Halloween Recipes

Our blog is titled A-Squared Adventures, because I like to blog about Aaron and I’s adventures. The main purpose for this blog is so that I can remember what those adventures were. (I am not very good at remembering things- especially post pregnancy.) At the end of every year, and by year I mean year that I have been married, I print a blog book and give it to Aaron on our anniversary. Then we get to look back on all of our adventures together that year. I highly enjoy this tradition. That is what inspires me to keep up with the blog.

Recently, very recently, like today recently I have been inspired to blog about a few things that may not make the blog book , but some of you out there, whoever you are, may be interested in anyway. Crafty things, food things, that sort of stuff. I think I will devote next week (well most of next week- I don’t know if I will blog everyday) to fun non-blog book posts.

I will go ahead and start you off with the recipes from our little Halloween get together, since Halloween comes before next week. And I have gotten A LOT of requests- emails, comments- blog and in person on how to make these. (I know I am so popular, right? haha! Actually I forget that people read this blog. Except for Honey and Carla- thanks for being my consistent commenter's :)

Now I cannot take credit for these recipes. I am really not that creative. I just like to take ideas from other peoples creativeness (is that a word? hey! at least I can make up my own words ;) –ok looked it up- already a word. dang!) Below I have listed the links to the recipes as well as the actual recipes that I used.


Mini Mummy Pizzas-



I found the recipe here.

I changed up the recipe a little. I used mini bagels instead of English muffins. I just used olives for the eyes, I did not use scallions or peppers. I sliced up pieces of mozzarella cheese instead of using a cheese stick.


Spooky Chips and Guacamole-


I found the recipe here.

I just used their idea to make the chips. I cut out witch faces, cats, ghosts, pumpkins, and bats. I did not use their guacamole recipe. I used my own, which consists of avocadoes, lime juice, onions, tomatoes, and some salt and pepper.  I guess if you want the actual step by step recipe I can come back and add that later, just let me know.


Monster Carrot Fingers-



I did not use a recipe from online for these. I did see a picture of this done somewhere. I can’t remember where though. Then I just kept it in my memory bank of easy recipes (oh look I can remember things!)
Ingredients:

• Bag of carrot sticks
• Sliced almonds
• Cream cheese

1. Peel carrots.
2. Slice carrot sticks down the middle. Then cut those two carrot slices in half. (Making 4 “fingers” per carrot stick)
3. Dab cream cheese on the end of each carrot stick.
4. Place one sliced almond(finger nail) on top of the cream cheese.

Simple, fun, delicious Halloween recipes. Enjoy!

Carved

We were ready to carve our pumpkins, so we thought we would invite a few friends over to share in the fun!

We snacked on a few Halloween treats- carrot monster fingers with a spinach dip, mini mummy pizzas, and spooky chips and guacamole. (These were a lot of fun to make and so easy and healthy. I have been eating way too much candy this year.)
    

We carved our pumpkins. 
 

Lit them up.

And finished the night with some caramel apples.
 

It was a lot of fun!

(P.S. I am officially anti-blogger. It was getting too hard to work with- putting the pictures in order and in the right size and so many other frustrating things. So I now use Windows Live Writer to upload to my blog. It is so much easier and a lot more fun to work with. You can even tilt all of your pictures if you want- can you tell that I am a little obsessed? And no this is not a paid advertisement. I have just been getting a lot of questions about the blog lately so I thought I would share.)

Pumpkins!

I wanted to go to an actual pumpkin patch this year. I didn’t want a repeat of the last three years which consisted of picking up a King Soopers special that was always an after thought while leaving the store, “oh yea, pumpkins should we get some?.”

This year I wanted my pumpkin to come straight off the vine. So we headed up to Broomfield to Rock Creek Farm where they had an endless amount of pumpkins. The pumpkins went on for miles! This of course made it extremely difficult to pick. There were so many goods ones to choose from! In the end we decided to pick the biggest ones we could find.

      

 

Here are the winners. We haven’t had a chance to carve them yet so until then… witches and bats.

Halloween

I only decorate for 3 holidays, Christmas, Valentines and Halloween. And since Halloween is soon approaching it is time to decorate. I have been looking forward to this all year, because last year I had grand ideas on how to decorate our home for Halloween but I couldn’t even walk on my own for more than two minutes without passing out. Our house went undecorated and my ideas had to wait plus they kept building. This year I am back to my old self and I made sure to take full advantage of that.

The Mantel.  First, I cut out some bats and taped them to the mirror. Then I recovered some old books in Halloween paper. Next, I snagged some branches from our tree in the backyard to make our very own Halloween tree. Then I hung some pumpkin ornaments, laid down some spider web, and Voila! Our Halloween mantel.


The Front Porch. I am a doormat dork. I have a doormat for every season and holiday. This year I sewed some pillows for the swing. I wasn’t sure what design to use on the pillows. For now we have a ghost and a BOO! drawn on with chalk. Which is cool enough for the time being, but we can’t actually use the pillows or the chalk will rub off so I will be painting them soon.


The Dining Room. It is still lacking. I need some cool cups and napkins and maybe some cool silverware.  I’ll wait till after Halloweens sales to look for all of that. It works for now.


The Candy Bar. I love candy! I mean why else would Halloween be my favorite holiday? (besides the fact that I can dress up like a Disney princess and no one think it’s that strange. I think I might be Snow White instead of Belle this year. She’s more modest.) Last year I couldn’t eat candy or anything really so I am making up for it this year! Aaron would like this to become a tradition. I foresee high dentist bills in my children's future so we will see if this makes a return next year. The pumpkin candy corn are my favorite!


That’s what Halloween looks like at this Hunt home. Coming soon… a preview of Ethan’s costumes. He has 4! I get a little too excited sometimes!

Apple Cider

I grew up in Chicago (well suburbs of). Almost the first 18 years of my life were spent there. That is why I am genuinely surprised at how much I love Denver. I feel like this is more of my home than Chicago ever was. I hate Chicago's humid sweaty summers. I hate it’s freezing, windy, icy winters. But there are a few things that I do miss about it. Some are strange, like worms. Yes, I miss the worms. Every time after it rains the ground is covered in hundreds of worms. You have to consciously try not to step on them there are so many. For some reason I loved it.

Not everything I miss is strange. The one thing that Denver will never be able to live up to is the Fall. Chicago has the most beautiful Fall season. The trees are amazing! Sure Colorado has its trees, but nothing like the ones in Illinois. One of my favorites parts about Fall was going to the Farms. Now I don’t know where these Farms are, but I have so many memories of them. Going and picking apples and pumpkins. Getting to pet actual farm animals. It was so much fun. This is something that I have yet to find here in Colorado. At least nothing that compares.

This past Saturday I found something that may be the closest that I am going to get to my Illinois Farms. It was the Lakewood Apple Cider Festival. Now it wasn’t a farm, but it had some farm like activities. Ethan got to experience a petting zoo. Aaron and I got to make our very own apple cider!  

I have been wanting to do this for years, but haven't gotten around to it. When I heard that they had an apple press that we could use, I knew we had to go!

First we got our apples. (Then we waited in line for an hour, worth it though!)

 

Then we cranked the wheel and crushed the apples.

Then we put the pressure on and squeezed the juice out.

Then we poured ourselves some apple cider!

I am now begging Aaron to build me my own apple press and plant me a fully grown apple tree in the back yard. That’s not to much to ask, right ;)

Thursday

View Full Album

Park Burger + Peanut Butter Chocolate shake + Washington Park + Husband with a day off work = The most fabulous Thursday afternoon!