Pinocchio Movie Night Food

You stop and buy out a candy store
An actor's life for me! – Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee (Pinocchio)

Note: This post includes Amazon affiliate links.

Each month while I focus on a movie, I will make a meal that is inspired by it.  I will say my cooking skill level is novice and I am terrified of experimenting with cooking unlike with mocktails and cocktails where I have a lot more confidence.  So, while I’m putting together these movie night menus, I will mostly be utilizing recipes I find online, and I will always link to it so you can see the original source.

Zuppa Toscana:

Pinocchio is an Italian story, so I was envisioning something with Italian touches.  My mind immediately went to Zuppa Toscana which is the only reason I go to Olive Garden.  Below is the recipe I use; I will say I skip the kale.  I used to make it with it in, but I was eating around it, so I stopped wasting money.  I have not noticed a difference in taste.  I also put two onions worth of onion in since I eliminate the kale.  This is the recipe I used: Slow Cooker Zuppa Toscana (Olive Garden Copycat)

I don’t know if this is just an issue with my local grocery stores, but I can’t always find the hot sausage the recipe calls for so sometimes I get mild and throw red pepper flakes in or extra ground pepper depending on how I feel.

Garlic Knots:

How do you have an Italian inspired meal and not have some sort of bread?  I have a weakness for garlic bread especially when there is no cheese involved.  This is the recipe I used: Garlic Knots - Dinner at the Zoo

This was ridiculously easy to make and I had them for a few days and they warmed up nice.

Italian Lemon Cream Cake:

This is a copycat recipe from an old Cheesecake Factory menu item that I never had the opportunity to try, because I choose cheesecake to take home most of the time.  I chose this because as I was looking at what people serve for Italian themed dinners lemon was a popular flavor and when I searched on Pinterest this recipe was sitting there for me.  I immediately remembered seeing this cake displayed back in the day at Cheesecake Factory.  Here is the recipe I used: Cheesecake Factory Italian Lemon Cream Cake – Nina Kneads to Bake

This cake was hard for me.  I normally love to bake, but by the end of this one I was over it.  My cake did not turn out the prettiest, so I didn’t even take a photo of the full cake so I could hide how messy it was.  It was still delicious though!  My cream didn’t turn out the right texture, so it made the layering a bit difficult.  The other part that didn’t turn out well was the Crumb Topping.  I couldn’t get the crumbs small enough so they were rolling all over the place.

I didn’t have the proper cake pans for this, so I grabbed some from Amazon.  These are the ones I grabbed and they were easy to use and more importantly, easy to clean, plus I loved that they came with round parchment paper: Amazon.com: HIWARE 9 Inch Non-stick Cheesecake Pan Springform Pan with Removable Bottom/Leakproof Cake Pan - Black: Home & Kitchen

Let me know if you end up trying any of these recipes!