29 Days Until Halloween: SPIDER INSPIRED FOOD

Look, I can't talk about how much this even freaks me out as a concept. So look at all the pictures and click on the links if you are a braver soul than I, but this should give you some good ideas for starting  a spider-themed food display!

I'm terrified at spiders. That might be why I thought they'd make a decent Halloween theme--truly freaking scary. Looking at these gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Coming Soon: DRINKS 


Breakfasty Foods
Spider Egg Display

Spiders instead of centipedes (picture right), and coupled with spider eggs.

Spider Eggs










Desserts
Spider Cupcakes

Spider Spun Candy *
Candy Spiders
Spider Cakes
Bat and Cobweb Cookies
No Bake Spider Cheese Cake
Red Velvet Spider Cupcakes

Party foods/Snacks/Appetizers
Spider toothpicks - While not 'food' in the strictest sense, if you insert these toothpicks in mozzarella balls you could totally bill them as spider egg sacs! How evil is that?Caramel Cobwebs and Licorice Spiders - severed with delicious chocolate and caramel or pumpkin cake, or on top of the cupcake of your choice. Delicious!

Spider Pizza Spread

Black Widow Cheese Log











Dinner/Meals
Creamy Tomato Soup with Spider Web Topping
Fajita Spider Pizza 
Spider Roll


More Spider Recipes from Kraft

Hungry for Halloween

Just had a fantastic, non-spooky breakfast. Much to my chagrin.

from Southern Living

Last week, however, I did make Pumpkin Sticky Bun Muffins (from this month's Southern Living). They were delightfully fall! I cut the sugar in almost half, but they were still delicious.

Mr. Breakfast has some decent Halloween ideas you could try out this month. He also has a page devoted to the 23 Halloween Themed Breakfast Cereals.

And the skull-and-bones breakfast is a must for those of you who like bacon and eggs.

Chicago Tribune suggested a really fascinating, unique breakfast menu (waaaaay back in 1993). It includes an adult drink, Cider Diablo (ingredients below and recipe at the link), that sounds uh-may-zing! I found the menu listed over at the Halloween Forums and the names of the recipes sounded so fun I just had to track them down (so I did).

• 1/2 cup sugar 
•  1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 
•  1/4 teapoon ground cloves 
•  4 cups unfiltered apple cider, heated to a boil 
•  2 long strips lemon rind 
•  1/2 cup brandy, optional 
•  2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

There is a thread suggesting Vegetarian-friendly brunch options over at Chowhound; some inspiration to be found there, but no recipes.

Sweet Potato Donuts sound tasty. Gnocchi Tater Tots don't sound very Halloweeny, but they are kind of orange and might be nommy. And with that, I know I'm diverging from the topic at hand and just getting hungry again...

Later, ghoulies!

[more at Recipe Source: Halloween]

Little Pumpkin Pasties

Perfect for fall, Halloween, or a Harry Potter party, you should totally try to keep in mind the recipe for Little Pumpkin Pasties!

You will find no end of inspiration on the internet for this dish. Pumpkin Pasties are a stand-out food item in the Harry Potter series, IMHO because that sound darling and tasty. My particular version is envisioned as a sweet little snack with mild creamy punch, just bite-sized enough.

Here's the recipe, which makes about 24 pasties (up to 28 if you're thin with the dough):

• Step 1: Turn on the soundtrack to "Goblet of Fire," because HEY: Weird Sisters.
• Step 2: Spin around like a crazy elf
• Step 3: Bake

Filling:

• 2 oz cream cheese
• 1 TBS brandy (optional)
• 2 TBS sugar
• 1/2 cup (or a little less) pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix)
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon

Whip cream cheese. Add brandy (if you are using it), whip some more. Add everything else and mix until fully combined. Filling fulfilled!

Pastry (or you could go pre-made route)

• 1.75 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 tsp salt
• pinch cinnamon
• pinch nutmeg
• 1/4 c vegetable oil
• 3 tbl unsweetened almond milk
• 3 tbl cold water

Mix the dry ingredients together, then add the oil. Stir (or mush with your hands) until crumbly. Add milk and water, and mix until a nice dough forms

Roll out until thin (1/8" is typically recommended ... I just make it thin, but not unworkable). Using a large-ish biscuit cutter, cut out 24 - 28 circles.

Pre-heat over to 350 degrees F.

Dab 1/2 tsp - 1 tsp in the center of each circle of pastry dough. Wet the edge and fold over to make a half-circle; crimp the edge with the prongs of a fork to seal. Using a sharp knife, cut 1 to 3 small slits for venting.

Place all pasties on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush them lightly with a mixture of whole egg and a pinch of salt (this will make them shiny), and bake for 30 minutes.

The outcome is a slightly sweet, slightly savory collection of pasties that will be eaten in two bites. If you like pumpkin pie and a mild cheesecake flavor, I think you'll enjoy them. :)

More Pasty Recipes from Around the Web!

• Britta.com (the original Potter-recipe place, at least for me) -- also found at The Leaky Cauldron -- and they sound GOOD
• The Geeky Chef -- practically the same as above. But with a really pretty picture.
• Diamonds for Dessert -- another with ingredients similar to the above (adapted from Geeky Chef, in fact, but this time with an illustrated guide to filling them!
• Dumbledore's Vegan Army - VEGAN, and slightly more savory
• Food.com - well rated, but not with many ratings. This one looks safe, if not a little like pumpkin-pie pockets
• Instuctables - I love it when Instructables does things.
• Anticraft - Anticraft does it in the round! Nice touch.
• Mugglenet - this version is probably the down-right easiest, as it uses canned Pumpkin Pie mix and pre-made pastry crust
• Good Food (?) - I don't even know what this site is, but BLESS THEM: this is a non-Harry Potter, non-American take on Pumpkin pasties. It has CHEESE and it is SAVORY and I am going to try it soon.

Mmm... I hope by this year's trip to Hogsmeade that the Three Broomsticks will add Pumpkin Pasties to the menu.

Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook

I broke down over the weekend and bought the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook by Dinah Bucholz after sitting at the bookstore thumbing through it for 45 minutes. I'd been avoiding this purchase for some time, and it turns out that was just silly of me.

My assumption was that this cookbook was going to be the something in the vein of the Star Wars Cook Book, which is to say: all gimmick and little substance.

That assumption was totally wrong!

Here is a book written by a true Potter fan who also likes to cook; it's just loaded with recipes to accompany every explicit food reference in all 7 stories! There are explanations about why she chose each recipe along with factoids on the food-stuff in question. What it lacks in pictures (which, incidentally, there is a page for on the website) it more than makes up for in thoroughness.

Are the recipes any good? That I'm not sure yet. So far they look heavily researched, so I'm going to assume it's full of solid and tasty starting points, but not seared with true foodie panache. The book was worth it to me if for nothing but it's thoroughness.

Expect some Pottery treats, posted soon to a blog near you!

Halloween Cookies in a Jar

Cookies in a jar make cutesy gifts, and what holiday deserves gifts more than everyone's favorite (Halloween)?

Halloween Cookies in a Jar

And it comes with free printable labels for the jars!!

Crispy Oatmeal Toffee Cookies

Hypothetical conversation that could be happening RIGHT NOW for all we know:

Party Goer 1: Hey! Who brought the delightful, crispy, buttery oatmeal cookies?
Party Goer 2: Are they oatmeal with chocolate and/or other non-raisin-y goodness?
Party Goer 1: It would seem so.
Party Goer 2: Are they on a skull plate?
Party Goer 1: Why, yes!
Party Goer 2: Hmm... that's a tough one.

Mmm... oatmeal cookies are my favorite. And I hate, hate, hate fruit it my cookies. So 4th of July Party means I get to make the darned cookies as I danged well please. Take that, sunny holiday of patriotic origins!

Ingredients

• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tbs granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 cup toffee Chunks
• 1/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup chopped almonds
• 2 tbs flax seeds

Directions

1. Cream butter, then add sugars using an electric beater
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla
3. Whisk dry ingredients together (except toffee, chocolate, flax seeds and almonds) then beat into the butter mixture
4. Lick the beater (be sure to wash it before you use it again)
5. Stir in almonds, chocolate, flax seeds, and toffee
6. Heat oven to 350 degrees F
7. Refrigerate batter for a minimum of 30 minutes
8. Bake 16 minutes, cool 2 minutes on cookie sheets, then move to cooling racks to cool completely

Grilling Up a Haunted 4th of July

***UPDATE*** By recommendation from Ghoul Friday, let's prioritize ordering from Haunted Hot Sauce. Cool? Now, back to our previously scheduled blog post...

Happy almost 4th of July, everyone!

Shockingly, I'm excited for the holiday weekend (even if it does involve sun, grilling, and fireworks: all things I'm allergic to). And it got the ol' brain to whirring... how can one scare the family on such a non-pumpkiny, patriotic day?

And then I started finding cool things, such as the Cthulhu roasting utensil (no promises as to the quality of the ordering site... I haven't tried them yet). Wouldn't that be nifty to use at your weekend cookout?

And it's always appropriate to have some horrific hot sauces lying about for your friends and family to enjoy.

A quick search on amazon returned:

• Voodoo Hot Sauces
• Devil Hot Sauces
• Zombie Hot Sauces
• Ghost Hot Sauces
• Death Hot Sauces

Pretty cool, if you ask me.

Serve refreshing bloody mary cocktails, or any kind of cool, Blavod recipe (Blavod is a black vodka... a black-vodka screwdriver is likely to unsettle any drinker you hand it to, imho).

If anyone has some additional spooky grilling ideas (I can't tell you how hard I've been working to figure out how to put some spooky, bloody body part on the grill... without having to actually have something meaty), please post them in the comments! I just can't let this Red-White-And-Blue holiday go unbloodied. :)

Bloody Mary

• 1 1/2 ounces (1 jigger) vodka
• 1/2 cup tomato juice
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• Worcestershire sauce to taste
• Tabasco to taste
• 1 celery stick for garnish
• 1 lemon wedge for garnish

Shake together all ingredients - serve over ice with a celery stick and a wedge of lemon.

Kind-of-Cornish Pasties (Vegan and Harry Potter Party Friendly!)

You may not know this, but I've gone full-on vegetarian. It's true! Since last Thanksgiving I'm no longer eating meat, not even socially. I also spent some time participating in a Vegan food exchange at work; it was delightful, but I think we all lost steam and the group has since fizzled.

One thing that lasts, though, are the recipes! And now that I'm getting all geared up for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, I'm finding that all I have to work with are meaty or sugary dishes. So I'm turning back to one of my Vegan Exchange recipes: "Kind-of Cornish Pasties."

"Kind-of" because I'm not in or from Cornwall, and also because I didn't use meat. I did use rutabaga, though, and that's an important bit.

They serve Pasties at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, so I figure this--and maybe vegetarian Shepard's Pie--will be good pre-movie dinner selections. :)

Filling:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 medium rutabaga, diced (about 1 ½ cups) (also nice? Yam/Sweet Potato)
• 1 large carrot, diced
• 2 small Yukon gold potatoes, diced
• 2/3 cup frozen peas
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 tbs fresh parsley, chopped
• 2 teaspoons nutritional yeast (optional)
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce (or tamari)
• ½ cup mock-beef broth (or water)
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Heat oil in a large, large pot. Sauté ingredients: onion through yukon potato for 6 to 7 minutes. At the 5 minute mark, add nutritional yeast (if you've got it. Which I didn't). Add everything else to the pot, cover, and cook on medium-low heat for 10 minutes or until everything is tender.

Pastry Dough:

• 3 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons salt
• ½ cup oil (canola recommended)
• 6 tablespoons water
• 6 tablespoons soy milk

Mix flour and salt; add oil a little at a time and mix by hand until crumbly. Mix in liquids.

Divide into 6 balls; roll into circles on a lightly floured surface. Use a plate to cut nicer, even circles. Transfer to a well-oiled baking sheet.

Fill with yummy filling on one half, fold over, and ruin your nice, neat circles by crimping the edges (fork it if you've got it!). You may have to wet the edges to get it to stick.

Vent it by cutting a few slits in the top.

Bake at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes. Serve hot or cold!

Makes 6 pasties.

Sweet Pumpkin Risotto

And, we're off! Dipping our toes slowly back into the blog water, making pumpkin-infused dinner-stuffs and forgetting to take pictures...

12 servings

* 1/8 cup olive oil
* 1/4 tsp chili oil
* 1/2 yellow onion, diced
* 1/2 red bell pepper, diced
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 1/2 tsp ginger
* pinch cayenne
* 1/8 tsp chili powder
* 6 cups white rice, cooked
* 1/2 cup white wine
* 5 cups broth
* 1/2 cup currants and/or craisins
* 7.5 oz pumpkin puree
* 7 oz coconut milk
* salt (to taste)
* 1/2 tsp nutmeg
* 1 tsp cinnamon
* juice from 1/2 lime

Saute onion over medium heat in a large, large pot or pan until it begins to soften; add bell pepper and garlic and continue saute until onion is translucent. In the last minute or 2 ad ginger, cayenne, and chili powder - stirring in well and stirring often.

Add the rice and stir to coat with the oil/onion/peppers.

Deglaze using the wine. Add broth 2 cups at a time, allowing to cook off between adds. Stir frequently to keep rice from burning.

Lower heat and stir in cranberries, pumpkin, coconut milk. Mix well before stirring in salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and lime juice.

Turn off heat, cover, and let sit for at least 10 minutes (allowing flavors to come together and risotto to become creamier) before serving. Can be served hot or cold.

----------------------------

Nom Nom Nom. Not very scary, but delicious and mildly exotic, and definitely orange-colored.

READY FOR HALLOWEEN DAY 18: Feast Your Eyes (Lunch Edition)

Starting with yesterday's Breakfast Edition, we are spending the week searching like mad for fun Halloween sit-down meal ideas. We start with Foodgawker finds:

Pumpkin Soup (in German)

Brains (or Char Siu Gao)

Ghastly Guacamole with Ghost Chips

Pumpkin Chili

Dead Man Burgers

More Martha Stewart Halloweeny ideas appropriate for a lunch menu:

Squeamish Squash with Rice

Savory Pumpkin Puffs

Bewitching Grilled Cheese

Eye-Popping Soup

These don't fit, but I wanted to share:

• Pumpkin Dip: http://closetcooking.blogspot.com/2010/10/pumpkin-dip.html
• Super-cute, bento-style design: http://littlenummies.net/2010/10/creepy-night/

READY FOR HALLOWEEN DAY 17: Feast Your Eyes (Breakfast Edition)

So, someone whose blog you read is supposed to be making a pre-Halloween meal for friends soon. By 'someone' I mean 'me.' Which means that you are about to be treated to the best of the best Halloween recipe links I could find!

And if anything makes you hungry, be sure to comment. I've got a household of hungry ghouls to impress and I need your help figuring out what has the most spook-appeal.

Starting with the intriguing items found on FoodGawker (amazing site -- one of my favorites -- don't go when hungry) for potential breakfast or brunch:

Chocolate Pumpkin Marble Cake

Pumpkin Streusel Buns

Pumpkin Oatmeal

Pumpkin Pecan Cake

And of course, Martha Stewart has at least one potentially breakfasty item to consider:

Spiderweb Hard-boiled Eggs

Ghoulish Goodies by Sharon Bowers is a book I was gifted last year as a pre-wedding present. I love it! Very polished and full of cute ideas.

It has the following possible recipes:

• Pumpkin-White Chocolate Bread
• Bandaged Fingers (cocktail weiners wrapped in tortillas and bloodied with ketchup, but I think I'd look for a 'pigs in a blanket' alternative with a little red jam)
• Witches Knuckles (little cheese biscuits which are decorated to look like witches fingers... yum!)

One or two final contenders, if we go with a breakfast theme:

Witches Hat Crescent Rolls

Brain Hash Browns

And one from me, though not so spooky unless you label it (a bottle labeled 'innards' or 'gut sauce' would be cute to serve the berry topping)

Flesh Toast with Gut Sauce



Ingredients

1 1/2 cups 2% milk
6 egg whites
1/8 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
16 (1-inch-thick) slices diagonally cut French bread baguette
1/4 cup butter, divided
2 cups water
4 oz dry white wine
1/8 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
----4 cups of berries, your choice. Recommended as below (I use frozen):----
2 cup raspberries
1 cup blackberries
1 cup whole or half strawberries

Whisk milk through salt on the ingredients list, thoroughly. Arrange the bread slices in a single layer in a large shallow dish. Pour milk mixture over bread, and let stand until milk is absorbed (about 2 minutes).

Melt 1 to 2 tablespoons butter in a large cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Arrange 8 bread slices in pan; cook 3 minutes on each side or until bread is golden brown. Remove from pan; keep warm. Repeat procedure with remaining butter and 8 bread slices.

Combine 2 cups water, wine, 1/8 cup granulated sugar, and cornstarch in a large saucepan, stirring with a whisk. Bring to a boil; cook until reduced to 1 cup (about 5 minutes). Add fruit to pan, stirring well to coat. Heat through, especially if using frozen berries. Serve sauce with bread slices.

Optional: sprinkle each serving with powdered sugar.

8 servings (serving size: 2 bread slices and about 1/2 cup sauce)

READY FOR HALLOWEEN DAY 7: Butternut Squash Risotto

Green and orange are Halloweeny, right? Then this is a great Halloween-friendly dish. Aaaaaaaaaand ... you could always do pumpkin instead of the butternut squash.

This is seriously homey and delicious, not to mention kind of healthy. But don't let the 'healthy' part stop you!

Ingredients

• Parmesan Cheese, shredded or grated, 4 tbsp
• vegetable broth, 4 cup
• White Wine, 2 fl oz
• Olive Oil, 2 tsp
• Nutmeg, ground, .25 tsp
• Butternut Squash, 1 cup, cubes
• Garlic, 1 clove minced
• Collards, 2 cup, chopped (fresh or frozen)
• White rice, .75 cup (cooked)
• Onion, 2 tbl chopped

Directions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.Heat 4 cups of vegetable broth or stock and keep warm on low heat.
• Toss peeled and cubed squash with 1tsp olive oil, dash of salt, pepper and minced garlic clove. Roast about 20 minutes, until tender. Set aside.
• Boil some water and simmer greens for about 4 minutes. Drain, cool, chop coarsely and set aside. (You can use kale instead of collards)
• Heat 1 tsp oil in a heavy saute pan and saute the onion until translucent. Add the rice and cook for another couple of minutes, stirring constantly.
• Add wine and allow rice to absorb it. Add stock, slowly, 1 cup at a time, continuing to stir gently and allowing rice to absorb stock before adding more. Add two cups of broth total.
• Stir in the squash and the greens. Reduce heat to low and continue to cook, adding stock 1/2-3/4 cup at a time until rice is tender. The rice should be a little saucy.
• Add pinch of nutmeg and stir in the cheese. Adjust seasoning to taste. Serve immediately.

Number of Servings: 4

READY FOR HALLOWEEN DAY 6: Pumpkin Hot Choclate

Mmm. Pumpkin Hot Chocolate. Doesn't that sound good for a celebratory fall beverage?

I made some for the husband and I last night. I think it was a success. Subtle, sweet a white hot chocolate based pumpkin beverage.

Have you ever wondered what a crazy person's recipes look like? Here's my doodles for a Pumpkin Hot Chocolate recipe:

I always start with notes from an existing recipe -- some on the page, some in my head. Then I start testing and filtering. Here are the starting inspirations:

• http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/white-hot-chocolate-recipe/index.html
• http://closetcooking.blogspot.com/2009/11/pumpkin-pie-white-hot-chocolate.html
• http://whatscookingamerica.net/Beverage/HotChocolate.htm

And here is the final result:

Pumpkin Hot Chocolate

• 1 cup half and half
• 6 oz white chocolate chips (I use Ghirardelli)
• 2 cups of milk (I used 2 %)
• 1 cup of canned pumpkin
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (I use Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla)
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg (I grate mine fresh)

The recipe part is easy: melt the chips in the half and half, whisking constantly until the chips are fully melted. Stir the other ingredients in vigorously and whisk from time to time until the mixture is fully warmed.

It turns a nice, light orange shade.

Top with cinnamon whipped cream:

• 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp powdered sugar (optional)

Whip with a mixer until fluffy. Sprinkle the final beverage with a little cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg.

Happy, delicious haunting!

I Tip My Hat to these Cookies!

Squeeeeeeee! Tricorne cookies.

Yum. Yum. Yum.

A Vegan-Friendly Halloween Menu

In honor of my vegan friends (the spooky vegan and the creepy vegan, respectively) who have recently tried to get on my good side by sending me awards (fyi: it worked), I took a quick stabbity stab at an elegant vegan Halloween dinner menu.

It's time to break out the old-time homemaker manners and treat your friends to a vegan-friendly, excellently creepy meal!

These recipes are not my own and have been gathered from around the web, but I took a close look at the instructions and ingredients on all -- and I promise, there is nothing on this menu that meat eaters should scoff at and all of them are, or can easily be made, vegan.

The hardest sell for your non-vegan friends is perhaps the dessert (though you could always skip ahead to the Trick-or-Treats to satisfy your sweet-fang). Imitating a cheesecake when you can't use dairy is DANGEROUS BUSINESS, and advisable to only the bravest in-home cooks.

Click to enlarge:

the RECIPES...

APPETIZER
For the appetizer and salad eyes, I found the recipes here. Make sure to use a vegan-friendly fruit spread for the lychee eyes. The Radish eyes and New Potato eyeballs at this link can also be made vegan-friendly (potato eyes in your soup course would be good -- I just didn't want to have every food item STARING at you).

SOUP
Garlic tomato soup: http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2008/02/tomato-soup-with-roasted-garlic-and.html

For the crackers that go with the soup, try this recipe,and find a dog-bone-shaped cookie cutter. You can find them in the baking aisle at many craft stores or often in pet stores (the recommended use there being doggie treats): http://shmooedfood.blogspot.com/2007/01/vegan-goldfish-crackers.html

SALAD

Radish and Fennel salad: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/2302

Make the salad as the recipe states, but keep at least two whole radishes per salad -- using the instructions from the eyeball treats site, make up radish eyes with olives to set atop the salad.

MAIN COURSE

Mmm... Pumpkin Pasta: http://testkitchenette.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/pumpkin-ravioli/; I like how bloodied it looks with the thick tomato sauce.

Side of Marinated Red pepper (preserved 'hearts' -- because, if you serve them out of a jar, they look like preserved hearts... consider labeling them as such and serving out of a glass jar?): http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/marinated_roasted_red_bell_peppers/

DESSERT

"Pustule" (i.e. Pomegranate Fake-Cheese Cake) Pie: http://www.diaryofavegan.com/2009/09/thou-shall-not-preach/; while it seems a shame to give such a beautiful dessert such a gross name, thinking about those little pomegranate seeds in relation to Halloween just made me think of blisters!

COCKTAILS
Obviously, you need to be sure you're using a vegan-friendly alcohol. I don't know if you can trust Barnivore, but I don't know why they would lie. Vegans, are their'vegan-friendly' alcohol references accurate?

ALTERNATIVE DRINK... for the little boos and ghouls
Slime Smoothie

TRICK OR TREATS (candy to hand out to the kiddies in costume)

Vegan Candy Corn: http://theurbanhousewife.blogspot.com/2007/09/homemade-vegan-candy-corn-happy.html

Poisoned (with sweetness) apples -- mmm... vegan caramel apples: http://veryveganholiday.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/vegan-caramel-apples/

Black Food Coloring

The black icecream post of yesterday prompted a question: how to make black food coloring.

Well, let's start with the ice cream: you can always mix liquid coloring until it's practically black. WonderHowTo has an article on some options, but essentially you would start by mixing in equal parts of the primary colors (blue, red, yellow) and add as needed... which could lead to a LOT of coloring if you start with a light-colored base.

If you started with a chocolate icecream base and add the liquids, on the other hand, you could achieve a very close black (mixing food colorings to make black too often results in a dark brown... yuck!)

The recipe for the black ice cream I linked to actually gets its color from black seasame paste, though! I love the taste of toasted sesame, and I love even more that it turned the foodstuffs black.

Here is a recipe I found to make that paste:

-1 part of white sesame seeds/beans (50 g)
- 2 parts of black sesame seeds/beans (100 g)
- toast until fragrant
- Grind until fine
- place in a pan with a little sugar (30-40 g) and milk (200 ml)
- cook with low heat until the mixture becomes dark in color
- let cool completely
- place in a blender to make the mixture smooth

(for a very smooth texture, press them in a sieve)

---

Finally, I don't know how far they deliver or if it's a good experience (don't order online much, myself) -- but baking supply places like Wilton's do have online ordering. You can always try that for black food coloring paste!

http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=3e30b2d9-475a-bac0-5d5c3db846dfd354

Best of luck and happy Half-a-Ween!!

Black and White Party: Bamboo Swiss Roll?

Why, never in my life have I seen something so adorable. I wonder how it tastes!

The crappy thing is that the edible Bamboo Charcoal needed for this roll is not widely (if at all) available here in the states, but the recipe is posted online anyway.

But it's pretty... And would look freaking awesome at a Halloween buffet.

I wonder if black food coloring paste could help you achieve this amazing color?

Black and White Party: Black Ice Cream

This is a little more achievable than yesterday's post. Black ice cream made with seasame seed paste.

This + Orange Sherbet = pretty Halloween ice cream party.

What's that you say? You don't live in the south, where it can still be insufferably hot and ice cream worthy outside even on the 31st of October?

I think you owe yourself a Halloween in July party, then.

into the woods cake

Somehow this Black Forest cake just screams 'wedding' to me. It's so basic, so easy, so... like little gothic scribbles.

Mmm.

The kind of cake is less important than the white icing and the decorative chocolate trees. The trees are just scribbly little things -- you should read this article (the section on "chocolate shapes") for ideas on how to make such a thing. Just make sure some of your trees will stand taller than your cake layer.

Oh yeah. And HI. :)

Addams Family on Hulu

Today is a baking, cleaning, and thank-you note writing day for me.

Who better to keep me company than the Addamses?



I so rarely check out Hulu. So nice to know that they keep quality programming. It's a real blessing to set the laptop in the kitchen while I work on Julia's Pecan Sticky Buns.