[Halloween] Food and Graveyard

One of the things I love most about Halloween is the creepy food I get to cook. A little bit surprisingly, I like to cook. But as someone suggested, I seem to like desserts and appetizers better than anything else. So that's pretty much gets made for Halloween.

Main Food Table

Backside of the table

On the menu at my house on a given Halloween: 

• vampire bites cupcakes
• zombie cupcakes (yellow cake, chocolate icing, zombie hand pick)
• cheeseball brains
• stuffed eyeballs
• flayed flesh
• snot on a stick (big pretzel rods dipped in white chocolate that's been dyed green)
• mummified toes (pigs in a blanket)
• witch hats
• witch fingers
• pumpkin pasties
• pumpkin spiced bats
• pumpkin dip
• decayed chips and entrail salsa
• brittle bones
• poisoned worms

Another view of the table

And that's just the appetizers and deserts. This year, since it was randomly cold, going down into the 30s at night, I made 2 pots of chili.

A good ways into the party.

The bar, with pottery barn dispenser stands

And then there was the bar:

• apple cider with shrunken apple heads for those that did not want something alcoholic
• sangria with cut up oranges (to even out the apple heads) for those that wanted something lighter
• Sam Adams Oktoberfest 
• jolly ranchers infused vodka and rum (grape is the best, cherry was done in spiced rum to make cherry rum and cokes....also...RED RUM)
• random spirits to spice up cokes, sprites, diet cokes and even the apple cider.

I couldn't fit all the food in the kitchen

I ended up taking 8 trays of food to work the next day and most of it was gone in hours. The stuffed "eyeballs" and cheeseball were gone super quick. Pigs in a blanket never made it to work. They didn't make it 2 hours. Double batch in the future? Recipes are linked in the lists.

I love my new bat. I had to show him off. He came from Target

And bonus for me, linking all these recipes is great for next year when I inevitably can't find one.

MORE PICTURES:

Candy Bar

Letting the "snot" dry

All the stuff I still had to do, at some point on Friday. 

Better view of the brain

Backyard prep

When engineers prep, things are put in coordinating stacks. 

The porch was the land of lighted things.

My capable helper, Heath, assembling fences.

Graveyard results!

Sadly, you can't see the skeleton chilling out on the patio furniture.