This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchases through those links, but they will be no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support.
I am just like a kid when it comes to sugar cookies. I love the cute shapes and decorations, not to mention the taste! Over the years I have collected a lot of cookie cutters to cover all of the different holidays and other days in between. I still like to shop for new ones. Look at this cute set that includes a squirrel and a deer! Super cute! I also have a killer sugar cookie recipe that I shared on this post. The problem is that now that I don't have any little kids at home, I don't feel the motivation to do all of that decorating work like I used to do with my kids. When my grandchildren come to visit, we have lots of fun with cookie making and decorating. But, unfortunately, that doesn't happen often enough.
The other day, there was a knock at the door and when we answered it we found a container of cookies with a note and a picture of a ghost that said, "You've been boo'ed!" There was a poem that explained that we were to hang the ghost in our window to show that we had been boo'ed and then we were to make copies of the poem and ghost and "Boo" two other families. I decided that Halloween sugar cookies were in order, but I still didn't want to spend tons of time on the decorating. Luckily, I had a box of sugar cookie mix in my pantry that was perfect for Halloween! It was a Candy Corn Cookie Mix from Betty Crocker. I think it was a limited edition mix that I don't see on their site any more, but it is easy to just make your own favorite sugar cookie recipe and and knead color into the dough. Here is my recipe if you missed it.
Once you have your cookie dough made, all you have to do is divide it in half and mix in food coloring. The mix already came colored. But, later I made more from scratch and just kneaded in orange and yellow for Autumn leaves and turkeys! Here is how it looked from the mix.
I reused my scraps but I was careful not to let the colors blend too much. So, the cookies always had swirls of color through them. I thought that the effect was very cool.
I used melted chocolate and green tinted almond bark to quickly pipe on a few details. I didn't want to hide the swirling colors of the cookies themselves. The chocolate tasted very good on these cookies and we didn't feel like we missed a thicker frosting.
How do you think our friends will like our plates when we "Boo" them? I will show you show the autumn leaves and turkeys came out later on Facebook and Instagram, so be sure to check us out!
Meanwhile, here are some favorite cookie making tools:
22 Comments
This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchases through those links, but they will be no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support.
Have you got the essentials ready for your Halloween Party? Is the food going to be creepy and delicious? But, what are you going to be doing at your extra-ordinary Halloween Party? Maybe you will be just sitting at home with a few friends or family members as you hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters. Watching something creepy together is often a fun way to end the night.
Of course, if you have young ones at home, you don't want to get too scary. For Friday Faves this week, we did a poll of some of our favorite movie aficionado friends, added a few of our own, and came up with a great list of movies for Halloween that has choices for everyone. (All of them are pretty family friendly, depending on the ages of your family members!) The nice thing is that on Amazon you can often rent them or purchase them!
What are your favorite Halloween Movies? (No worse than PG13!)
Great Movies for the Youngest of Kids
All of the age suggestions here are my opinion. You know your own children best, so use your best judgement.
Awesome Movies for Mid-grades and Up:
Movies for More Discriminating Tastes
Ha Ha! I didn't want to say Adult movies or Mature Audiences because those can have bad connotations. But these are movies that younger kids may not get. Or, they may, you be the judge!
Old Classic Movies Sometimes older movies, (like Nosferatu) can be super scary or seem funny when we watch them today. Some were done so well, they are timeless. Here are a few you might like to try if you haven't seen them.
When you start looking around for something to watch, you are going to see so many more films that you may have forgotten all about! I hope these will give you a good start on picking something great to watch on your Halloween! Whether you don't like to be scared at all or if you love to scream throughout the whole thing, let us know what you like, that stays within the PG13 range!
This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchases through those links, but they will be no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support.
I am going to be honest with you. Of the four of us on this blog, I am not the crafty one. I mean, how many actual craft things have I made and posted here? I'm pretty sure the count is zero. I save all my creativity for food. I love food. I love making food and I love serving it to other people and having them enjoy it.
I also love hosting parties. I love making great food for those parties. So I volunteered this week to come up with some great Halloween party appetizers that you could make for your Halloween Party this year!
I also love my husband. He supports me in this blogging endeavor and I love bouncing ideas off of him because he is very creative and comes up with great stuff. So when I asked him what kind of appetizers he would want at a Halloween party he said, "bat" wings. He loves wings, I'd venture to say they're his favorite party appetizer. He also suggested our Baked Pumpkin Pie Brie. We have made another variation of the brie at Christmas time with Raspberry sauce, I've also seen cranberry sauce. Well, my wonderful PH suggested I make some kind of pumpkin pie filling to go with the brie. So, I discussed it with him and came up with something so tasty! Finally, I had an idea for breadsticks that look like mummies. Madalynn suggested I do pigs in a blanket. Which I did. So, here are your four Halloween Appetizers, complete with a shopping list at the end of this post! Get ready for your Halloween party! PH loved everything we made and said, "we should throw a party this is all so good!"
1. Mummified Smokies:
Okay, these are so easy and fun! Like I said before, I am not crafty. What I liked about this one was to make the dough look more like a mummy wrapping you have to be a little messy. It is not about perfection at all! Cut your crescent roll dough into very thin strips and then wrap a strip very messily around a Lit'l Smokie. One package of crescent rolls got me 24 mummies. PH dipped his in ketchup. I ate mine plain. You can dip them in the brie, or use whatever other kind of sauce you'd like! they're easy and versatile and fun!
1. Pumpkin Pie Baked Brie: This one was fun because I was able to be creative with making my own pumpkin pie filling. Normally for a pumpkin pie I use evaporated milk. This time around I decided to use sweetened condensed milk, and I nixed the eggs. This made the consistency a little thicker and creamier so it wouldn't all come running out of the pastry as it baked. The best part? There was extra filling and crescent roll dough leftover, so I used both to make mini pumpkin pies! I love a two for one!
3. Mini Pumpkin Pies: This one is so easy and it helps you use some leftovers! I just ripped off the leftover crescent dough to put in the bottom of my mini muffin tin and then I poured some of the pumpkin pie filling on top. Don't worry if you run out of crescent roll dough. Some of these have no crust and they still tasted awesome!
4. Vampire Bat Wings: The wings are the easiest but take the longest because you have to bake the chicken for an hour. However, once they're baked you just toss them in the sauce and they're done! When PH said bat wings I was wondering what kind of sauce we should use. Initially PH suggested Szechwan sauce, but then we saw some General Tso's sauce and he suggested that instead. It has a light spice, but not too spicey. It wasn't for me anyway and I am not too into spicey food. It was just the perfect amount of kick. Since the sauce is red we went with the name Vampire Bat Wings. This is for a Halloween party after all!
So, those are your four easy, tasty, and fun Halloween appetizer recipes! There is a cheat sheet with directions as well as a shopping list attached, all for your convenience! Happy partying!
This post contains affiliate links and we will be compensated for any purchases you make.
Have you ever eaten a meal somewhere that was so good that you couldn't wait to get home to replicate it for your family?
That happened to me with this meal. While I was in California with Alicia when she had her baby, her husband decided to grill for dinner. I helped him a bit, but his ideas for flavors in the food were so fantastic that as I ate the meal, I was in heaven! You have seen other recipes from my SIL here and here. He is a great cook. This meal consisted of Skewered Shrimp, Grilled Corn with Cilantro-Lime Butter, Rice and Grilled Pineapple. I took charge of the butter for the corn, and I loved the results. I may not be able to eat corn any other way now. It was that good! Now that I am home from California, I decided to have all of my kids who live in Phoenix over and my husband and I got the grill going for the Columbus Day holiday. We cooked up the same menu, but also added some grilled chicken for those who may not enjoy sea food. I think most of us ate both!
The Grilled Chicken
I used boneless skinless thighs. I did a rub that consists of brown sugar and salt. Go heavy on the salt. To about 3/4 c of brown sugar, I put about 4 T of salt. I find that this rub only works on the grill. Some how the grill doesn't let it come out tasting too salty. I just dredged the chicken in the brown sugar-salt mixture and let it sit a few minutes before grilling it. It came out so moist, tender and delicious! It is really simple to do and gives amazing results! My kind of recipe.
The Skewered Shrimp
For this recipe, I used large, frozen shrimp that had already been deveined, I just had to peel it.
After I peeled it, I put it in a bowl to marinade for about half an hour. This is what I used as a marinade:
Skewered Shrimp Marinade
1/2 stick of butter (1/4 c) melted 1 T lime zest The juice of 1/2 of a lime 1/2 tsp. garlic powder salt and pepper to taste (I used coarsely ground pepper) Blend the ingredients all together and toss in the shrimp to coat completely.
When the shrimp had marinated for about 30 minutes, I put them on skewers. I use metal skewers rather than purchasing bamboo ones. I have a dozen of these. Poking the skewer through the tail, and then the body, I put about 5 shrimp to a skewer. It came out perfectly, filling all 12 skewers. It takes very little time to grill them. Just put them on the grill for a couple of minutes per side and get some nice grill marks. If they finish before everything else, I just pop them in a warm oven so they don't get cold. They taste so good! I love shrimp, and this is one of my new favorite versions!
The Grilled Corn with Cilantro Lime Butter
Knowing how much I love seafood, it may be surprising to many when I say that this corn was my favorite part of this meal. Here is how we cooked it:
Husk the corn and without adding anything to it, place it on the grill and cook it for a couple of minutes per side, just enough time to heat it through and to give it a little char. (See the picture?) It really doesn't take very long. Then, when you take it off of the grill, slather it with Cilantro-Lime Butter. Here is the recipe for that:
Cilantro-Lime Butter
2 sticks of butter (1 c), softened 1/4 c. chopped cilantro leaves (for this butter, try to avoid the stems) The zest of 2 limes juice of 1/2 lime 1/2 tsp. salt Blend it all together and use to slather on corn. It will probably be good on other veggies, too. I just haven't tried it yet.
When we serve the corn, I like to cut it off the cob, add more of the butter and mix it with the rice that we serve on the side. It is just so delicious!
By the way, there is a lot of zesting going on with this meal, so I really appreciated my zester that I blogged about here. You can purchase one here. Also, for the lime juice I used my citrus squeezer that my SIL taught me about! It is so handy and simple to use. Both of these gadgets would make nice little bridal shower gifts or Christmas gifts! I wish I had had them years ago, they would have saved me so much trouble and mess as I cooked.
The Grilled Pineapple
I have a confession to make about the pineapple. When my SIL made it, he grilled it. When we made it, we were all getting hungry and everything else was ready, so we just popped it in the microwave. It was still so good. Heating up pineapple makes it so juicy and the flavor just bursts in your mouth.
To grill (or microwave) the pineapple, first use a peeler corer to get it ready. Trust me, when it comes to pineapple, this is the best gadget ever. It is such a time saver! It slices the pineapple into one long spiral, so I just use a knife to cut down one side, and that gives you rings. Drizzle the rings with melted butter and sprinkle on brown sugar. That is it! Now just pop them on the grill or into the microwave or oven and you have heavenly pineapple that compliments this entire meal so well.
For a drink, I made some of Alicia's Watermelon Slush Punch. Mine didn't come out as well as her's did. I think it was because my ice cubes weren't all of the way frozen. But, it still tasted pretty good and was a good compliment to the entire meal.
Speaking of Alicia, today is her birthday! I am so proud of her! She is an intelligent woman and a wonderful wife and mother. It is hard to believe that my middle child is already the mother of 2, and she is doing it all so beautifully! Happy Birthday Alicia! I made her a cake from long distance. You can see it here.
If you are looking for something different and delicious to grill, I hope you give these ideas a try! Especially the corn! You won't regret it! Here is a recap of our favorite gadgets for this meal:
You've heard it first here! The Dating Diva's Holiday Bundle Flash Sale is going live tomorrow, October 11th! You won't want to miss it! |
Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
Author
Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
April 2024
|