Spook-tacular Halloween Goodness!

As I mentioned earlier, Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, so here I am waiting for my Halloween cupcakes to finish baking, and thought I'd share some goodies with you.

Last year, I made personalized mini-pumpkins for my step-kids.  They were really cheap, and turned out really cute.  All you need is a little creativity.  I picked up a few mini-pumpkins at the local pumpkin patch for about 50 cents each.  Then I drew the letters for their names on them using colored Sharpie markers.  I practiced this ahead of time on paper to make sure I got them just how I wanted them.  I tried to do each letter in a Halloween theme.  Then, using my hot glue gun, I added embellishments like colored glass drops, rhinestones, and feathers.  I finished both off with a ribbon around the stem.

Sam's pumpkin had a bat for the "S", a witch's hat for the "A", and a googly eyed monster for the "M".
Mike's had a spider and web for "M", candy corn for "I", a dragon-type monster tale for the "K", and a pumpkin for "E".

As I said, I made some Halloween cupcakes.  I just finished them up, so here is the recipe:

Creepy Crawly Cupcakes

1 box chocolate cake mix (any variety), + all ingredients listed on box
12 Oreo's, crushed
12 Reynolds brand aluminum baking cups (they look like big cupcake liners)
1 16 oz. container of chocolate frosting, softened enough to drizzle
gummy worms
sprinkles

Prepare chocolate cake mix as directed on box, preheat oven, mix ingredients, and set aside.  Place baking cups on a cookie sheet.  Following baking cup instructions, spoon approximately 1/3 cup of batter into each baking cup.  Top each with a spoonful of crushed Oreo's cookies.  Bake until toothpick inserted comes out clean - they will take longer than the time listed on your cake mix, because the cupcakes are so big - I started with the time listed on my recipe (15-20 min) and went from there.  Mine took 27 minutes.  Allow cupcakes to cool completely.  Poke small holes into the cupcakes and insert one end of a gummy worm (so it looks like they are crawling out), drizzle with chocolate frosting, and top with sprinkles.  Enjoy!

Creepy crawly cupcakes

Fall Fun!

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year; particularly Halloween.  We spent the past weekend celebrating the season with festivals, food, and most importantly, fun.

I like to cook and make snacks, and enjoy creating new recipes.  I had seen some pigs-in-a-blanket made to look like mummies in the H.E.B. magazine, but they didn't have a recipe, so I had to make one up.  I have to say, they turned out to be some yummy mummies!  You can get the recipe here.

Mummies in a Blanket

To me, caramel apples are the quintessential fall food.  Whether I am drinking a caramel apple spice from Starbucks, or eating caramel apple candy suckers, they all scream autumn to me.  Homemade caramel apples were the perfect easy snack after a night of carving pumpkins.  Pretty quick to make, but letting them sit in the fridge to cool and harden took a little longer.  If you haven't noticed by now, I am all about quick and easy food!  I dipped mine in Heath toffee bits, chocolate chips, and sprinkles.  I also left some plain.  The caramel cooled faster than I anticipated, so I was only able to get toppings on the bottom halves.  You can follow the recipe on the bag of caramel, or if you want a tutorial for how to make your own, you can find one here on my amazing friend's blog.

Caramel apples

You can't celebrate the season without pumpkins, so we went to the pumpkin patch at the Methodist church down the street, picked out some pumpkins and Sam and Mike carved 'em up into some real nice jack-o-lanterns!

My family at the pumpkin patch

Carving pumpkins

Michael's jack-o-lantern

Samantha's jack-o-lantern

I love fall!

Yummy Mummies-in-a-Blanket

I saw a photo idea for these little fall snacks in the H.E.B. grocery store's monthly magazine, but they didn't have a recipe listed, so I got a little creative and made one up.  So easy and so yummy...mummy!

1 package of smoked beef sausage (mine had 7 sausages about 5 inches long)
1 can of refrigerated butter flavored crescent rolls
Wooden popsicle sticks

Preheat oven to 350.  Coat a cookie sheet with cooking spray, set aside.  Cook or grill sausages.  I grilled mine on a George Foreman grill so the fat would drain off nicely.  While sausages are grilling, unroll the crescents onto a cutting board.  Slice them into long, thin strips, a little wider than the width of your pinky fingernail.  Remove sausages from heat source when cooked thoroughly.  Carefully (sausages will be hot) make a slit through the sausage casing at one end of each sausage roughly the width of a popsicle stick.  Insert a popsicle stick about halfway into each sausage.  Wrap crescent slices around your "mummy" starting at the base of the sausage by the popsicle stick.  The more you overlap the crescent rolls and criss-cross them, the more of a mummy look you'll get.  Stop when you are about 2/3 of the way up.  Wrap more crescent strips around the "head" to get a hat look.  Take two small pieces of dough and place them on the "face" for eyes.  Place "face-up" on the cookie sheet.  Repeat until all mummies are ready.  Bake for 7 minutes or until crescents are golden brown.  Serve to your little ghosts and goblins and enjoy!