Well, after spending the last month searching for the best Halloween decorations, recipes, costumes, decorating my new house and watching movies here are my thoughts. LAME! Okay not totally lame, but not as good as in years past. My biggest gripe was Halloween decor or the lack there of. Every Halloween I have spent hundreds of dollars on new decorations for the store and for the house that I could not live without. This year I spent $19.00 and that was just for spiderwebs, candles and misc. crap. WTF?! My thoughts are that with the bad economy they just didn’t really come out with anything new and scaled back on some of the more pricey items. My favorite has always been animatronics. I love things that move and say things. The ones they had this year were cheap looking and weren’t all that scary frankly. Costumes were pretty lame as well. I wanted to post the scariest costume of the year, but I really didn’t see anything that was worth even a wimper. Some of the bad costumes that were popular, like Micheal Jackson and Octomom, were just in bad taste and stupid. Decorating our new house was great and everything worked better than we had hoped. We even got voted as the scariest house in the neighborhood, but there were a few that were really close. We’ll have to step it up a bit next year. Movie selection in the theaters was not even worth discussing, though rarely is it. All I can say is I really hope next year the economy is back on track and decorations are plentiful. This is my favorite time of the year and I found it depressing to go into stores that normally have huge Halloween displays and only had pitifully small racks of cheesy decor. Just my two cents.
A reader sent this recipe in to me, so I thought I’d share it with you. I’ve never made these, but I can’t wait until later this week to try it. All you need is an eyeball jello mold, and a few ingredients. You can also use round ice cube trays or even the round artist pallets that you can buy in any art store. As long as you clean it thoroughly you can use anything that has the right shape.
Ingredients:
3 tsp of unflavored gelatin
Food coloring (blue, green, red and yellow)
Cooking Oil Spray
3 Tbsp low fat milk
1 1/2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 Tbsp imitation lemon or coconut extract. (your choice)
Cold and boiled water
Straw, cotton ball, toothpick and a container with a small spout for filling.
Instructions for Whites of Eyes:
Spray a small amount of cooking oil inside of the cavity of the plastic mold. Put 2 1/2 tsp of gelatin in a bowl. Add 1/4 cup boiling water. Stir until completely dissolved. Add 1/4 cup cold water and stir well. Stir in 3 Tbsp of low fat milk, 1/2 Tbsp of extract, and 1 1/2 Tbsp of sugar. Stir well. Using a container with a small spout, pour the liquid into the mold. Place the mold in the refrigerator overnight. After the gelatin solidifies, take out the white eyes.
Iris Eye Color Instructions:
Put 1/2 tsp gelatin in a small bowl. Add 1 Tbsp boiling water. Stir until dissolved. Stir in 1 Tbsp cold water. Add a drop or two of any food coloring that you desire, and stir. Use a straw to fill the iris craters by first dipping one end of the straw into the liquid. Then, place your thumb over the other end of the straw to trap the liquid in the straw. Release the liquid from the straw into the iris until it is filled. The iris will solidify in the refrigerator within minutes.
Making the Pupil in the Eye:
Mix the following food colors in a small bowl: 2 drops red, 1 drop blue, and one drop green. Dip the end of a toothpick into this mixture. Jab the toothpick into the middle of the iris. Repeat the process until the pupil is large enough to see.
Making the Bloodshot Eye Effect:
Drop a few drops of red food coloring onto a plate. Take a cotton ball or a Q-tip and loosen the fibers so that they look frayed. Dip the cotton lightly into the food coloring. Lightly dab the white part of the eyeball until the desired effect is achieved.
Thanks to Ghoulgirl for this great recipe!
Every time I have a Halloween party I make punch with ice hands and put it in one of those huge black plastic cauldrons. The one thing I recommend though is finding a large bowl or pot to put inside. It can’t fit too snugly. This will allow you to put some warm water and dry ice at the bottom of your cauldron, so the smoke will flow out through the gaps. Doing it this way means the dry ice will never be in the punch and you won’t have to worry about your guests touching it. To make the ice hands you will need some surgical gloves that are not powdered. These can be purchased at most drug stores. Rinse out two gloves, fill with water and tightly tie them shut with some string. Lie them flat in your freezer and let freeze for 2 days. Run a small amount of warm water over the gloves to loosen them. Be careful when removing the glove. Use scissors to cut away if necessary. If you lose a finger don’t worry. It makes it even creepier.
The punch can be any recipe you like really. I always use the recipe below and you can choose to add vodka or not. I usually don’t for the people that aren’t drinking.
1 96 oz. Orange Juice
4 48 oz. cans Pineapple Juice
4 2 liter bottles of Sprite or 7Up
1 1.75 liter bottle of vodka
Mix well. Put the warm water and dry ice at the bottom of your cauldron and then put your pot/bowl inside. Pour in your punch and then add your ice hands. The hands floating in the punch is really creepy and your guests will love it.
Every once in a while I throw a big Halloween Party. I love adapting normal recipes into scary ones. This recipe for Witches Fingers was adapted from a Danish Christmas cookie recipe that my Mom always made. Everyone is always creeped out by these cookies!
Ingredients:
2 3/4 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
1 c. powdered sugar
1 c. butter softened
1 egg
1 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 c. whole blanched almonds (skin removed)
red food coloring, preferably paste/gel
Preheat oven to 325° F. Combine dry ingredients. Lightly grease a cookie sheet. In a large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg, almond extract and vanilla, beat in dry ingredients. Cover and refrigerate dough for 30 minutes or until firm. Optional: If you want to paint the nails, which I never do anymore, this is the time to do that. Use some red food coloring that’s been diluted with water and brush on with a clean small paint brush. Working with one-quarter of the dough at a time and keeping remaining dough refrigerated, roll heaping teaspoons full of dough into finger shape for each cookie. Press an almond firmly into one end for nail. Squeeze in center to create a knuckle shape and use a sharp knife to make shallow cuts in several places to form knuckle. Place cookies on the prepared cookie sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes or until lightly golden. Let cool for a few minutes. Remove from cookie sheet and let cool on a wire rack. Repeat with remaining dough. Optional: Dip ends of fingers in red food coloring. Makes about 5 dozen.
* Not an actual picture of my cookies. I didn’t have one. This was taken from another Witches Fingers cookie recipe, but they look pretty much the same.
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