Halloweeen!

This year, we got to celebrate our first Halloween as aunt and uncle. As in, the cool aunt and uncle who do fun things - like host a "spooky" lunch for our niece and nephews. The planners that Dan & I are, we came up with the idea yesterday morning - and it turned out awesome and relatively healthy (other than those "cancer-causing" hotdogs we ate). Gotta be something scary to Halloween! ;)

Courtesy of our official event photographer (niece Brenna), Dan shows off most of th\e goods: starting with the platter at Dan's right hand (your left), mummy hotdogs, then jack-o-latern peppers stuffed with veggies, behind the veggies, Rice Krispie treat pumpkins, in the foreground - jello eyes, and we also made clementine jack-o-lanterns.

Mummy hotdogs: Koegel viennas wrapped with crescent roll strips and witches hats. Slice the strips with a pizza cutter. When I would get down to a tiny triangle, I just folded the edge up to make the hat. Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes. Delicious!

Pretty simple here: cut the top off the pepper, clean out the 'ribs', cut a face into the pepper - stuff with veggies of choice. Cauliflowers = brains, btw.

Jello eyes: follow the 'jello mold' directions on the box. I used a mini muffin tin to make these. The blog where I got the idea used plastic Easter eggs (our plastic eggs all had tiny holes in the bottom = Plan B, stat!). Pour the jello into the tin, add a raisin, chill. You should probably make these more than two hours in advance...but, I put these in the freezer, then fridge for one (and fridge then freezer for the other due to freezer space). Big hit!

If you can, zoom in on these: the piece d' resistance - FINGERS! These came fro the 6-fingered man. Again, Koegel viennas. Cut a 'nail' into one end, then slice areas for the finger joints. To get these to plump well (and not split open), we boiled these. The beauty of the Koegel vienna is that the curve when you cook 'em - giving a much more life like look to these babies. Then, when you add some ketchup...seriously looks like cut up, mutilated fingers.

We don't have a close up of the pumpkin Rice Krispies, but it's easy! Make up Rice Krispies as normal; the recipe I had called for vanilla to be added after melting the butter & mallows - so I also added in a 1/2 tsp of liquid pumpkin spice flavoring. Mmm-fall krispies! At this point, I also added in red and yellow food coloring till reaching the desired color. Then, I sprayed Pam on a big cookie scoop - and used two scoops/pumpkin. Shape into a ball. I added a brown peanut M&M for the stem. The idea I saw used tootsie rolls. Guess what you can find on Friday night at Kroger? A bag full of Tootsie "midges"...I don't think they sell that size retail, anymore.

To top off the "cool aunt & uncle" vibe, put on the kids' costumes:

I am actually wearing Brenna's skirt. I'm all ready for Mardi Gras with that puppy!

...and also have at your disposal, a Halloween kitty:

...who will play with the blue feather from the peacock costume - and also play "catch" with the football player.