Beauty and the Beast has always been one of my favorite Disney movies, and I was so excited when we decided to watch it this week for our Disney Dinner & A Movie Night! Belle is smart, strong, and self-assured, and I knew my daughter would love her the way I do. Go ahead and tie your napkin ‘round your neck while I provide all of the details of our night.
When it came to dinner, I went back and forth about what we should have. After asking the question on my Instagram page, the response from followers was pretty unanimous; I needed to make Beef Ragout and Cheese Soufflé (it was also suggested I make a pie and pudding en flambé, but I didn’t have time for that).
To be honest, I had no idea what Beef Ragout was, and after a quick Google search, I found that there is technically Beef Ragu and Beef Ragout. To make matters worse, the internet wasn’t sure which Lumiere was singing about in the song “Be Our Guest.” Ultimately, I decided to make Beef Ragu, because honestly, it sounded easier to make, and it had ingredients in it that I thought my family would eat.
The recipe I used for the Beef Ragu was from Let’s Dish, and you can find the recipe here. I found this dish very similar to a pot roast, just with crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. I served it over pappardelle pasta and added some parmesan cheese on top. My husband claims that this is one of the best recipes that I have ever made and because I cooked it in the crockpot, our house smelled amazing all day!
I had never made a soufflé before and had only eaten it once, so it felt like a disaster waiting to happen. I’ve always thought that making soufflé sounded complicated, but I wanted to try it. As it turns out, creating a soufflé was also much easier than I thought it would be. I looked through a couple of recipes and ended up going with this one from The Kitchy Kitchen. I made a few tweaks based on ingredients I could find, I used Swiss Cheese (instead of Gruyere) and used freeze-dried chives because our grocery store was out of fresh, but it was honestly incredible.
Dessert was an easy choice! In the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, there is a restaurant called Be Our Guest, and they serve a fantastic dessert called the Grey Stuff (because, you know, “try the grey stuff, it’s delicious!”). Essentially the Grey Stuff is a mix of pudding, Cool Whip, and Oreos, and it truly is delicious. I felt this was the only choice for Beauty and the Beast dessert, and I was so excited when I realized that Disney posted this recipe not too long ago. You can find the recipe here.
If you can’t tell from the picture above, my daughter LOVED the Grey Stuff and was so upset that there wasn’t more for her to eat.
The highlight of my daughter’s afternoon and evening was wearing her Little Adventures Dress Ups dress while reading books and searching for adventure in the great wide somewhere (around our house). If you are looking for the cutest, comfiest dress up clothes (that you can throw in the washing machine!), check out Little Adventures and use my code MVM15 to save 15% at checkout!
In the end, my daughter decided that she did not like the Beast, which meant she didn’t want to sit through the entire movie, but that’s okay! We still had so much fun eating our delicious meal, singing along to “Be Our Guest”, and dancing to “Beauty and the Beast” as a family.
Sending love and magic.