What happens when you make apple muffins in the shape of pumpkins? You confuse the hell out of six-year-old boys.
Halloween is not my favorite holiday. My childhood memories are not to be relied upon, but I remember it feeling very stressful, this whole dressing up. It always seemed to be some last minute scramble and I’d end up as a ghost (with the entire face cut out so I could see) or a gypsy, anything that could be made from things we already had in the house.
As an adult, I haven’t been able to embrace it. Dressing up in costume just bores me. I mean, it’s not any different than regular dressing up and I hate that too.
This year, though, I decided to embrace a different aspect of it. I do like decorating the house. And I like cooking. So this year, we had a couple of kids over for dinner, and for them I made fingers (mozzarella cheese with green peppers), mouths (apples with almonds), and (work with me on this one) a monster brain (I know–I really need to work on that one). And of course the main dish was mummy dogs, a popular dish around here. For the grown-ups I made blood drinks (sangria), eyeballs (marinated mozzarella with olives), and spider dip (just seven-layer dip with a really lame spider web drawn on it).
After dinner the kids went trick or treating. They enjoyed themselves, but were quite happy to turn their candy over to the Switch Witch. I gorged myself silly on Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and Heath Bars. I still feel sick from it.
All in all, an okay time on my not-favorite holiday. Maybe I’ll figure out some more fun recipes for next year. In the meantime, we now move on to my absolute favorite holiday: Thanksgiving! Turkey and parades and races and football and hot mulled cider. Does it get any better than that?
