Tips and Tricks from Our Halloween Party

With the Frankenstorm raging on the east coast, we thought we'd give you a Frankenpost...are you ready for this?

Last night was our Halloween Party extravaganza. It turned out well and we had a lot of fun with our friends and family. When we decided to do this party we naturally started pinning ideas and recipes. We tried out pins, tweaked pins, got rid of pins, and then created some of our own ideas. We'd like to share some of those with you and some tricks and tips that we figured out along the way. 

The Original Pin

http://day2daywithhollyj.blogspot.com/2010/10/magical-color-changing-drinks.html

We were pretty excited about these. We had Sprite, clear Koolaid, and water as our party beverages so that the color change could be noticed. The night before the party Cameron and I set out all the cups on the counter and dropped in the food coloring. We tried for just one drop a cup (the instructions called for 2-3 drops, but that just seemed like more than necessary), but a few got 2-4. I figured that would be enough time to dry, and it was...for the red and the yellow. The blue and the green hadn't dried out yet by the time the party started. So lesson number one...prepare these cups probably at least 2 days in advance so the food coloring has time to dry out all the way. 

Then when the party started going, I got filling the cups with ice and people wanted to come help...but I knew they'd look in the cup and see a "dirty spot" and think the cup wasn't good so I finally just had to pick one or two people to help ice up cups so the surprise wasn't spoiled for everyone. With the ice in the cups, you can't see the food coloring spot on the bottom. We started to take drink orders and bring them their cup, but the drinks started changing color so fast that by the time we handed them the drink the color was already changing...so lesson number two: just ice the cups and let people pour their own drinks. We got the drinks served and watching everyone's reactions was fun. It was a hit with everyone, adults, college kids, teens, etc. 

The Original Pin

http://kirstycolquhoun.blogspot.com/2011/10/day-137-witches-broomsticks.html

Witchs' broomsticks.

Our Version:

 Em followed the directions and very carefully tried to poke holes in the Reese's mini cups with a carving fork, but the cups kept splitting. So she got creative and just made small indentations and then stuck the pretzel sticks to the Reese's cups with orange frosting. In the end she added orange frosting to all of them because we liked the look of it better than just the plain broom. They're not identical to the original site, but we made them work and they were a hit. We probably could have warmed up the carving fork and it may have made better holes without breaking the Reese's, but this ended up working just fine. 

The Original Pin

http://barbschram.blogspot.com/2009/07/witch-way-justrite-way.html

These actually were really easy to make. Em got all the supplies listed on the site and put these cute cookies together. They came out just right. The most annoying part? Unwrapping all those kisses. 

Our Version:

The Original Pin:

http://feedingfourlittlemonkeys.blogspot.com/2008/10/veggie-skeleton.html

One of our friends wanted to bring something, so we assigned them the skeleton veggie platter. 

Our Version:

This looks really cute until people dig in, then it just looks like an odd assortment of veggies. But...it was a huge hit...I've never seen a veggie tray eaten as fast as this one was. 

The Original Pin

http://icanhas.cheezburger.com/noms

I looked through page after page after page of myfoodlooksfunny.com and never did find this picture, but every link I've found online takes me to that site...so it's probably there somewhere. 

I know...this is gross...but it makes me laugh so hard.  

Our Version:

We just had to go off the picture for this one...but there really isn't much to explain. The instructions would go something like this. 

1. Carve a small pumpkin (pie pumpkins are the perfect size). 

2. Prepare/buy your favorite guacamole. 

3. Arrange so it looks like the pumpkin is vomiting the guac. 

Those are the steps we followed at least. My guacamole isn't normally very creamy or green...I like more chunky guac...so I tweaked my normal recipe for my family who likes creamy guac...but then it was pretty much white and red from the sour cream and tomatoes/salsa. So I added some green and yellow food coloring to help it out. 

The only tip I can really think of for this one is to choose your container wisely. I didn't really have a platter/dish that was quite the right size and shape, so the pumpkin head kept sinking into the guac as there was only room for it to sit on the edge. So the mouth was kinda hidden, lessening the vomitting look a little. A cake pan or cookie pan would have worked better (but by the time we were putting this together people were showing up, so we just left it at this). 

The Original Pin

http://www.bhg.com/recipe/chicken/chicken-lady-fingers-with-romanian-romesco-dipping-sauce/

Chicken Lady Fingers with Romanian Romesco Dipping Sauce. Well..that's what the inspiration was. This one ended up being our most tweaked Pinterest inspired food item. First off...we didn't want to try and buy enough chicken to serve as many people as were coming...that was just going to be too much. So we nixed the chicken fingers and decided to go with bread sticks instead (this recipe was easy and super super yummy). Even though we changed the chicken to bread, we knew we wanted to try that sauce. Em bought the supplies and we put it together and it made about 1 cup of sauce. There was no way that was going to stretch to feed the crowd. It tasted yummy...but it just wasn't going to be enough. Not having enough supplies to make multiple more batches of the same sauce, we looked through the cupboards improvised. 

Our Version:

We ended up throwing in 2 cups of canned tomatoes (ours were whole and packed in water...but it didn't matter in the end because they got blended up), 4 oz. cream cheese, 1 TBS red pepper flakes, about 1 TBS minced onion, and about 1 1/2 tsp. Italian Seasoning. We blended that up, warmed it up on the stove and served it hot with the bread sticks. Yum yum yum!

The Original Pin

http://www.familyfreshmeals.com/2012/09/the-perfect-fall-cheese-ball.html

This cheese ball was easy and SOOOO YUMMY!!!! I think it was the first thing to completely disappear off the table. Just follow the directions and you're set to go. I can't think of anything I'd change with this or any tips that aren't given in the recipe. 

Our Version:

We served ours with the remaining chips and then Wheat Thins. 

The Original Pin

http://cookiesandcups.com/cream-cheese-filled-snickerdoodles/

I have been DYING to try these out and they lived up to the weeks of anticipation. They were so yummy. I tried this with the Snickerdoodle recipe given on the site and with my cousin's Snickerdoodle recipe (which I love) and they both tasted the same, but they looked different. The cookies from my cousins recipe looked like the cookies in the picture above, but the cookies from the website I followed came out way more puffy. Neither was better or worse...they were just different in shape. 

Our Version:

I do have something to say about making these. If you're wanting a fast and easy cookie to make for a lot of people...this probably isn't the one you want to make. It is a little time consuming. I was glad when the filling ran out and I could quit the whole process. But...they were scrumptious and worth the work. I'm just warning you that these don't throw together fast and easy like sugar cookies or chocolate chip cookies. 

On the tier above the Snickerdoodles are mostly-regular brownies. I was one egg short of the 4 the recipe called for, so I substituted 1/4 c. of plain yogurt. The brownies stayed soft (and slightly gooey), but they tasted great!

The Original Pin

http://catchmyparty.com/photos/495699

While looking for the marshmallows I thought we had (to make the party favors we didn't end up having time to make) I found a mostly full bag of dum-dums in the cupboard. I was just going to stick them in a bowl, but then we remembered a pin we'd seen and decided to make a dum-dum topiary. I rummaged through my craft supplies and found 1 Styrofoam ball and started stabbing the dum-dums in it. Well...I ran out of dum-dums before I ran out of Styrofoam ball. So I found a small bowl and we had a half topiary instead. 

Looking back I should have tied a ribbon around the top of the bowl and put a bow on it...but this served the purpose just fine.You'd think this would be a really easy thing to throw together, but it didn't take too long before I had a hard time stabbing the dum-dum sticks in and not hitting another sucker's stick. It took some work to get some of those in...I can't imagine how impossible it'd start to get near the end had I had enough dum-dums to fill the whole Styrofoam ball. So if you're going to make this...get 2 bags of dum-dums and be prepared for some frustration as you try to get all the sticks to align. 

Our decorations were a mix of pinspiraions, creations of our own, and items pulled from our own personal stashes. 

For the front porch:

The Original Pin

http://craftsredesigned.blogspot.com/search/label/Halloween

Our Version:

The hardest part? Getting the tea-lights lit. I didn't have one of the handy dandy furnace lighters...so we pinned 3 clothespins together, and stuck a match on the end. We then lit that match with another match (since there wasn't time to light the match, then stick it in the clothespin) and we lit the candles that way. We tried lighting the candles and sliding them down...but that didn't work. They looked really cute lit up on the porch. We had 10 of these all lit up (but I didn't think to get a picture once it got dark...we were too busy enjoying the party). 

Then I also pulled out these from my stash from last year's Halloween party:

My sister sent me a picture of these on Facebook last year and I put them together with shoes from the thrift store, spray glue, glitter, and stuffed stockings. I used a spatula to push the leg ends under the little crack so it would look like they really were sticking out from under the house. 

Decorations inside the house:

From bottom to top:

Bloody Candles: Pinspired Project.

Dried Corn: WalMart

Troll (by the corn): Gift from Cameron's brother from his time in Norway.

 Black and White Photos: Photos my Great-Grandfather (Em's Grandfather) took.

Quidditch Photo: Personal photo project. 

Boots: From a local thrift/antique/consignment store. 

Framed Leaf: Melted Crayon Project

Yucca Ball: DIY

Metal Kaleidoscope: Gift from a friend. 

Em had the white candles already, so we bought two red tapers and dripped the wax as they burned onto the white candles. From this idea: http://www.marthastewart.com/272746/creepy-candles

More detail on the boots. I saw these in the store for $10 and had to have them. They are WAY to small for my Sasquatch sized feet, but I knew they'd make a fun table decoration. 

 

From left to right...

Witch's wreath: DIY from last year 

Mummy head topiary and Ghost: DIY from last year 

Necktie Garland: DIY from last year

Leaves: Walmart. I put them in an orange vase we found in the house when we moved in. The vase is being held up in a bowl we got for our wedding by 4 dried ears of corn. 

Halloween Silhouettes hung on a ribbon with clothes pins: DIY from last year

And then over the food table I had this:

Inspired by: http://jenikaslensblog.com/anatomy-of-a-halloween-party

A Batmobile...bahahaha, I'm so punny. I used bats from last year's porch decorations and 3 different sizes of embroidery hoops to make this bat chandelier/mobile. It cast some fun shadows at night with the light on. 

And then finally...our costumes. We were both pretty excited about our costumes. We kept them a secret from each other...it made it more exciting to not know (and mine had to be a secret or it just wouldn't have been as effective...you'll see). Last year I set up my photo booth, but the room we set it up in still smells slightly of mouse death...so we opted out of the booth and just took pictures in front of a small blank wall. Not as pretty of pictures, but hey...who cares? We don't need pretty photo booth pictures to remember how much fun we had. 

 Emilee and Chip as Tron and Quorra. I thought they did an EXCELLENT job at making their costumes. They looked super. The reflective tape they used looked awesome in the normal light, but the flash from the camera just really made it shine. 

 I made Cameron a Gentleman Pirate costume. I found the coat at a thrift store in town. It was a little torn up and plain, so I mended the tears, sewed on a collar, found awesome pirate buttons at one of the fabric shops in town and sewed them onto the sleeves, collar, and sides. I put together his pirate hat using this tutorial, and then made the sash from fabric from my scrap bag. He just wore the pants and shirt from last year's costume (tucking the troll tail in a pocket so it wouldn't show). Me? I was Emilee. And it was awesome. She had no idea. I told her I was going to be a pirate along with Cameron...had to throw her off somehow. We were hanging out one day and while she went to run some errands I raided her closet for clothes,jewelry, and the hair flower so I'd be authentic. I added the belt, the leggings, and even made a little hedgehog to go on my wrist in honor of Emilee's pet hedgehog. It took an entire can of red hair coloring to get my hair that color...but it was perfect. The look on Em's face when she realized I'd dressed up as her was hilarious. 

We had to get a picture of Em and I with her "normal hair", and not the black wig. 

So there you have it. Our Frankenpost of our Halloween Party. I hope some of our tips helped and that this helped give you ideas for any last minute party planning you're doing today! We sure had a great time and hope that you have a fun and safe Halloween. 

Bell Pepper Eggs Revisited

Where were you 11 years ago today? Do you remember it? It boggles my mind that many of the high school kids now don't hardly remember 9/11 at all.


You know those meals that you make out of that last vestiges of food you have left in your house? Yeah...that was my lunch a few days ago. We were getting ready to start the 20+ hour trek for Cameron's Grandfather's funeral and didn't want to leave food in the fridge to go bad, so we hadn't bought groceries for a little bit. I was hungry and so I scrounged and found I had bell peppers from the garden, eggs, and zucchini pickles (I know...zucchini pickles sound gross...I was hesitant at first, but these are so good and so easy and they use up the surplus zucchini coming out of everyone's gardens). So...I decided to retest an old friend from a few months ago. 

The Original Pin

http://www.apronstringsblog.com/flower-power-eggs-recipe-sunny-side-up-eggs/

Remember that one? No? Here was my original attempt:

http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2012/04/fried-egg-underflow.html

I had issues with the egg leaking out from under the pepper and it just didn't cook as pretty. Since that episode we've had people e-mail in their tries, which went bout as good as mine.  Here, I'll show you. 

The Pinstrosities

 Kendall said, "I wanted eggs for breakfast and had an extra green pepper from my dinner the night before (also a Pinterest fail.) I decided to boost my self-esteem by making the easiest thing I'd ever pinned on Pinterest. Eggs cracked into rings of peppers. How hard can that be? Well, much harder than I thought.. First of all, the eggs didn't stay neatly inside the peppers like they do in the picture. Second, how the heck do you flip them to cook both sides? Should  I have done the sunny side up thing? I'm obviously not a chef. I cooked one side of the egg and things were going ok. Then I flipped the eggs to cook the other side and everything went to heck. Thank goodness I wasn't cooking for company. They tasted ok but they looked like dog food. Total FAIL."

 I decided that I was going to retry this pin for my lunch, so I went through and reread the instructions on the original site and reread all the comments/suggestions from the last post. I had two methods I wanted to try...and of course the second one is the one that worked. Isn't that how it always goes.  

Try #1

The bell peppers from our garden aren't huge, so I knew a whole egg wasn't going to fit in a regular slice...so I sliced the bell pepper a little thicker than normal. 

I decided to try the hot pan method first, which was a popular suggestion on our last attempt with this. And hotter means faster, right? Hehehe. I can be so impatient. Hey, I was hungry. 

I cracked the egg into a bowl (an orange one of course, what other color would I use?) and then dipped the pepper in the egg white. 

With the pepper dipped in egg it stuck to the hot pan, giving it a sort of seal. It was working so far. I had hoped that the peppers would be tall enough to hold the egg, but they weren't. There was no seepage underneath the pepper, but there was egg overflow. 

I tried slowly spooning the egg into the second pepper...have you ever tried separating egg white? It doesn't spoon so well...and I ended up pouring the whole egg in the pepper by accident. So I had 2 overflow pepper eggs. I removed the overflowed cooked egg white and it all looked like it was going to go perfect. But then it came time to flip the eggs...because the pan was really hot I had to flip them because they'd burn. Well...the whites on top were still uncooked so it just ended up splatting all over the pan. 

I cooked them until it looked done on both sides, detached the outer whites and they looked decent-ish. Not pretty, but not bad. 

I cut into them and there was still uncooked egg white in the middle. Disgusting. I like my yolks runny but the whites HAVE to be cooked. I cut everything up, added a little cheese and poured it back in the pan and ended up having scrambled eggs with pepper pieces. Tasty, but not the desired result.

I ate this while the pan cooled and I could do attempt #2. 

Try #2

This time I cut the peppers to normal thickness (about 1/2" thick). I again broke the egg into the bowl and dipped the pepper in it. 

This try though I had the heat on low. I placed the egged pepper on the pan and let it cook for about a minute. I then slowly spooned out little bits of the egg white into the bottom of the pepper, just enough to get a full seal and a coating. Once I had a full coat in the bottom of the pepper (with no leakage) I spooned in the yolk of the egg (with a small amount of attached egg white). It fit just perfectly in the small pepper. 

I salt and peppered the egg (which I forgot to do the first time) and then I placed a lid on the pan and let it cook on the low heat. I did not flip this egg. On the low heat and with the lid on the pan you can let the egg cook until it is done all the way through. The original website says, "If you like your yolks runny, just cook over low heat until whites are done. If you like your yolks firm, break the yolks and then cook over low heat until both whites and yolks are firm." 

I let the egg cook for a few minutes and when I opened up the lid this is the beautiful egg I found. It worked! Finally. 3rd time's the charm, right? The egg was cooked to perfection and the pepper was just right...not too crunchy but not over done either.

This recipe takes more work with a small pepper than a larger one, but it does work and it makes such a pretty offering. So cook it gently over a low heat and DON'T flip.

Hedgehoggin'

Em here, so this pin pulled at my "Holy freaking adorable batman" heart strings the second I opened it. Meghann sent us her attempt at a Hedgehog Watermelon, and well I just happen to have a hedgehog...some of you may be wondering what a hedgehog is...well here is my little darling Gypsy.

So now you know what a hedgehog is ( I have a lot of friends who had never even heard of such a thing, so I am covering my bases, and well showing her off. She is pretty cute!)

So Meghann found a pin to make a hedgehog watermelon (people are crazy creative). Here is today's Pinstrosity!

The Original

http://www.watermelon.org/Carvings/Hedgehog-15.aspx

Cute right! And what better way to serve watermelon than to have an easy and cute presentation! It took some tracking down to find the original site but when I did I found a treasure! The website www.watermelon.org has a ton a carving ideas, instructions, pretty much everything watermelon, it is really cool! I know it is getting to be the end of the summer, but this wouldn't be a bad idea for a end of the summer shebang. Ok enough of the chit chat, here is Meghann's version:

The Pinstrosity

So, like many of our submissions, this one isn't all that awful. There are a few tips to make this a Pin-Win though...

1.The watermelon needs to be oblong not round, something that Meghann also brought up.

2.The original website says to use a green dry erase marker to help you see where you are going to cut, then it wipes off after they said, genius!

3.Meghann used "cocktail sticks", I'm not sure if that is code for toothpicks, but the original used toothpicks, and they seemed to be the just right size.

4. Meghann went a little big for the feet, she tried to make toes and such, which is anatomically correct, but ends up looking a little funny. If she had cut them down a little they would have looked a little proportionate to the rest of the melon. The original cut out rectangles, and made one side of the rectangle smaller than the other, this is the part that will attach to the body of the melon.

5. The face on Meghann's version is spot on (props to you Meghann). Using a small triangle for the nose, they inserted it with two toothpicks, and grapes for the eyes and end of the nose, you now have a cute little face(they used blueberries, but I think you could totally get away with small grapes).

6.Before doing any carving though ( I should have mentioned this first), the original says to shave off a small section on the bottom so that it will lay flat, don't go to crazy though because if you cut too much into the white section, juice will leak out and you will surely have a mess.

7.It's hard to tell in the picture, but the original had ears, they are about half the size of the nose, and are also triangles.

8. For added detail, they used a paring knife to make little triangles at the top of the hedgehogs head for added spikes. But I think Meghann's still has the right idea even without it.

9.Meghann said her cubes didn't fit inside the hollow space very well. That could be because her's was much rounder and smaller, but her chunks might also have been a little too big, so remember to take that into account when dicing up the remaining melon.

And as with our last melon Pinstrosity, practice will no doubt help. Meghann's turned out great I think, and with a few minor adjustments this would look just like the original. Stay tuned for Marquette's post later this afternoon! Happy Tuesday!

                                            -Emilee

Shriveled Strawberries Revisited

A little while back we were sent a Pinstrosity concerning drying strawberries in the oven. We loved it and posted it. Since then we have had more emails showing the results people have gotten from following that exact same pin, and thought we'd do a repost.

The Original Pin

http://www.theworldwidegourmet.com/recipes/dried-strawberries-ruscalleda/

Here's the results we've been sent in:

The Pinstrosities

How to fix this? With the original post, I was not able to test these out so I asked for input from all of you and we got some great responses (along with a lot of "This is what happened to me too!" comments).

From Anonymous:
"Next time...try a lower temperature...my oven has a "keep warm" setting which, according to my oven thermometer, is about 175*. Also, lift them off the baking tray. I find that wire cooling racks work well. If you don't have cooling racks, parchment paper will help, but the wire racks seemed to work best. I've never personally done strawberries, but I did peach slices last summer. Check them after 2-3 hours and see how they're doing. My peach slices took about 5 hours, but smaller fruits will probably take less time. Better luck next time!"

From Kori S:
"I would use parchment paper to help with the sticky-ness, but i found this website and in the comments it has peoples tips on drying fruit in the oven. Good Luck!

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-dry-fruit-in-the-oven-92637"

And we checked that link, it's safe. 

From Keri:

"We've done this before, and it worked! Our old kitchen was too small for a dehydrator, so we dried everything in the oven. You have to make sure the heat is VERY LOW (like 200 degrees or lower, if your oven will get that low) and be prepared to sit around a while because it takes a long, long time. The one thing you really need is airflow, so we propped open our oven just a bit with the handle of a wooden spoon. This lowers the temp as well. Also, some parchment paper on the pan is a good idea, since all of that juice is coming out and evaporating. Don't try to rush it at all! I guarantee rushing will spoil anything that is dried."

"ALSO! (Sorry forgot to mention it!) You should definitely leave the strawberries WHOLE. Just take off the green part."

From Anonymous:

"Most dehydrators are set to only heat up to 100 degree so if you can get your oven that low your set.

I do happen to have access to a dehydrator (my dad owns one) and I can tell you, they do taste amazing and the best part is that they are so much healthier than the ones you buy in the store that are dipped in chemicals and such to keep them looking like the original pin. Even dehydrated they are not beautiful but they are definitively worth the time!"