My Favorite Childhood Halloween Treat: Dirt Pudding

This Halloween treat is a classic that everyone should recognize, so why not bust it out for your Halloween bash? Check out "My Favorite Childhood Halloween Treat: Dirt Pudding" below and 'dig' in!

Dirt Pudding
Yield: A lot! Probably close to 20 servings
Recipe by bakeeatrepeat.blogspot.com

Ingredients:
2 packages oreos
1/2 cup (8 Tablespoons) melted butter
4 Tablespoons butter, softened to room temperature
8 oz. cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
3 1/2 cups milk
2 small boxes instant pudding (mix and match chocolate and vanilla or find your own favorite combo)
16 oz Cool Whip
Gummy worms (optional)

Directions:
1. Place oreos in a large ziplock bag and seal. Use a rolling pin to crush oreos. Pour melted butter in the bag and shake to combine.
2. Place butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat on medium high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add cream cheese and sugar. Beat until smooth, about 2 mintues. 
3. Add milk and pudding. Beat on low until partially combined then switch to high speed and beat until pudding begins to thicken. Stir in Cool Whip.
4. Place a layer of oreos at the bottom of a large bowl. Put a layer of the pudding mixture over top. Repeat until both are gone, beginning and ending with the oreos. Place gummy worms on top. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight.

(Images: Neighbor Food )

Original Article Here: http://www.neighborfoodblog.com/2011/08/dirt-pudding.html

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Ghastly Delicious Recipes for Your Halloween Get-Together

Hosting a Halloween party? Going to one and looking for something to bring? Check out these "Ghastly Delicious Recipes for Your Halloween Get-Together" and get ready for the holiday!

Try these tasty Halloween recipe ideas for your haunted Halloween gathering – you’ll be scared by how much your guests eat! Have fun while putting a ghoulish twist on old favorites or creating something scrumptious out of the seemingly unappetizing.

Sinister startersConsider these creepy foods to kick off your festivities. Weird food can gross out guests, while delivering a savory or sweet surprise with every bite.

Make deviled eggs extra devilish for your Halloween get-together using jarred red peppers, chives and scallions to create a bedeviled face. You’ve never had stranger-looking sausage balls than these Monster Eyes, but you’d better hurry and sample them before your invited ghouls finish them off. Bat Wings (actually seasoned chicken wings) may look completely unappetizing, but are sure to disappear when your first brave visitor takes a bite. Serve them with a macabre, but tasty, tapas dish calledDevils on Horseback, which are oddly-delicious, bacon-wrapped prunes.

Devilish drinksYou can ladle this spooky Brew Ha-Ha Punch into the cups of adults and kids at your Halloween party. When you place dry ice (safely) under the bowl, your guests will sense the smoky chill. For a truly creepy grown-up beverage, make this Eyeball Martini, using a radish and olive as a gruesome garnish floating in gin or vodka. A dead-of-night alternative is the Headless Horseman, made with Falernum, rum and pumpkin ale. This cocktail, with flavors of lime, almond and ginger, is seasonal, yet quite unexpected.

Sweet and spooky treatsWhat would Halloween be without spooky treats for the young and the young at heart? Your guests will love spider cookies, made with crispy chocolate cereal and black-licorice legs. (Here’s a gluten-free version.)

Chocolate bat cupcakes take two squares of chocolate, mints, or cookies placed on each side of the cupcake to form wings. Use a thick chocolate ganache frosting to hold the “wings” in place. With a frosting tube, draw on a bat face. Place small, white candies or white daubs of frosting for eyes.

No ladies’ tea would be complete without Lady Fingers cookies, but you can give them a gruesome twist at your Halloween party this year by serving them with Men’s Toes. These delicate biscuits will have your guests grimacing for more. Or serve up someBlack Magic Cake. The coffee in this formulation deepens the chocolate flavor, sending this dark confection to flavorful depths.

This year, plan ahead to make your Halloween get-together unforgettable with these delicious, sometimes weird food ideas that will have guests haunting your kitchen for more!

Photo Credit:  Shutterstock / Azurita

Original Article Here: http://www.apartmentguide.com/blog/ghastly-delicious-recipes-for-your-halloween-get-together/

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Fun And Easy DIY Halloween Decorations

(Image courtesy of kustom1958)

Halloween is almost here! One of the best parts about this time of year is the opportunity to let loose a little bit and adorn your apartment with fun decorations. Rather than going to the store there are a few, simple, projects you can do at home to get in the Halloween spirit.

Carving pumpkins and hanging wooly “spiderwebs” are what people typically imagine when they think of Halloween decorations, but this article from apartmentguide.com offers some great twists on classic ideas. To find out how to get creative with your decorations this year, keep reading!

Mason Jar Pumpkin

If you have canning jar lids laying around, this project will give them a new purpose. Gather together lids of the same size. String the lids together, tying the string tightly. Evenly spread the lids around. Next, stick cinnamon sticks in the center. To create leaves, cut some out of burlap. This goes perfectly as a centerpiece on your dining room table or coffee table. It can also be placed on a shelf on top of books.

Head in a Jar

If you’re looking for creepier decorations, this one is perfect for you. Use a wide mouth jar for this project. You’ll also need a great picture that goes in the jar. It needs to be a flattened image of a head. Run a quick search on a search engine, and you should find some great examples. Print this image on thick and slick paper, making sure it will fit into the jar. Roll the picture and place it in the jar, making sure it fills up about ¾ of the circumference of the jar. Fill the jar with colored water. This can be placed in the fridge to creep out the midnight snackers. On Halloween night, drop a few glow sticks in the jar for added ambiance.

Tin Can Luminaries

To upcycle old soup cans, use them for luminaries. If you have several cans, create a design in the cans, from ghosts to spelling out “BOO.” To start the project, fill the cans up with water and stick them in the freezer. This allows you to hammer a design into the cans without denting the cans. Use a nail and hammer to create the design. Once the ice melts, dump the water and place tea lights into each can.

Mummy Cereal Boxes

Old bed sheets in your linen closet that don’t fit any beds in your home are perfect for this DIY Halloween craft. Cut the fabric into thin sheets. Then, take empty cereal or cracker boxes and cover with the white sheets. Once the box is covered, tuck the end in. Optional: attach googly eyes.

Halloween Garland

Take old cardboard paper towel rolls and paint them pumpkin orange. Then, slice them into thin strips and create pumpkin shapes. Use twine to string the pumpkins together and hang on your wall.

Bat Mobile

Head out to your backyard and pick up one or two sticks from the yard. You’ll also need clear thread, or fishing line. For the bats, you use thin cardboard, such as cereal or cracker boxes. Cut several bats from the cardboard, and hang the bats to a branch. Hang in various lengths.

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Top 10 Ways to Use Up Overripe Fruit

It happens to just about everyone, one minute you're coming back from the store with nice ripe fruit and  before you know it that fruit is starting to get overripe, mushy, and is not quite as appetizing as it used to be. But wait! Don't throw it out, instead check out "Top 10 Ways to Use Up Overripe Fruit"!

It's a common problem this time of year — the abundance of beautiful, ripe fruit leads us to pick up more than we can possibly eat before those fruits get soft and squishy. There is a certain kind of beauty in a few overly ripe fruits on the counter, but the more pressing question is how can we use them up — and fast?! Here are ten tasty ideas for using up fruits that are past their prime.

1. Make Quick Bread: Of course, we all know brown bananas are great for banana bread. But peaches, nectarines, and strawberries are also great in breads, muffins, and scones, where the chopped or mashed fruit bakes into jammy little pockets.

2. Make Jam: Dana gave us a great strawberry refrigerator jam a while back. This quick jam is a great way to use overripe strawberries — or any other fruits that need using up!

3. Make a Crumble, Cobbler, or Pie: The best solution for fruits that are no longer quite so plump and pretty is to wrap them in some pastry! Use our templates for making Fruit Crumble or Fruit Pie, and sub in whatever fruit needs using up. 

4. Make Smoothies: Smoothies are always a good standby for using up fruit! It doesn't matter how pretty they are as long as they still taste good. I even find that the concentrated flavor of over-ripe fruit makes especially tasty smoothies.

5. Make a Chunky Sauce for Pancakes or Sundaes: Give those syrupy, ripe fruits a rough chop — or even a smash with a potato masher — and you have an instant topping for pancakes or sundaes. Even better, fold the fruit right into the batter for fruit-filled pancakes.

6. Make a Sauce for Meat. Overripe fruit, if it hasn't lost all of its juice, can still impart some good flavor to a sauce. Chop it into small bits (or whiz it in a blender) and add it to some chicken stock and balsamic vinegar to make a glaze or sauce for meat. You could even substituted it for the jam in our Chicken with Shallot-Apricot Sauce.

7. Make a Salad Dressing: If your fruit isn't pretty enough to chop on top of your salad, put it in a blender with some olive oil, vinegar, herbs, and seasonings. It can make a fantastic, slightly sweet dressing for a salad, especially when you add some salty nuts or cheese.

8. Make Juice: If you have a juicer, your fruits can go right on in. If you don't, try pureeing the fruit in a blender or food processor and straining it. The solids are great on top of yogurt and the juice can be drunk on its own or added to glasses of sparkling water.

9. Make Fruit Leather: This is especially good for fruits that have passed the squishy stage and gone to the wizened stage. Blend up the fruit and spread it in a thin layer on a Silpat or dehydrator rack — you can bake it at very low temperature in the oven until it's leather-like or dehydrate it in a dehydrator.

10. Make Popsicles: Last but not least, we can make popsicles — one of my favorite afternoon snacks on a hot summer day. You can juice the fruit first and strain out the solids, but I love leaving some of the fruit a little chunky so that there are pieces to nibble.

What else do you do with overripe fruit?

This post has been updated. Originally published 7/31/08.

(Image: Dana Velden)

Original Article Here: http://bit.ly/13xR1Ex

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3 Ways You May Be Ruining Your Knives

After months or years, those old knives just don't keep their edge as well, but there are factors that speed up the dulling process that you may inadvertently be causing. To keep you knives sharper longer, check out these "3 Ways You May Be Ruining Your Knives" below!

1. You store your knives unsheathed in the utensil drawer.
There are a few reasons this is bad: first of all, it's dangerous to have a knife loose in the drawer. Secondly, an unsheathed knife rubs against other things, which causes it to get dull very quickly. The best way to store your knives is on a magnetic knife strip or in a knife block. 

If you're really short on space and need to store those knives in a drawer, just slip them into a blade guard first! You can get a set of four on Amazon for about $10.

2. You put your knife in the dishwasher. 
Knives should never go in the dishwasher. Dishwasher detergent is very abrasive, and along with the banging around that happens during a wash cycle, will take the sharp edge right off your knife. (Plus, it's not safe for the person unloading the dishwasher!) 

Always wash knives by hand in the sink with dish soap and water. Keep the blade facing away from you and the knife low in the sink. Also, don't leave your knife to air dry. Instead, take a tea towel and, holding the knife with the blade facing away from you, dry the knife in short vertical motions perpendicular to the edge. Running a tea towel horizontally along the blade is very dangerous, and a sure-fire way to cut yourself. (Don't worry — I did this for a long time, too!) 

3. You slide your knife, blade down, across the cutting board to clear away what you just chopped. 

Oh man. I am still trying to break this habit! Do you do this? After you've got a pile of chopped veggies, you scrape your nice, sharp knife — blade down — right across the cutting board to clear some space. Of course when you actually think about it (as I did) that's a terrible way to treat the blade! 

An easy solution: just flip the knife over before you slide! That way the flat spine side does the clearing, and you don't ruin your blade.

(Image: Cambria Bold)

Original Article Here: http://bit.ly/10l49PS

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