Trick-or-Treat! While we are passing out candy tonight in Amber’s drive way, we will be happily enjoying a tasty creepy dinner. The other days I shared my Mummy Meatloaf recipe and now I will be sharing our annual Halloween dinner, Mini Mummy Pizzas. Its fast, fun, and easy to eat in the middle of Trick-or-Treaters.

Makes 12 Pizzas

Ingredients
     Package of 6 English Muffins
     Pizza Sauce
     Pepperonis
     Sliced Black Olives
     Mozzarella Cheese cut into strips

Instructions
     Preheat oven to 375. Split the English muffins and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 5 minutes or until crispy. Remove the muffins from the oven and spread a spoonful of pizza sauce on each muffin. Top with pepperonis. Cover with the strips of cheese in a mummy pattern. Use the sliced olives for the eyes. Bake for another 7 to 8 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

Enjoy with a glass of Witches Punch or a bottle of Pumpkin Beer.

Happy Halloween!!!

Halloween time is a time for spooky snacks and sweet treats. I love to decorate cakes and cupcakes as you may have noticed so of course I have to make something extra fun for my favorite holiday. Every year at work we have a Halloween Costume Potluck and every year I try to make something different. After playing around online I came up with a super easy idea I wanted to share, Halloween Witch Hat Cupcakes.

Make and frost the cupcakes as normal, but top with this super cute witch’s hat. You’ll need a package of round chocolate covered cookies, a bag of Kisses and extra orange frosting.  Lay the chocolate cookies flat on wax papered, squeeze a dollop of frosting on each cookie and top with the Kisses. Place a hat on each cupcake and you are ready to party!

Nothing is better than homemade meatloaf. This is a fun and spooky twist on a homemade classic.

Serves: Makes 10 servings
Prep Time 10 Minutes, Cook Time 1 hour

Ingredients
     2 pounds lean ground beef
     2 eggs
     1 chopped green bell pepper
     ½ chopped red onion
     ½ cup milk
     ¼ cup crumbled saltine crackers
     ½ 8oz canned tomato sauce
     1 package Meat Loaf Seasoning Mix
     Salt and Pepper to taste

Topping
     ½ 8oz canned tomato sauce
     ½ cup ketchup
     White Sliced Cheese of your choice, cut into strips

Instruction

Preheat oven to 375°F. Mix all ingredients in large bowl until well blended.

Shape meat mixture into a mummy in a casserole dish. Top with other half of canned tomato sauce and ketchup. Cover with tin foil. 

Bake 45 minutes or until cooked through. Remove tin foil and cook for 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and cover with the strips of white cheese in a mummy pattern and add olives or slices of bell pepper for eyes. Cover with tin foil for 5 minutes or until cheese has slightly melted.

Enjoy!

As you know by now Amber and I love costumes. A few years ago we started going to our local Comic Con and last year they started doing a cosplay contest. So this year we decided we needed to dress up. We had no desire to compete with some of the amazing costumes we were seeing but felt we needed to dress up and sport our nerdy personalities and support this local event. We were overwhelmed with all of the amazing costumes we got to see this year! Our costumes were simple in comparison but I'm sure they were a lot more comfortable!! We decided to go as the dramatic duo Batman and Robin! The plan was to have the hubbies be Two Face and the Riddler, but since Jack had to leave early he didn't want to be in costume and Aaron didn't want to be the only guy costume. Oh well Amber and I had a blast!

Batman:
 Batman shirt with cape
 Black faux leather skirt
 Black tights
 Black knee high boots
 Mask bought at the Halloween store

Robin:
 Robin shirt with cape
 Green skirt made from a simple circle pattern and stretchy green fabric
 Black boots
 Mask bought at the Halloween store

Tonight is our annual Halloween Party and this year we decided to keep it simple and watch classic Horror Films. But that being said we still need some devilish movie snacks! I made Evil Monster Eyeballs and Wicked Witch Fingers.....not only are creepy, but quite tasty!

Evil Monster Eyeballs
     1 Dozen Hard Boiled Eggs, peeled and sliced
     Mustard
     Mayonnaise
     Sliced Black Olives
     Green and/or Red Food Coloring
     Chili Powder

Mix egg yokes, mustard, mayonnaise, and salt and pepper to taste. Divide if using more than one food color and add a few drops of food color and mix. Use a piping bag and fill each slice egg until full. Top with a sliced black olive and sprinkle with chili powder.

Wicked Witch Fingers
     White String Cheese, cut into two halves
     Red, Yellow, and/or Green Bell Pepper
     Ranch Dip

Open and deseed the bell peppers. Cut into 1/2 in strips, then cut into triangles for the finger nails. Next cut knuckle lines into each half of the string cheese. Cut a small flat piece at the edge of each cheese stick wide enough for the bell pepper finger nail. Fill the area with ranch dip and lastly place a bell pepper  finger nail on the ranch dip.

Halloween is one of my favorite times of year! I love the weather cooling off and the leaves changing colors. This year Jack and I decided to go to Halloween Disney to celebrate this favorite time of year. Halloween Disney is the only time they allow adults to be in costume at Disneyland and of course it's me so we needed costumes or it wouldn't be as much fun. I had a hard time trying to decide on what I wanted us to be, I needed to consider that we would be walking around for hours and riding rides. The costumes needed to be comfortable or both of us would of been miserable. In the end we went as Mary Poppins and Bert. We tweaked the costumes to be a little more modern and therefore a little more comfortable. See below the description on what we wore and how I made my perfectly perfect Mary Poppins hat!

Bert:

Long Sleeve Blue Shirt
Grey Pants
Beret (newspaper boy hat), found on eBay
Red Scarf, I made from a piece of red fabric
Black comfortable shoes

Mary Poppins:

White Polo Shirt
Long Navy Skirt
Red bow tie, I made from red ribbon and a safety pin
Black comfortable flat Mary Jane's
Black straw hat with cherries and daisies

To make Mary's hat, I bought a small black straw hat on eBay, some small white daisies and fake cherries from the craft store. I found a close up picture of her hat and matched the placement of the daisies and fake cherries.

Earlier this year I attempted to run my first 5K and didn't do as well as I had hoped since a few weeks before the event I really messed up my ankle. I still had a lot of fun doing it and I still want to push myself to be able to run a 5k. However, stupidly I talked my friend into doing the 10k Spooktacular Halloween Run instead of just the 5k. In honest truth a 10k is much harder than a 5k when you are not prepared. I didn't train like I needed to and it hurt me on race day. On a more positive fun note a Halloween Run means Halloween Running Costumes! Our original idea was to be Thing 1 and Thing 2 from the Cat and the Hat, but we decided to be Alice and the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. When we did the Super Hero run back in April we had tutus and decided we wanted to go the route again. The costumes were comfortable, easy to run in, and super fun! We got a lot of compliments at the event! Even Jack came and cheered us on as we (finally) crossed the finish line!

Queen of Hearts
     Black Tank Top
     Red Lace
     Gold Trim
     Red Rose
     3 Yards Black Ribbon
     Red, White, and Black Rolls of Tulle
     Red and Black Glitter Foam

I sewed the red lace and gold trim on the tank top to make it look more like something a queen would wear. I cut two small red hearts from the red glitter foam and sewed them on the tank top.

For the tutu I alternated groups of red, white, and black tulle on a black ribbon. I sewed on larger red glitter hearts and black glitter spades onto some of the strips of tulle. Lastly I added the red rose and black bow to the front of the skirt.

She found purchased the cute crown and socks.

Alice
     Blue Cotton T-Shirt
     White Lace
     Silver Trim
     Thin Black Ribbon
     3 Yards White Ribbon
     Blue Rolls of Tulle
     1/2 Yard of White fabric

I sewed the white lace around the neckline of my top and added a thin black bow. I cut the fabric in a simple apron shape and sewed the top of it to the t-shirt. I left the bottom unsewn so it could be easily tied into place over the tutu. I sewed a little silver trim to the top of the apron.

For the tutu I simply knotted blue strips of tulle on a white ribbon. Once on I was able to tie the other white ribbon with the ribbon from the tutu to hold the bottom part of the apron in place.  

I bought the stripped sock and made the black bow for my hair.

Last week I shared my recipe for Turkey Pumpkin Chili, this week I am going to share another great dinner recipe that's made with pumpkin. The smells in this dish just makes it the perfect comfort food on a chilly fall night!

Ingredients
     2 Pounds Skinless, Boneless Chicken Breast, cubed
     3 Pounds Pumpkin, cubed
     1 Onion, chopped
     1 Can Garbanzo Beans
     2 14.5oz Cans Diced Tomatoes
     1 Tbsp Brown Sugar
     1 Tbsp Ground Coriander
     1 tsp Ground Cumin
     1/2 tsp Ground Ginger
     1/4 tsp Ground Cinnamon
     Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions
     Place tomatoes, brown sugar, coriander, cumin, ginger, cinnamon, and salt and pepper and stir to combine. Mix in the chicken, pumpkin, onions and garbanzo beans. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.

***To freeze the meal, put everything together and freeze until needed. To Cook thaw overnight in the refrigerator and follow the directions above.  

For a very festive dinner, serve in a hallowed out Pumpkin!

October is Pumpkin time! Everyone always thinks of pumpkin bread or pie when cooking with pumpkin, but pumpkin is after all a squash! A recipe I came across years ago and have altered over time is a great turkey pumpkin chili. It is a perfect meal on a chilly fall night, throw all of the ingredients in a slower cooker and by the time it's ready your house will be filled with the smells of fall.

Ingredients
     2 Pounds Ground Turkey 
     1 Yellow Onion, chopped
     1 28oz Can Diced tomatoes
     2 Cups Cubed Fresh Pumpkin
     1 Can Chili Beans
     1 Can Black Beans
     3 Tbsp Brown Sugar
     1/8 tsp Pumpkin Spice
     1 Tbsp Chili Powder

Directions
     Crumble the raw ground turkey in the bottom of the slower cooker. Add the chopped onions, tomatoes, pumpkin, chili and black beans, sugar, pumpkin spice, and chili powder. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.

***To freeze the meal, put everything together and freeze until needed. To Cook thaw overnight in the refrigerator and follow the directions above.  

It's Fall!! I love October. I love that the air is cooling down and has that fresh crisp smell. I love watching the leaves change colors. Mostly I love getting to decorate for Halloween!!! My FAVORITE Holiday!! I had poor Jack pull out all of my Halloween decorations today so I can enjoy them for as long as possible. Since my fireplace is practically still under construction I wanted to post a picture of how I decorated it for Halloween.

The spider web is fabric that I got from the craft store and cut it down the middle online the web design. The witch hat, shoes, and broom were from a costume a few years early. The shoes were actually made from an old pair of shoes I bought from my favorite thrift store for costumes and I added rhinestone buckles and panted the sparkly black. The pumpkins were decorated with glue and glitter, shiny spider web fabric and black knitted dollies. The black roses and caldron I found at craft stores as well.