As you will know, the England household always celebrates Star Wars Day, and 2020 was a particularly unusual one for everyone, as we were all stuck at home for lockdown. Whilst the usual UK bank holiday was moved from May 4th to May 8th due to the VE Day Celebrations (75 years), we decided to make the most of being at home, by spending the entire weekend celebrating all things Star Wars!

It all started a week earlier with the kicking off of our Star Wars Movie Marathon, which also included the finale of Season 1 of The Mandalorian.  We watched in the following order, which is based on the so-called machete order:

Episode IV: A New Hope; Rogue One; Episode V: Empire Strikes Back; Episode I: The Phantom Menace; Episode II: Attack of the Clones; Episode III: Revenge of the Sith; Solo; Episode VI: Return of the Jedi; Season finale of The Mandalorian; Episode VII: The Force Awakens; Episode VIII: The Last Jedi & Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker. 

I also decided to try out some of the recipes from the Galaxy’s Edge Cook-book (Black Spire Outpost) I received for Christmas, and I was particularly impressed with the quality of these recipes.  Unlike some other Star Wars themed cook-books I have used in the past, all of the recipes were well thought-out and described, and all tasted delicious!

Huttese Slime Pods

OK so these were not the most appetising to look at (very much like our old foe, Jabba the Hutt), but they were fantastic. Very rich sauce, which was made from blended avocado, pine-nuts and parmesan. A pinch of paprika added for some extra spice & colour (we couldn’t forget about Salacious Crumb now, could we?!).

Dagobah Slug Slingers

I was delighted to find a tequila recipe in the book, and this one included a rosemary and ginger syrup, which I made using some fresh rosemary from the garden. Highly recommended if you are partial to a cheeky Margarita.

Ronto Wrap

This recipe was delicious, and I was very pleased with our home-made herb flat-bread, and how it went with the flavoursome bbq ground pork. We weren’t able to buy enough avocado’s to make our own guacamole (lockdown prevented the purchase of more than 2 of any one item), but managed to find some pre-made stuff, which was pretty good nonetheless.  We also made some baked yellow peppers, which were cooked along with some capers.  We will definitely make this again!

Qui-Gon’s Gin & Tonic

We’ve had this bottle for a few years, having made the labels using very un-sophisticated tools on Microsoft Word! Always love these classy Hendricks bottles!

Xizor Salad

Very easy to make, and incredibly tasty – can’t beat a simple salad with blue cheese dressing. Next time I’d put in a little more blue colouring…  On  May the 4th itself, we also made one of our favourite pasta meals  (sweet chilli prawn & cream), but boiled the pasta in blue food colouring to give it a more alien look!

Lava Rolls & Bantha Milk

Having managed to find a really old packet of dried yeast in the pantry (expiry date Summer 2018!!!), we decided to give the lava rolls a try, and they turned out pretty well! Despite their looks, they were very tasty, and made fantastic marmite on toast, which we enjoyed for breakfast along with a glass of Tatooine’s classic Bantha Milk.

Batuu Cola

Thanks to my good friend Clare, for getting me a bottle of the Disneyland Galaxy’s Edge Coca-Cola – would have loved to have been able to get a load of these in.

Droid Snacks

I was lucky enough to get these super-cute droid Le Creuset dishes at Christmas time, along with the absolutely amazing Han Solo Carbonite roasting dish.  I just need to find an R2D2 version…

Wookie Cookies & Baby Yoda biscuits

To make the chewbacca cookies, use a regular gingerbread man cookie-cutter but flatten the neck to make the head less round.  Then just use a fork to give the biscuit “hair”. To make the ammo belt, I used melted chocolate and silver balls.  For the gingerbread, I used the Hummingbird Bakery recipe. 

 

For the Baby Yoda biscuits, I used a Christmas Angel cookie-cutter. I should have straightened the wings slightly, but it is a pretty good “quick-fix” until they release an official cutter. I used the vanilla biscuit recipe from the London-based Biscuiteers.

I managed to get some biscuits shipped out to friends and family in time for the special day, and fortunately they all arrived in one piece!

Bye bye Death Star

Since lockdown started, me and my work colleagues have been tasked with re-creating our favourite movies at home. With Star Wars Day upon us, it was too good an opportunity to miss, and so we re-created our own version of the Episode IV Rebel victory against the Empire.  This involved making a Luke Skywalker X-Wing helmet out of hard hat we had in the shed, and casting our gorgeous little Starbuck to play Chewie alongside Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon. 

Although we weren’t able to share the day with any friends or family, it was so good to have something to distract us during this very strange and unprecedented time. I am very grateful for all of the joy that Star Wars brings to my life.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU, ALWAYS!