Bonesticks, Witches Brew, Spiders & Eyeballs

Here's a few foodie traditions we started this year, thanks to my wonderful friend & visiting teacher, Andrea. She's created some really fun traditions with her family, and with a little encouragement from her, and Chrissy, I decided to go for it. (ha, Chrissy, maybe this will motivate you to blog again. ;)

I love baking, so this was a treat for me. I ended up making probably around 4 dozen "bonesticks" from scratch. Some were for the cook off, but we had to make a last minute trip to get black hair spray before the party, so they weren't judged. Andrea said she's done this with just biscuits in a can. I used my mama's famous bread recipe, rolled the dough out like you would for cinnamon rolls, then cut in strips and in half again. You then tie a knot in each end to form the bone. I baked mine for 10 minutes, instead of the normal 15 for rolls. Brush with butter or butter with garlic powder. Mmmmmmmmmm!

I've been craving Emilie's Marvelous Minestrone, so threw some in my Witch's Pot Sunday morning. I cooked it on high for a couple of hours and it was done before church. We had lots of fun dissecting the brew to find children's ears (pasta shells), frog legs (green beans), yellow teeth (corn), toad eyes (garbanzo beans), & blood (tomato based broth) to suck down. Topped with wizard's hair (shredded mozzarella or parmesan) of course!

Ben asked me Fri. afternoon to make goodies for the families he home teaches, and said he'd help. Well he was helpful in keeping the boys busy & eating licorice, but you know. Here's a recipe for Peanut Butter Eyeballs that Chrissy sent me. I was going to bring them to her shin-dig Halloween night, but ended up sick at home watching cartoon Halloween movies with the fam instead. Mine didn't turn out nearly as cute, but the boys loved them!

I googled these Oreo Spider Cookies. I remembered seeing them in a magazine in years past. They're more difficult than they look. I don't really care for multi-step cookies, esp. when the darn oreos crumble so easily. But they were the cutest spiders I've ever seen!

The best new tradition was Kaleb's big idea to set the spooky mood. We ate our dinner by Jack'o'Lantern & candlelight. So fun! Here's a few pics of earlier in the month. We made candy skewers, caramel candy apples, and Haunted Houses with friends.

Can you say sugar overload?!?