Cathy's Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

I still don't actually believe Cathy's recipe for these pumpkin seeds because they are SO good, SO crispy, SO flavorful, and highly addictive - I just feel like it must have more ingredients then she's saying...but she swears this is how she made them:

"I rinsed the pumpkin seeds off and let them dry. I put them on a paper towel but that's not such a great idea because as they're drying they stick. Parchment paper probably would have been better. Then I placed them in a large baggy, threw in a bunch of melted butter, salt, and a tiny bit of garlic powder. Put a single layer on a cookie sheet and baked them in the oven at 300' until they were golden brown."

If you have pumpkin seeds leftover from carving pumpkins I really recommend trying her easy recipe! If you don't have pumpkin seeds I recommend you go get a pumpkin right now just to make these ;). And if you don't like them I promise to take them off your hands (or if you just want to share with me I'll drive to your house to get some!).







                                                                                               two years ago: witch hat cupcakes

Brain Hemorrhage Jello Shots

Last year I posted that I was making brain hemorrhage shots to take to Scott and Amy's party (click here for that post) but it was early in the day when I posted and somewhere between the post and the party I changed my mind and made jello shots instead. They turned out really good, and because of the jiggly jello consistency these were really gross - which made them a hit of course! I followed a recipe I found on ehow.com

Sprinkle two packets of unflavored gelatin over one cup of cold water in a pan. Let sit for approximately 5 minutes and then heat until the gelatin is fully dissolved. Let cool, then add 1 cup of peach schnapps. Pour into 1 ounce shot glasses and then sit until the gelatin is about like egg whites. Fill an eye dropper with Bailey's Irish Creme and gently poke it into the gelatin, dispense slowly. Repeat with a drop or two of grenadine. 

Note: I used little plastic cups with lids because I was transporting them. And I picked up an eyedropper at Rite Aid for a couple bucks. 

two years ago: make an easy spooky spider lantern

Easy Spider Cookies...by Jenny

Since I love Halloween and I love when my sister owes me I am pitching in one more post.  Let me be upfront that I do NOTHING from scratch and am the queen of faking "crafty".  Unlike my sister who makes mummy cupcakes from scratch I start my Halloween dessert with store boughten cookie dough and end with store boughten frosting already in a squeeze tube. 

1 tube of chocolate Cookie dough
1 tube of brown decorator frosting
1 package of candy eyes (in the baking aisle) 
1 package Reese miniatures

I bake the cookies according to directions on the package (see, if asked I can honestly say these were "home made" because I baked them)
After they come out I let them sit for a second then put in the Reese candy in the center (upside down). Don't put it on too soon or the chocolate gets super mushy. 
Next after the Reese gets soft I put on the eyes. They stick right to the chocolate when it softens a little. 
After that I simply stripe the legs on with the frosting already in the tube. 

As an extra I left a few without Reese's for the people who just aren't right and don't like them.  On those I piped little webs. To do that easily I pinwheel that frosting from the tube and then drag a toothpick from center to the outside to spread the web.  
Voila! Easy peasy dessert that everyone proclaims "SO CUTE JENNY! SEE, YOUR SISTER DIDN'T GET ALL THE TALENT!" ok that last part is a lie. No one says that. But I welcome the day. Until then I will continue to take pride that I can beat her in a race. 

one year ago: brain hemorrhage shots

two years ago: skeleton pretzels

Devil's Food Cupcakes with Swirled Frosting

Here's the last Halloween cupcakes of the 3 different ones I made this week - click here for mummies and here for candy corn - these aren't as decorated but still turned out good and weren't hard to do. This technique is perfect for when you want cupcakes to look "done" but you don't want to do so much decorating.

I started with a doctored up devil's food cake mix - replace the water with milk, and add an extra egg, a teaspoon of vanilla, and a handful of mini chocolate chips. Bake as directed.

For this pretty orange and white swirled frosting I made a batch of vanilla buttercream (beat one stick of butter, a pinch of salt, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, 3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, and a few tablespoons of cream or milk in a big bowl with a mixer), dye half of it orange. In a large piping bag fitted with a open star type decorating tip spread either color around the inside edges of the bag (see the picture) leaving the center as open as possible. I did this with a decorating knife and sort of smeared the frosting around the inside of the bag. Then add the other color to the middle of the bag, twist the top of bag and squeeze frosting out until the second color starts to come thru (otherwise you are just getting the color that is around the edges without the second color). Then hold the bag straight up and starting in the center of the cupcake make a ruffled swirly flower by spiraling the frosting toward the outside edge. I then sprinkled some with halloween sprinkles and others with orange sanding sugar. This is much easier than I'm making it sound! It's hard to see the two colors in my pictures but you do in real life :)

one year ago: pumpkin spice soap

two years ago: tissue paper flowers

Candy Corn Cupcakes

Another easy way to decorate Halloween or Fall cupcakes - like candy corn! Warning: this is buttercream frosting overload, there's as much frosting as cake hahah...not that there's anything wrong with that, just be aware ;)

Start with vanilla buttercream. Portion out about 1/3 of it and tint it yellow. Using a big round tip, pipe the yellow in a circle as the bottom layer of a candy corn. Then, because yellow and red make orange, I added another 1/3 to what was left of the yellow and tinted orange by adding a bit of red until I got the color I wanted. Using a big round tip, pipe the orange in a smaller circle on top of the yellow - that represents the middle layer of candy corn. Then using a big round tip, pipe white frosting on top of the orange representing the tip of the candy corn. Sprinkle white coarse sanding sugar on top of the white and add a candy corn if you want. Cute!

I sent these and the mummies to Brooke's soccer practice and everyone seemed to love them. Brooke then texted me this morning to see if I'd make 31 candy corn cupcakes for her Halloween school party on Tuesday - of course I will!







PS: do you remember my saying that I usually "clean as I go" and "finish what I start"? Well after my cupcake decorating I walked out of the kitchen and when I returned this is what I saw!! For real, I did not open these drawers for the picture - this is actually the giant mess I made! Good grief.









two years ago: mummy meatballs

Mummy Cupcakes

Need some Halloween cupcake ideas for any upcoming parties? Or just 'cuz you want to make cute cupcakes haha? I have 3 cute and easy ones to share with you over the next couple days...they are all about the decorating, not the baking. Start with your favorite cupcake - these are devil's food boxed mix doctored up with an extra egg, replace the water with milk, add a teaspoon of vanilla and handful of mini chocolate chips.

To make each mummy I frosted with my chocolate buttercream frosting (see below), add 2 candy eyes, then pipe white buttercream frosting in strips across the top (I used a #104 piping tip).

Buttercream frosting: using a mixer, beat 1 stick of unsalted room temperature butter with about 3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and a few tablespoons of heavy cream (or milk) until fluffy. Add more sugar or cream for spreading consistency.

Chocolate Buttercream: follow the above recipe adding cocoa powder (probably 1/4 to 1/3 cup).

one year ago: Mickey's 2 ingredient pumpkin spice cookies
two years ago: no sew trick or treat bag

Sarge's Halloween Costume

I didn't think how hard it would be to see Sarge dressed up as a bat when I made this costume - he already has bat ears and when I saw this pattern I just thought how cute he'd be. So the pictures aren't great, but he looks super cute in person. And he was a very good sport while I kept measuring and fitting him :)

I found the instructions for this here and followed it pretty closely. I didn't need the straps to be as long as the directions and at first the wings didn't stand up very good but after I sewed them closer to the back piece and bent the wires a lot they are now standing up. I'm not going to reprint the instructions, click on the link if you want to make this for your dog!

It's pretty easy - cut out wings from black fleece, attach some 16 gauge wire (so you can shape the wings), cut out an "H" shape harness also out of black fleece and attach the wings. Sew velcro to the ends of the 4 straps. Isn't he cute?!!!

2 straps go around the front of chest, 2 under his belly

"H" shaped harness with wings attached. 

two years ago: cinnamon roasted chicken with pumpkin polenta

Halloween Chocolate Covered Pretzels

This is one of those cases of the project looking better online - I loved the photos I saw of these owls but when trying to make them I just couldn't get them perfect. A classic "pinterest fail" moment hahahah. After making a plate of them I decided to abandon the owls and just make dipped pretzels with sprinkles - I added a couple of the cuter owls on top of a bowl of sprinkled ones to take to a party and no one noticed that the owls weren't perfect (or if they did no one said anything LOL!).

I'm sharing tho because it is a cute idea and maybe with a little more patience you'll do better than I did!

The pictures I saw online used a chocolate covered sunflower seed for the beak, I couldn't find any and substituted a candy corn instead - maybe that's why they didn't turn out as good as I wanted?

Directions are pretty easy: melt chocolate according to package directions, dip the pretzels and let dry (unless you are making the sprinkled version, it that case add the sprinkles while the chocolate is still wet). With chocolate frosting in a piping bag, fill 2 of the spaces in the pretzels and add candy eyes. Add a couple dots for the ears and beak. Stick a couple chocolate chips on for the ears, and either a sunflower seed or candy corn for the beak.

I made these mummy pretzels last year, similar directions (fill in the pretzel with melted white chocolate, add zig zags in white and stick on candy eyes) and I LOVE how they turned out!

one year ago: paint an ugly dollar store figurine to make this creepy bat! 

'Thank Goodness For You' Candy Jar

Did you see my FB post about putting these tags together for Ronda while camping a couple weeks ago? They weren't difficult to make but since she needed 144 of them it was a little time consuming! Anyway, I finished putting the whole gift together for her and wanted to show you - these would be such cute little gifts for Thanksgiving! You could take the idea and make bigger jars full of the candy mix (it's just candy corn and peanuts mixed together) for guests or table decorations - I love the idea of putting one of these at each place setting.

I learned this little trick from Ronda for applying little gems, etc. - pick it up with the ends of small pointy scissors, just sort of scoop it up, then place where you want to apply it. Press down with your finger to remove it from the very edges of the scissors and stick in place. 

Crock Pot Tot Casserole

A couple times a year we have a sing-a-long bonfire cookout at Al and Cathy's that has been dubbed a "Ukulele Hoedown". Dave plays his uke and we sing along using songbooks (we made folders with all the lyrics for everyone and have lots of mini flashlights, so there is no excuse to not sing haha!), and there is tons of food of course...

Al and Cathy made 3 soups and stews along with baked ham and cheese sliders, I brought this cheesy potato casserole in my big crockpot - I saw the recipe in the little manual that came with my crock pot and modified it a bit (original calls for onion, green pepper, and crushed cheese crackers), it turned out great and keeping it warm in the crockpot (that I lined with one of those crock liner bag things) kept the mess down and transporting was easy.

Here is my modified version of the recipe:

• 80 ounces frozen tater tots
• 2 sticks butter
• 2 cans cream of mushroom soup
• 3 1/2 cups milk
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Line a big crock pot with a liner bag or spray it with non-stick cooking spray. Stir all of the ingredients together in a big bowl, transfer to the crock pot. Cover and cook on low for 4+ hours. 

Note: this ended up cooking for probably 6 hours and then left on warm for 3 hours. The tater tots break down so it basically looks like hash browns but was delish - I'm thinking if I cooked for shorter time they might stay more intact but it totally didn't matter. 

Crockpot Caramel Dulce de Leche Sauce

When Michelle told me about making truly the easiest caramel sauce ever (short of buying it and opening the jar haha) - I almost didn't believe her because it sounds to good to be true. Then she brought me the cutest gift of a small jelly jar filled with the caramel packaged with an apple on top and wrapped in a cellophane bag tied with a piece of jute. Oh my gosh this is SO cute....and I will totally be stealing this idea come Christmas (or Thanksgiving) time for neighbor and co-worker gifts!

Get this - all you do is put unopened cans of sweetened condensed milk in a crock pot, cover with water by at least an inch, cook on low for 8 hours. See, I bet you are doubting this is going to work too aren't you?! Well it does!

Remove the cans from the hot water after 8 hours with some tongs (obviously the cans are going to be smoking hot), let them cool before opening. Then scoop out the deliciousness and transfer to a serving dish, or spoon into small ball jars for gifting, or I'm thinking about putting it into a small crockpot so it's warm and serve with apple slices and toppings (this is also Michelle's idea that I'm stealing - she set up a whole caramel apple bar with nuts, sprinkles, crushed candies, etc. You could put out bamboo skewers or fondue forks or sticks or something to spear the apples and dip in the toppings...great idea right?).

Ghost Windsock

I made this little ghost windsock based on the one I made for the Fourth of July (click here for that post). I had a big burned-out lightbulb in the craft closet that I've been saving just knowing I could make something out of it - and this morning it looked like a ghost head to me haha...so I turned it into a windsock to hang in front of the house.

I cut 8 strips of white plastic tablecloth and tied them to a small hoop (I used an embroidery hoop, you could also just use a piece of wire twisted into a circle. Put the lightbulb in the circle then cover with a couple big pieces of cheesecloth and tie to the base of the lightbulb with some ribbon. Add a skinny piece of cheesecloth as a hanger. Done.

I anticipated this would hang straight down but the lightbulb is making it's "head" hang - I like how this looks tho so didn't fix it...doesn't it look like a "dead" ghost this way (yes I know, a ghost is already officially dead but whatever - you get my drift).


This took me all of 10 minutes to put together and looks great blowing in the breeze!

one year ago: make a Jack O'Lantern candy jar