Pumpkin Carving: I Wish I Could Do That

Happy Halloween

If I had a ton of free time and wasn't working and raising two kids on my own, I would take a pumpkin carving class. Do they have those??? Well, they should. Because if they did I would take them and do amazing things like these.

Spider Man

ET

This one's great!

Gizmo

Totally cool eye

Jack

This is absolutely amazing!

Smile Face

Bulldog

Apple

WOW!

Winnie the Pooh

Bulldog

Frankenstein

Hamburger

Super cool, right?  We will be sticking with the basic triangle eyes, nose and a mouth.  =o)

Happy Halloween!

A Fun Halloween Meal for the Kids: Puking Pumpkins

I'm totally having fun with this whole fun food for dinner Saturday night. I love seeing my kid's faces when I put their plate on the table. I love hearing "no way. Great job, Mom." It makes my entire day!

And how could I not make this for Halloween?!?! I'm not sure where I saw it. A Heart Full of Love made stuffed pepper jack 'o lanterns but they were a little different.  Taste of Home also did something similar, but different.  But I knew my kids would love this idea.  I mean really, which wouldn't love a pumpkin barfing up spaghetti???  My son had me "fill 'er up" four times!

They were really easy.  We used orange peppers and carved little faces in them.  Then we made spaghetti and filled them up.  Take a fork or a knife and pull some of the noodles out through the mouth.  And voila!  Puking pumpkins.

I'm linking to the parties on my sidebar.

Witch Finger Cookies

Have you ever just wanted to give someone a finger??? Not the finger... a finger.  Ha!  I crack myself up sometimes.  (I'm hoping that's not a bad thing....) 

I found this great finger pan from Wilton last Halloween but never got a chance to use it.  So it was calling our name from the pantry this year and we just had to make Witch Finger cookies.

We used our favorite shortbread cookie recipe.  We just love shortbread cookies!  And what's better than shortbread???  Shortbread dipped in milk chocolate.  Right?  So we covered the back side with chocolate (so you can still tell they are fingers.)  =o)

And there you have it.  I'm going to take them to work tomorrow and tell everyone I'm giving them the finger.  Ha!

I hope I don't eat them all!

I'm linking to the parties on my sidebar.

Mummy Burgers

Oh, the pressure. My son's request to make "fun food" every Saturday night for dinner is already getting to me. How do people come up with all these ideas??? Well, however they do it, I'm just grateful they do. That way I can copy them and my kids think I'm amazing =o)

Jill over at Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons made these adorable Mummy Burgers. Hers look much better but I didn't show my kids her pictures (so they'll never know.) =o)

They were really simple and a huge hit.

Grill up your hamburger patties.

We used mozzarella cheese because that's what my kids like.  We sliced it into strips and placed it on the hamburger patty.  Cut small circles out of the cheese for the eyes and draw on a pupil with your black food marker.  You could also use ketchup for eyes.

I'm linking to the parties on my sidebar.

Gory Cupcakes for Halloween

For Halloween do you do silly fun or gory?  We always do silly fun but I do like a little bit of the gross.  So when I saw these cupcakes over on Pinterest (my new love) from Cakehead Loves Evil I knew we had to make them. Totally cool, right?!?!

We made stained glass candy and stuck them into frosted cupcakes.  My kids thought they were so cool.  And my daughter loved the glass candy.

Happy Halloween!!!





I'm linking to the parties on my sidebar.

Spider Web Snacks

I love that I found these over on Mom Endeavors. I knew immediately that this was a Halloween snack we had to make.

Super easy which means little helpers can do this one all on their own!

What you'll need:

* stick pretzels

* white melting chocolate

* raisins 

* milk chocolate melting chocolate

Arrange the pretzels like this

Squirt some white chocolate in the middle to secure the pieces and then make 3 circles around the pretzels.

Add 2 raisins to look like a spider.

Cover the raisins in milk chocolate (if you want.)

Make sure there's a lot of giggles and laughter while you're doing this =o)

Let them set!

And then eat up!

I think my helpers had fun.

These were my daughters spider webs.  Hmmmmm.....  But she had fun.  That's all that counts!

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{Secret Recipe Club} Cinnabun Cheesecake

I was so excited to get my blog assignment this month for the Secret Recipe Club --- Betcha Can't Eat Just One.  As soon as I clicked on Katie's blog I knew I was in heaven.  Her blog is amazing and I just love every single one of her recipes!  Katie lives on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.  (Thank you for not posting your recipes in metric.)  =o)

It was so hard to pick just one thing to make.  I seriously had about 6 recipes that were a "must try" but how in the world was I going to narrow it down to just one.  I mean really.  Her Baked Pumpkin Spiced Donuts look amazing!  And then there's her Danish Pastry - oh my!  But as soon as I clicked on her Cinnabun Cheesecake post - I'm pretty sure I heard harp music and a dim light started to glow off the walls.  It was a sign.

Do you want to know more about the Secret Recipe Club?  Check out the website and see how it works.  Amanda of Amanda's Cooking explains it all.  There are so many bloggers that participate each month we were assigned into different groups.  So a huge thanks to Tina of Mom's Crazy Cooking for hosting my group!

Now on to this amazing recipe.

For the crust:

* 1 1/2 cups finally crushed cinnamon cookies (I couldn't find cinnamon cookies so I used cinnamon graham crackers.)

* 1/4 cup butter, melted

* 2 Tbsp. brown sugar

For the filling:

* 1 1/2 pounds cream cheese, softened (3 packages)

* 1 cup sugar

* 1/2 cup whipping cream

* 4 large eggs

* 2 tsp. vanilla extract

* 1/4 cup flour

* 1 cup course chopped cinnamon cookies

* 2 Tbsp. cinnamon plus 1/4 cup sugar

* caramel sundae topping

Note: Katie put raisins in her cheesecake but we opted to leave those out.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Spray a 9" springform pan with cooking spray.

For the crust, mix the cookies, butter and sugar and press into the springform pan.

In the bowl of a mixer, blend cream cheese, sugar and whipping cream until smooth (about 3-4 minutes.)  Stir in the eggs, flour and vanilla and mix until smooth (about another 3 minutes.)

Pour 1/3 of the filling over the crust and sprinkle with crushed cookie crumbs and cinnamon and sugar.  Repeat with more filling, cookies and cinnamon and sugar to make 3 layers.

Bake for 60-75 minutes.  Make sure you start checking the cheesecake after about 60 minutes.  If it's jiggly, continue cooking for another 5 minutes and check.

DO NOT REMOVE FROM THE OVEN!

Turn oven off and open the door a crack to allow the cheesecake to cool for one hour.

Place in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours or overnight.  (This is the torture part!)

Before you serve it, cover drizzle caramel syrup over the top.

My thoughts on this recipe?  HOLY COW!!!  It was so darn good.  I'm so sad that I only made one =o)  Definitely a recipe we will make again.

Here are the other amazing bloggers who are participating in group B. Wow, right???