Day dinner! Customize Your Dinner: There are three fun twists included in these family dinner printables, but you can easily mix and match which unique aspects you include in your dinner. When we did our dinner, we had little ones so mixing up the menu order would just take too long for their short attention spans. We had fun with eating off unique plates and using odd utensils as well as completing the challenges and left out the menu mixups!
Part I: Mystery Dinner Codenames Menu
Start off the silly madness with these colorful printable menus. These are no ordinary menus because all of the menu items are written in silly mystery codenames! Your family will be ordering items such as “Looney” and “Loco” and they will not even know what they are ordering!
On your end, use the printable cheat sheet to assign each item of your meal (including things like napkins and drinks) to a mystery codename. I just love how this can go for any meal that you already planned to cook and can be adjusted every time you do it! If it is helpful, here are the 8 items that I planned for my dinner:
Wacky = Garlic Bread Silly = Drink (Juice Boxes) Crazy = Napkin Wild = Grapes Goofy = Chicken Skillet (noodles topped with chicken, zucchini and yellow squash) Loco = Chocolate Brownies Looney = Salad Funky = Challenge Card (see below!)
When it is time to order, have your family write their selections using the mystery codenames and numbers onto the right side of the menu. It is probably best that they use each number only once so that everyone can get each item (just in a funny order), but that is totally up to you. It might be fun to see who gets double dessert and who orders multiple napkins!
Since they won’t know what they are ordering, this is where it gets cRaZy fun! Your kiddo might have ordered a dessert for their appetizer, your spouse might finally get a drink at dessert time and you might get to start dinner off with dessert (there are advantages to knowing the mystery codenames!).
Side note: I am so excited about making this our April Fools’ Day dinner tradition that I laminated my menu set with my little, at-home laminator and had my family and friends use dry erase markers! If you plan on doing this more than once it is definitely worth it!
Part II: Funky, Wild and Crazy Plates and Utensils
Next, it is time to have some fun with the what you eat with. Use the printable key card to list unique substitutes for traditional plates and utensils. Then, have each family member roll the die to determine who gets which combination of wAcKy eating utensils. You can use just about anything you have in your kitchen, but here are a few ideas: Utensil ideas: tongs, whisk, spatula, wooden spoon, ladle, measuring cup, potato masher, pasta spoon, or ice cream scoop. Use what you have or check out this bright and crazy kitchen pack! Plate ideas: baking pan, large bowl, frying plan, Tupperware, pitcher, cupcake pan, soup pot, casserole dish, mug, colander, cake stand etc.
Eating with funky utensils was such a small change but it made things really fun! Some were harder than others (ahem, the whisk) but all gave us a unique dining experience!
Part III: The Challenges
Finally, have some fun with how you eat your crazy meal! We have eight different challenge cards to add to the silliness. You might be required to eat without your hands for a while or to eat in slow motion for a bit. My favorite challenge was trying not to smile or laugh, it was near impossible. It made us all want to smile and laugh even more! You can take turns taking out a card and individually completing the task on the card or you can all do the challenges together. For my dinner, I actually thought it would be fun to include the challenge card as one of the menu items that they ordered. So, if you ordered a card for an appetizer, you had to do that task until it was time for the main dish to arrive.
Fun Family Dinner Tips
Choose Menu Items that are Easy to Serve: The behind the scenes of the dinner can be as crazy as what is going on at the table if you don’t have a few things thought through. When choosing your menu items, consider what can be easily served. For example for our drinks, I gave everyone water initially and then when their drink order was up I had juice boxes ready to go. Easy, peasy! No pouring, no getting a separate glass – just pick up and drop off! Making a Mess: With the different plates and utensils, eating can get quite messy! If you are up for a mess – go for it! If you want to prevent a Tide-worthy commercial clean-up try to choose foods that won’t stain or drip. For example, I really wanted to make fun colored noodles, but spaghetti sauce eaten by a toddler holding a whisk was a recipe for messy! I adjusted the recipe to do a chicken skillet over noodles. The noodles ended up everywhere (including all over our unsuspecting dog) but we were free from sauce stains! That was a win in my book! Have It All Laid Out: To tame the madness in the kitchen as you are serving up several dishes out of order, it was helpful to me to have everything out on the counter as much as possible and to place each menu item in their order on the menu. So for my dinner #1 Wacky = Garlic bread, and #2 Silly = Juice Box Drink and #3 Crazy = Napkin. I laid it out on the counter with the Garlic bread, then the juice box and then the napkins and so on. Also, having sticky notes helped a ton! I labeled a sticky note #3 right above the napkins and another one marked #2 above the juice boxes made everything easy to see and dish up without having to keep referring to the cheat sheet.
April Fool’s Day Dinner Idea
You can do this dinner with any meal and for an occasion but we have to point out that this would be a super fun family dinner tradition for an April Fools’ Day Dinner! For my April Fools’ Day dinner, I thought it would be fun to add some color to the food items. I followed the instructions from the site Tablespoon to add color to my noodles and it was a perfect addition to our dinner and it was seriously SO easy to do! I definitely recommend it!
There you have it! Your very own Fool’s Cafe dinner! Take whatever you were already planning to cook for dinner, print it off and you are set for the looniest family dinner you have ever had! SaveSaveSaveSave SaveSave SaveSave
