Caprese Salad with Mozzarella Skulls

 

• Pearl mozzarella balls
• Mozzarella balls
• Tomatoes of choice; cherry tomatoes and cocktail tomatoes
• Balsamic glaze
• Fresh basil
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Balsamic vinegar
• Skull Molds: https://liketk.it/4k9Oy
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• Add your pearl mozzarella cheese to mini silicone molds and press in. Do the same thing for the regular mozzarella balls, but adding to the larger silicone skull molds and press in. Add to a baking dish and bake on 350 F for 8 minutes or until they are melted enough to form into the molds. Once they are done let the skulls cool for 5 minutes and refrigerate for 5-10 minutes.
• And now comes the fun part, putting it all together. Start by adding your chopped tomatoes and your skull cheese’s. Then drizzle with the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, balsamic glaze, salt and pepper to taste, and fresh basil. I just drizzled everything on top. And the balsamic glaze formed into the eyes of the skulls, which made it extra spooky. But you can also just go in and add drops of balsamic glaze to each one. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Mummy Garlic Bread

 

• 16 oz. frozen garlic bread  keep frozen
• ▢10 sticks cheese mozzarella cheese sticks
• ▢4 black olives sliced into 1/4th inch rounds

• Preheat the oven according to garlic bread package directions. 
• Open the frozen loaf and place the open side up on a baking sheet. Slice each loaf in half. 
• Bake bread according to package directions.
• While bread is baking, slice cheese sticks into thin strips, about 1/8" thick and of varying sizes. Set cheese aside. 
• Once the bread is done baking, add cheese in a mummy like pattern on each loaf of bread, making sure to make space for the eyes. 
• Return to the oven and broil for 2-4 minutes on high, carefully watching that cheese doesn't burn.
• Remove from oven, top with olive eyes, and serve Halloween Bread immediately. 

Spooky Spaghetti and Eyeballs

 

• 1 lb. frozen meatballs
• 8 ounces sliced provolone cheese
• ▢2.25 ounces canned sliced black olives
• ▢16 ounces dried spaghetti
• ▢16 ounces marinara

• Bake the meatballs according to package directions.
• Meanwhile, cut the sliced provolone into 1-inch circles. A small cookie cutter works best for this.
• Remove the meatballs from the oven, and place one circle of provolone atop each meatball to create the whites of the eyeballs.
• Place one slice of black olive atop each provolone circle to create the irises/pupils of the eyes.
• Return the meatballs to the oven for 2-3 minutes or until the provolone has just slightly melted, then remove them from the oven again and set aside.
• While the meatballs are cooking, boil the spaghetti in a pot on the stove according to the package instructions.
• Heat the marinara sauce in the pot and stir in the spaghetti once warmed through.
• Use tongs to scoop out a serving of spaghetti onto each plate and nestle the meatballs over the top.

Monster Meatloaf for Halloween

Halloween 2016

This has quickly become our Halloween dinner tradition. You can use any meatloaf recipe you wish, but make it slightly more soft to make it easier to sculpt. You can do this by adding a bit more liquid in the form of an extra egg or additional ketchup or barbecue sauce or even milk. I used this recipe this year, from Fabulessly Frugal but the kids thought the texture was too soft, so I will add a bit less barbecue sauce or egg next year.

Basic BBQ Meatloaf Recipe

3/4 cup BBQ Sauce
1 pound of ground Beef/Turkey
1/2 cup Italian flavored bread crumbs
1 Egg
Salt & Pepper

Or, maybe I will try this recipe from The Food Network (which I slightly modified): 

Brown Sugar Ketchup Glaze

1/4 cup ketchup or chili sauce
2 tablespoons light or dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons cider or white vinegar

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl; set aside.

Meatloaf

• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black paper
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons Worchestershire sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper sauce
• 1/2 up milk, buttermilk or low-fat plain yogurt
• 2 pounds meat-loaf mix (2 parts ground chuck, 1 part ground veal, 1 part ground pork)
• 2/3 cups crushed saltine crackers (about 16) or quick oatmeal or 1 1/3 cups fresh bread crumbs
• 1/3 cup minced parsley
• 6 ounces bacon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Heat oil in a medium skillet. Add onion and garlic, saute until softened, about 5 minutes; set aside to cool.

Mix eggs with thyme, salt, pepper, mustard, Worchestershire, pepper sauce, and milk or yogurt. Add egg mixture to meat in a large bowl, along with crackers, oatmeal or bread crumbs, parsley and cook onions and garlic; mix with a fork until evenly blended and meat mixture does not stick to bowl. (If mixture does stick, add additional milk, a couple tablespoons at a time, and continue stirring until mixture stops sticking.)

Turn meat mixture onto a work surface. With wet hands, pat mixture into desired shaped meatloaf. Brush loaf with all of glaze, then arrange bacon slices around the meatloaf, crosswise, over loaf, overlapping them slightly and tucking them under to prevent curling.

Bake loaf until bacon is crisp and loaf registers 160 degrees, about 1 hour. Cool for at least 20 minutes. Slice and serve

Halloween 2017

The general instructions for making your meatloaf into a monster meatloaf is to sculpt the meatloaf into a skull shape. Cut an onion into vaguely tooth shaped pieces and place in the mouth area of your monster meatloaf. If you wish to make your eyes like the meatloaf above, you will need a hard-boiled egg. Cut it in half and place into the eye socket that you have made into the meatloaf flat side down. Carefully carve out a round hole in the center of each eye egg so that it will fit a green olive, which you place so that the pimiento can form the pupil. Wrap bacon around the exposed areas of the meatloaf. Bake as your meatloaf recipe says, or until the bacon crisps.

It goes fast!

Recipes for October

Pumpkin Pancakes with Black Cinnamon Syrup for Halloween

This recipe comes from Not Martha and they are SO good. The cinnamon syrup is good too and goes so well with the pancakes. My kids love drawing with the syrup. I couldn't make them fast enough.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1-3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup butter, melted (1 stick)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
orange food coloring gel

In a large bowl, flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.
In a medium bowl, lightly beat egg yolk with a fork. Add egg, milk, pumpkin puree and vanilla; mix well. Add melted butter. If the butter is hot, add it slowly or you will cook your egg yolk. Add a bit of the orange food coloring to the wet mixture at this point. Add more until it's about as orange as you can stand. Stir this mixture into dry ingredients, just until combined.
Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium heat and grease lightly with vegetable oil. For each pancake, spoon about 1/4 cup batter onto the hot griddle. Cook until bubbles appear on the surface and the edges look dry. Turn over and cook until golden brown. The pancakes are delicate so stick to making small or medium sized pancakes.

Black Cinnamon Syrup

1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1/2 brown sugar
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup water
black food coloring gel

In a saucepan combine white sugar, brown sugar, all-purpose flour and cinnamon. Stir dry ingredients together. Add vanilla extract and water. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Be really careful while boiling sugar, keep a bowl of ice water nearby just in case. As it heats squirt in a little of the black food coloring and mix in, add more until it's as dark as can be. It doesn't take much. Allow to boil for a few moments until the mixture has noticeably thickened. Remove from heat and allow to cool enough to put into a squirt bottle (of the ketchup style). You can make it the night before and warm it by dipping the squeeze bottle in a bowl of warm water. You might also have your pancake eaters create their own designs.
Decorate the pancakes with the syrup. Spiders, spider webs and bats work out well. You might also have your pancake eaters create their own designs.

Easy Witch Hat Treats

These easy treats are made from Keebler Fudge stripe cookies (turned upside down), Hershey Kisses attached with orange icing.

Idea from Explore, Dream, Discover.

Spider Web Snacks

pret­zel sticks
white chocolate/bark candy coating
choco­late (baker’s, candy coat­ing, or chips would prob­a­bly all work)
raisins
bag­gie or pas­try bag
wax paper

Lay out your pret­zels on the wax paper in “star­burst” arrange­ments of 6-8 pret­zels. After melt­ing your white chocolate bark coat­ing, pastry bag (or place in a bag­gie and cut the cor­ner off). Start pip­ing your white choco­late in the mid­dle of the pret­zel arrange­ment, mak­ing sure to coat all the pretzels.

Con­tinue pip­ing out­ward around the pret­zels...

until you have a web.

Coat raisins with melted reg­u­lar choco­late. Place in web on a stable place such as in the middle. Sprinkle with candy sprinkles, if you wish.  Let harden or place in the fridge for a few min­utes until the choco­late is hard.

Then, gen­tly peel back the wax paper.…and eat!

Spider Web Cupcakes

This idea comes from Mom Endeavors.

Some plastic spiders would be perfect with these!

Cupcakes

White Frosting

Decorating gel (I used Wilton's Sparkle Gel in black)

Toothpick

Frost your cupcakes with the icing.

Using your decorating gel, draw three or four concentric circles on the top of your cupcake. They do not have to be perfect.

Drag the end of a toothpick from the center to the edge of the cupcake, about six times around the circle. This will create a web effect.

Olive Bat Open-Faced Sandwiches

photo from Fowl Single File

Make any sandwich you would like.

Cut a crescent out of a piece of cheddar cheese.

OR

Use a small cup to cut a circle out of a piece of cheddar cheese.

Cut sliced olives in half for the bats.

Arrange on top of sandwich and serve.

This idea comes from Fowl Single File and Little Nummies. 

Jack O' Lantern Quesadillas

Just a sharp knife to cut out the jack o' lantern shapes turns a regular quesadilla into a Halloween lunch or snack. This idea comes from Monster Mama.

Soul Cakes for All Soul's Day

During the Middle Ages in England, on the night before All Saints Day, or Hallowmas, peasants and children called "soulers" would go about town singing and praying for the souls of the dead. They would stop at homes and beg for a "soul cake" and promise in return to pray for the household's deceased family members to be released from purgatory. If homeowners did not give out cakes it was believed their home would be cursed. And this my friends is thought to be the origination of trick or treating. There are many recipes for soul cakes from a small round cake to a doughnut shaped treat.

Soul, Soul, a soul cake!

I pray thee, good missus, a soul cake!

One for Peter, two for Paul,

three for Him what made us all!

Soul Cake, soul cake, please good missus, a soul cake.

An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry, any good thing to make us all merry.

One for Peter, two for Paul, and three for Him who made us all.

1 cup butter
3 3/4 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon allspice
2 eggs
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
6 tablespoons milk
powdered sugar, to sprinkle on top

Using a pastry blender cut 1 c. of butter into 3 3/4 cups of flour. Blend the sugar, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and allspice into the flour-butter mixture. In a separate bowl beat eggs, vinegar and milk together.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix. Kneed thoroughly to form a stiff dough. You really have to work this dough, I thought there was no way it was moist enough, but once I mashed it all up it was just right. Roll out to a 1/4 inch thickness and cut out 3 inch circles with a cookie cutter or glass. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar while still warm. I added sugar skulls to them.
This recipe is from Catholic Cuisine.

Jack 'O Lantern Snacks

These cute Jack-o-Lantern Toasts are fun and easy to make. The first step is to take a piece of bread and using a cookie cutter cut out a pumpkin shape.

You can just cut it out with a knife, but a cookie cutter is a lot easier.
Take your pumpkin-shaped bread and toast it.

Meanwhile color cream cheese orange with some food coloring.
Spread the cream cheese on the toast to cover.

We used candy corn, chocolate chips and raisins to make faces on our Jack-o-lanterns.
You could use other candies instead.

Indian Corn Rice Crispy Treats

Follow the directions on the back of the Rice Krispie box. Once you get to the point that the Rice Krispies are well coated, stir in about 2 cups of candy corn. Use wax paper to press down evenly into a 9x13 pan. This idea comes from my kind of crafts.

This recipe is from Cooking with My Kid and is a very tasty variation of the typical roasted pumpkin seeds.

Caramelized Pumpkin Seeds

1 1/2 to 2 cups fresh pumpkin seeds (cleaned and patted dry)
2 to 3 tablespoons brown sugar
pinch of kosher salt
olive oil cooking spray

Place pumpkin seeds in a dry non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Toast them in the pan, constantly shifting them around so that they roast evenly and don’t stick to the pan. When they start to pop and peel, take one out and taste it. Be careful...make sure it’s cool enough first. If it’s crunchy it’s done. Turn the heat down to low and spray the seeds with olive oil cooking spray and then spoon sugar into pan and stir seeds up as sugar melts and sticks to the seeds. Turn heat off and sprinkle with salt. Let cool and serve!