Halloween Cake - Eat Dirt!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

It's been far too long since I had an excuse to decorate a cake. Jimmie doesn't like cake, so I don't make them for his birthday.

I was inspired about a month ago when I found a skeleton garland at the dollar store in St Louis. I decided then and there that I'd be making a halloween cake.

I had some serious fun putting together these graveyard cakes tonight. I was baking a cake to take to a work party tomorrow, so I thought I'd just double the fun and take one to the church trunk or treat and chili cookoff, too! My favorite part ended up being the 'picket' fence around the pumpkin patch.

Spiderweb Pizzas

How cool is this? I came across this fun halloween meal idea on another blog. It came from the current issue of Woman's Day. Although I probably will not go to trouble of making this purely to entertain myself, I thought if would be fun for my nieces and nephews. :)

Happy Halloween season!

Spiderweb Pizzas

INGREDIENTS
1 pkg (10 oz) prebaked mini 8-in pizza crusts (Boboli) OR use pita bread

1/3 cup pizza sauce

2 mozzarella string cheese

3 large pitted black olives

PREPARATION
1. Heat oven to 450°F. Place crusts on a baking sheet; top with sauce. Pull cheese into thin strips; place on pizzas in the shape of a web.

2. Bake pizza for 8 to 10 minutes until cheese melts. Cool 3 minutes.

3. Cut off one end of 2 olives for spider heads. Halve remaining olives lengthwise. Use one half for body; cut remaining pieces into strips for legs. Assemble spider on each pizza.

BaGeL, BaBy!

In my opinion, it's not easy to find a good bagel. We have bagels at Panera Bread and Atlanta Bread here, but they don't really count in the world of bagels.

Growing up in CA, we had a favorite place called The Bagel Basket, which was conveniently located near the high school. My best friend Elisa's mom worked there when we were 12 and she'd let us come with her at the crack of dawn on Saturdays to get the bagels going and even help customers. We thought that was pretty cool at 12. I still appreciate knowing the bagel cooking process, which involves rising, boiling, then baking to bagel-y perfection.

When I went away to college, I discovered Einstein Bros Bagels. This is when I discovered a plethora of flavored cream cheeses. And bagel sandwiches. And bagel dogs. Who knew a bagel could taste so great in so many different ways?

After college, I was able to do quite a bit of travel to New York when I worked for Twinlab. On several occasions, we made the drive from Long Island over to New Jersey for meetings at The Vitamin Shoppe. Part of our routine was stopping for 'the best bagels in New York' (according to Bob, our VP of Sales). 'The best bagels in New York' happened to be a little bagel shop located in Queens, for which I sadly cannot remember the name. To this day I can say that I've never had a better bagel. Several people have told me the reason bagels are better in NY has to do with the water, and that's why NY bagels and pizza can't be duplicated elsewhere. I was also happy to be accompanied by a few very tall men when we stopped for bagels in Queens. We drove through some projects where I wouldn't want to be stranded, for sure.

Recently, Meg, Jerushia and I discovered an Einstein Bros Bagels while we were in St Louis. We had breakfast there two days in a row. We'd had butterburgers at Culvers for dinner the night before, which was so good. As Jerushia said after bagels, "The food on this trip just keeps getting better and better!"

Anyway, the point of this path down bagel memory lane is to say that there really aren't any good bagels in our neck of the woods.

Until now.

Has anyone else noticed the brand new Einstein Bros Bagels that just opened next to Home Depot, behind Olive Garden?

BaGeL, BaBy!!!

Pumpkin Muffins

Can you bake without flour?

I've gotten in the habit of baking while listening to conference on the internet (it certainly keeps me more attentive than falling asleep on the sofa!). I've been excited to try a recipe my sister Natalie shared for Pumpkin Macadamia White Chip cookies, and bought all of the necessary ingredients yesterday. Although my flour canister was empty, I didn't buy flour because I have a 5 gallon bucket of it in my pantry....just needed to refill the canister.

So, I pulled out my 5 gallon bucket this morning and discovered it was FULL of weevils. I should've guessed as much. Even double bagging contents doesn't seem to keep those guys out anything. So, I tossed the entire contents into the garbage. I guess that's why it's worth paying a bit extra to buy it in sealed cans. And then I improvised.

Do you need flour to bake? Not when you make these little yummies.



I combined 1 yellow cake mix with 1 cup of pumpkin, a little cinnamon and some allspice. And 25 minutes later, voila! Yummy, moist pumpkin muffins. Yep, there's already one missing from that pan, because I ate it! A little dallup of Cool Whip put this little baby over the top.



I'm glad I have a party to take them to so I don't eat them all!

I froze the other cup of pumpkin so I can make those cookies later this month.