Perk #1

* Let your creativity loose on a pumpkin.  Get out a knife and get carving.  It doesn’t matter what face you choose, the act of carving a pumpkin stimulates the creative right side of your brain, which is responsible for feelings of playfulness.

Need inspiration for carving ideas?

Go to ThePumpkinFarm.com

Perk #2

Dressing up for Halloween is not just for the kids.  You can release tension by wearing a costume yourself.  Dressing up for Halloween  has been proven to help adults de-stress by letting them reveal other sides of themselves that are normally stifled.  What a great way to be a superhero or a vampire, for a day, without worrying about looking silly.

Perk #3

You can rekindle romance with a horror flick.  Watching scary movies with your loved one revs up the relationship even more than watching a romantic movie.  Getting scared together pumps up the adrenaline and triggers the same brain chemicals that are released when you first fall in love, thus renewing your passion.

I love Halloween. Today for you Coffee Break readers, I  have two fun Halloween recipe ideas using refrigerated crescent roll dough  and refrigerated breadstick dough.  Couldn’t be simpler. And oh so cute!  Impress your family with these simple and fun ideas.

If you missed last week’s recipe for  Creepy Eyeball Treats, check them out.

Witches Hats

Ingredients:

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Separate dough.  Shape each piece into a long triangle.Place 1 salami stick piece along base of each dough triangle.  Partially roll up dough to cover salami and create brim of hat.
3. Place 4 pepperoni halves on top part of each hat.
4. Place on ungreased nonstick baking sheet and bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown at edges.
5. Warm sauce in microwave.  Serve witches hats with warm sauce for dipping.

Breadstick Broomsticks

Ingredients:

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Unroll dough and divide along perforations. For each broomstick, shape breadstick into 8X1-1/2-inch strip; twist one end for handle. Cut 5 or 6 slits (2 inches long) into opposite end; separate dough at slits for straw.
2. Place about 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets and bake 15 to 18 minutes or until golden brown.

Be sure to check out these other Liz and Kate Halloween ideas:

• Halloween Month: Creepy Eyeball Treats & Monster Mash
• Halloween Month: Disgusting Deviled Egg Eyeballs & Toads in a Blanket
• Disgusting Worm Salad
• How to make Disneyland Gourmet Caramel Apples

~Kate

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

Do you know who we owe this great (often misquoted…does bubble, bubble toil and trouble ring a bell?) Halloween diddy to??? It’s none other than Mr. William Shakespeare.

I love the month of October…the crisp air and crunchy fall leaves…the pumpkin patches and corn mazes…the apple scented candles and Fall break at school.

But most of all, I love dressing up for Halloween, and most years you’ll find me in some variation of a witch costume. I think my witch thing started just after I was married, when I dressed up as a witch out of desperation because we were struggling newlyweds and the only costume-y thing I owned was a witch’s hat. I won a witch cackling contest that year and the rest, as they say, is history.

Luckily, I live in a place that seems to embrace my witchy side. This past weekend an estimated 10,000 witches gathered for Witches Night Out at Gardner Village in West Jordan, Utah, for two nights of spell binding fun. Did you catch that number? Ten thousand ladies willing, dare I say even excited, to dress up as witches and go out proudly into the public and parade around cackling with wicked glee.

I was one of those witches. So were 4 of my 5 daughters. I have trained them well, have I not? (The 5th one was not able to come along because of a silly thing called higher education.)

Check out those pink fur boots.

This is what I want to be when I grow up…

So get your inner witch on this Halloween…I dare you!

And I’ll leave you with this -

Act IV, Scene 1 from Macbeth (1606) by William Shakespeare

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

.

Three Scottish witches are going about their business—tossing poisoned entrails, eye of newt, toe of frog, and such, into a cauldron—while awaiting a visit from the man they said would be king: Macbeth. “Double, double toil and trouble” is part of the refrain to their demonic incantation… The collective memory has clouded somewhat; often, this refrain comes to mind in the jumbled form “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.” The witches are actually trying, with their spells, to pile up toil and trouble until they “double”—yielding twice the toil and double the trouble for Macbeth, presumably. enotes.com

~Kate

Enjoy your Coffee Break and Happy Halloween!

• Halloween Month: Creepy Eyeball Treats & Monster Mash
• Halloween Month: Witches Hats & Breadstick Broomsticks
• Halloween Month: Disgusting Deviled Egg Eyeballs & Toads in a Blanket
• Disgusting Worm Salad
• How to make Disneyland Gourmet Caramel Apples

One of my favorite Halloween traditions is roasting the pumpkin seeds after my family carves their pumpkins. It’s a delicious and healthy treat that everyone will love.

How to Roast Pumpkin Seeds

1. After you remove the seeds from the pumpkin ( the ooey-gooey best part of carving pumpkins, in my opinion) rinse pumpkin seeds under cold water and pick out the pulp and strings. Do this right away before the pulp dries.
2. Place the pumpkin seeds in a single layer on a baking sheet, stirring to  sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.
3. Sprinkle with salt (garlic salt and seasoned salt are also delicious options) and bake at 325 degrees F until toasted, about 25 minutes.  Stir seeds about half way through cooking time.
4. Let cool and store in an air-tight container.

Nevertheless, I’ve come across quite a few spookily-themed foods of late. This one, in my humble opinion, is pretty jolly gross. And I figure, why should I have all the fun?

Mind you, this meal is someone else’s brainchild. It appears on AllRecipes, courtesy of Angela O. Maybe you could serve it just before heading out to trick… or treat. So without further ado, I bring you Bloody Baked Rats.

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds ground beef
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup dry bread crumbs
• 1 (1.25 ounce) packet meatloaf seasoning mix
• 1 cup cubed Cheddar cheese
• 3 (10 ounce) cans tomato sauce
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 ounce uncooked spaghetti, broken into fourths
• 1/2 carrot, cut into 1/8-inch thick slices
• 1 tablespoon frozen green peas

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, combine the ground beef, onion, egg, bread crumbs, and meatloaf seasoning. Use your hands to mix until well blended. Measure out 1/3 cupfuls of the meat mixture and mold around a cube of cheese like a meatball. Shape into a point at one end and lengthen the body a bit by rolling between your hands. Place your ”rat” into a shallow baking dish, and continue with the remaining meat. Insert pieces of uncooked spaghetti into the rounded end of the rats to make tails.
3. In a medium bowl, stir together the tomato sauce, sugar and Worcestershire sauce. Pour over the rats in the dish and cover the dish with a lid or aluminum foil.
4. Bake for 45 minutes in the preheated oven. Uncover the dish and continue to bake for another 20 to 30 minutes, basting occasionally with the sauce to glaze the rats.
5. While the rats finish baking, heat the peas and carrots in a small bowl in the microwave for about 15 seconds.
6. Carefully transfer the rats to a serving platter so that their delicate tails don’t fall off. Press peas into the pointy end to make eyes, and insert carrot slices to make ears. Spoon some of the tomato sauce around them and serve.

-Liz

Check out Kate’s ideas for beating Halloween hunger here.

Recipe and photo for Bloody Baked Rats courtesy of AllRecipes.com

• Halloween Express recently caught a shoplifter. The punishment? The thief had to stand outside the store in a Bert (from Sesame Street) costume, holding a sign that read: I got caught shoplifting… Now. Does anyone else see the ineffectiveness of this? Or is it just me?

• Nothing rhymes with orange. Really. I’m not kidding.

• Everyone’s seen orange pumpkins – and probably green and white ones. But did you know there are actually blue pumpkins, too?

• The US spends an average of $2 billion on Halloween candy each year. Another $1.5 billion is spent on costumes, while $2.5 billion is spent on Halloween paraphernalia.

• Eighty-six billion Americans decorate their homes.

• Upwards of 93 percent of kids under 12 go trick-or-treating (that breaks down to roughly 36 million goblins). Ninety percent of adults admit to sneaking a piece or two of candy from their kids’  bags. I say that estimate is about 10 percent too low (Not that I would ever do that…)

• A rather unique program, launched this year by National Childrens Oral Health Foundation  is asking Americans to put a different spin on trick-or-treating, by collecting money for the tooth fairy: Trick or Treat for America’s Toothfairy(true story).

• If you’re in for a good joke, check out this list of Halloween howlers. On that note, I’ll  leave you with my favorite: Do zombies eat popcorn with their fingers? No, they eat the fingers separately. Muah-hahahaha.

Tell us how you’ll be celebrating this year! Just leave us a comment below!

-Liz

Since Easter is only days away, I’ve been out stocking up on my Peeps supply. Heaven forbid I leave my Peep shopping to the last minute, and to my horror, find the shelves bare of the ooey, gooey, sugary marshmallow treats. I would be forever disowned as head holiday empress of my kingdom.

I love me some Peeps! Do you love Peeps, too?

I’ve gathered a few peep-a-liscious ideas in case you’d like to impress your peeps with your Peep skills .

How to make S’meeps: S’mores + Peeps

Serious Eats.com

How to make Peepshi: Peeps + Sushi

Serious Eats.com

How to make Peepsicles: Peeps + Popsicles

Serious Eats.com

How do they make these things, anyway?

How Peeps are Made, from the Chicago Tribune

FYI, I found an official Peeps Fan Club, should you wish to add this impressive club membership to your resume.

There’s also the annual Washington Post – Peep Shows I, II, III, IV, & V

And for the brave – Peep Experiments at Peep Research.org

I wouldn’t recommend this next one unless you’re a complete kook who wants to mess with perfection. But in case you are, here’s a recipe for making your own Peeps – How to make Peeps.

Last but not least, Miss Liz got creative with some Peeps this week with a Peeps on a string.

And in completely unrelated Peeps news: Peeps by Scott Westerfeld

~Kate

Hey, Kate! Great post! But I think you forgot one very special use for Peeps… (howling with laughter).

Since April Fools’ Day is coming up in a few days, we decided this post from two years ago is worth a Second Glance...

It’s finally here.  The day when I get to release my pent up immaturity…the day when it’s perfectly acceptable for me to feel mischievous and sneaky…the day when I get to be all the things I try to teach my kids not to be.

I must confess, when I was writing yesterday’s ridiculous story, I kind of creeped myself out.  Talk about a prank gone awry.   I’m still paying for that one and will be for many, many more years. Just kidding about the whole awry thing.  It’s a prank that went wonderfully right.  (See yesterday’s post)

Anyway, here’s my prank for this year. I decided to play is safe and work with food.   It’s a TV dinner of a drumstick, mashed potatoes & gravy, peas & carrots, corn on the cob, and a brownie with sprinkles for dessert, all in a disposable store bought foil tray.  Here’s the catch…it’s all made of cupcakes.

Here’s how I did it…

Brownie – It’s just a cupcake frosted in chocolate swirled frosting with sprinkles on top.

Peas & carrots – It’s a cupcake frosted in green frosting.  The peas are green runts and the carrots are orange starbursts cut into 4ths.  Just place both randomly on top of the frosting.

Mashed potatoes and gravy – It’s a cupcake frosted with white frosting with a dip in the middle like real potatoes would have. .  The gravy is caramel ice cream topping.  The butter is a yellow starburst.

Corn on the cob – This is 2 cupcakes frosted with yellow frosting.  The kernels are various yellow Jelly Belly’s placed in rows.  The butter is another yellow starburst.  Finish off with corn picks in the ends.

Drumstick – This one is a bit more tricky, but still doable.  Put a donut hole on top of the cupcake then cover the cupcake top & the donut hole with the frosting, filling in the spaces.  Then cover the frosting with crushed graham crackers.  The bone is white chocolate.  Just melt some white chocolate chips in the microwave and put into a zip lock baggie.  Cut off one tip of the bag and squeeze the melted chocolate onto waxed paper in the shape of a bone.  Once it cools,  just stick it into the cupcake.

Have fun fooling your family with this one!

Also, check out this other fun April Fools’ Day Food Prank:

More April Fools’ Day Food Pranks

- Kate

Here’s my story from last years Festival of Colors!

I have survived yet another splendid celebration of the arrival of spring at the Festival of Colors, just down the road at the Hare Krishna Temple, right here in good ol’ Spanish Fork, Utah. What started out 15 years ago as a small gathering consisting of a couple of Krishna devotees, a handful of Indians, and sprinkling of BYU college students, has now turned into the largest celebration of the Hindu Holi (Festival of Colors) in the United States. Attendance this year was expected to reach 30,000.

The festival even hit the big time with major media coverage this year  from the big guys at  Reuters (Jim Urquhart) and msnbc.

On this cold, snowy March day, young and old alike, and every age in between, gathered to welcome spring and to spread peace, love and happiness to the world.

The day started out cold and snowy as the first festival goers arrived at the Krishna Temple at about 9:30 A.M.

By 10:30 the grounds surrounding the Krishna Temple were filled with a bright, shiny, and clean crowd, ready to celebrate.

At 11:00 A.M. sharp, after some live Krishna rock music, a group reciting of the Hare Krishna mantra (the largest ever in the U.S.), and a quick countdown from ten, the colors were thrown.

...and the world became colorful!

In India, Holi announces the arrival of spring and the passing of winter. The festival breathes an atmosphere of social merriment. People bury their hatchets with a warm embrace and throw their worries to the wind. Every nook and corner presents a colorful sight. Young and old alike are covered with colors.~Sri Sri Radha Krsna Temple

The festivities continued with the Krishna version of a Woodstock-esque concert, complete with crowd surfing and much merriment.

Before long, the hill full of snow quickly turned into a muddy slide and a few just couldn't resist the lure of the slippery mud.

Really, if you're already covered in a rainbow of colors, what's the harm in adding a little mud, right?

I can guarantee many a Facebook profile photo was changed to became much more colorful by the end of the day.

There were even some celebrities joining in the hoopla.

“The color, noise and entertainment that accompanies the celebration of Holi bears witness to a feeling of oneness and sense of brotherhood. The festival brings home the lesson of spiritual and social harmony!!” ~ Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple

Here’s a progression of shots, taking you all the way from just before the throwing of the colors, through the throwing, the quick build up of pink haze, and finally, the colorful afterglow, all within a time span of 5 seconds.

Five second time progression at Colors Festival

Take a quick scroll

My family joined me for the celebration this year (well, all except for my husband who had to work and doesn’t exactly enjoy sucking in colored powder, anyway).

A great day was had by all. After several showers, I think we’re all clean and good as new and counting down the days until next year’s celebration.

This is for Julie…it’s not very fancy, but it has worked fine for me. I just have a clear filter on the lens (which is a MUST). You can get one at any camera store. I cover my bag in plastic because as you know, that powder gets everywhere. And then I put my camera inside plastic by cutting a hole in the end just big enough to fit over the lens snugly, and I leave the back end open to put my hands through and to see in the eye piece. If you have a raincover, that should work. Hold your camera close to your body to protect it when you’re not shooting. I usually wear an open jacket or open button up shirt and kind of hide the camera underneath to keep some of the powder off. Also, the best place to shoot to be able to get the whole effect of the throwing of colors is on the deck, off to the right or left side. Even with all these precautions, your camera will still get powder on it. A careful cleaning afterwards should do the trick. Hope you get some great pics and have tons of fun at the festival this year.

~Kate

~Kate

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

Why is it that you people get to have all the fun?!?! It really does look like a great day, Kate. My question is this: Will you still be digging the colors of the rainbow out of your ears at Christmastime?

We’re just lucky, I guess. No purple powder in my ear this year, thank goodness. After two days of blowing my nose, that is also now clear. The clothes even came mostly clean, well, except for my 10 year old son’s pink shoe laces.

Other Festival of Colors stories here, here and here.

(Or perhaps you’d prefer this meal featuring GREEN chicken or this GREEN breakfast idea.)

Today is St. Patrick’s Day. As you probably know, I’m all about the holidays. I like to have a reason, any old reason, to take what could be an ordinary day and turn it into a celebration. In my house, there are no little holidays, and St. Patrick’s Day is no exception.

When my kids were really little I tried making a traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal of corned beef and cabbage. That did not go over so well. I soon learned if I was going to have some St. Patrick’s Day fun, AND expect my family to eat, I was going to have to try a different approach.  That’s when my green meals began. We’re talking entire meals of green food, here. If you’re going to do it, you may as well go over the top, right?

Over the years, news of my green food shenanigans spread to  my children’s friends who would just happen to be over to visit at dinnertime. Thanks to this green food, for at least one night a year, I get the Cool Mom Award. I couldn’t quit this tradition if I tried. My children won’t let me.

So here is the dinner I’m serving tonight: green noodles with green alfredo sauce, green salad with green ranch dressing, green rolls, sliced green kiwis, green jello with green cool whip (not pictured), and green sprite (also not pictured).

The key to success in making a disgustingly green St. Patrick’s Day meal is GREEN FOOD COLORING. Practically any food can be made green, but it works especially well with foods which are light in color.  Just use your imagination. Green food coloring is your best friend on this holiday.

For the green noodles and green alfredo sauce I just boil the noodles in water with a generous amount of green food coloring. As the noodles cook, the green soaks into the pasta. Then, just add some green food coloring to you favorite homemade (or bottled) alfredo sauce.

Stunning, right?!

Add a quick little green salad with green food coloring mixed into the ranch dressing.

A green roll is always a nice touch. You can usually find green bread products in the bakery of your grocery store on St. Patrick’s Day. If you want to take it a step further, mix some green food coloring into some butter to add to the rolls.

Cut some delicious naturally green kiwis.

Now just add some green jello and green whipped topping and mix some green food coloring into any light colored beverage and you’re all set to go. Easy peasy, right? Now go impress your family and friends. I dare you!

Check out my other St. Patrick’s Day meals here and here.

Kate

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!

Oh yeah, and don’t forget to wear green. You don’t want to get pinched!

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