Halloween Weekend Things!

Happy Halloween weekend! I�ve got some Halloween bits and bobs for you, below! I hope everyone�s planning to do something fun and spooky involving costumes and candy. I�m hosting a little get together. The theme? Your favorite 90s sitcom�complete with 90s potluck food! Obviously I�m dressing up as the queen of 90s sitcoms, Roseanne. And I�m trying to convince Evan to go as her sister Jackie. BTW�one time I met Roseanne in a lobby in Vegas, and shouted out �I�M YOUR BIGGEST FAN!� and got my photo with her. NBD.


Speaking of dressing up, below are some of my faves from recent years. There�s the time we went as the Addams Family�I was Wednesday, Evan was a killer Morticia, my sister was Pugsley, and her husband Pete was Gomez. We won a prize! There�s also the time I was Wayne and Amanda was Garth and I was incredibly comfortable all night in dude�s jeans, chucks, and a basic tshirt. And then there was the year Evan dressed as Fantastic Mr. Fox, Pete was a Deadliest Catch guy, Amanda was the most freakin amazing Beetlejuice ever (I mean seriously� look at that� she�s a cute girl you guys!), and I was the girl from the Ring. I even made a little cardboard TV to climb out of all night! And, once again, I was super cozy and warm all night in that nightgown!

In celebration of Halloween, Bev shared some ghost stories on her blog today! So, here�s (one of) mine: In college, I lived in a big, old, falling down house in the heart of Greek Row, with 5 other girls (we weren�t part of the Greek system, but our location meant we had access to great parties and also threw great parties� like, epic parties). Anyway, our house had 3 floors�V & Tasha lived in the creepy ass basement that flooded often, was full of spiders and mold, and had a random storage room that was scary AF that we never went in (that basement is basically a scary story in itself). The main floor had the living room, etc, and upstairs, Bree and I had the two smaller rooms facing the frat behind us, and Kristy and Andrea had the two bigger rooms facing the street (also, there was a creepy crawl space attic that we never explored, but we had a theory that our slumlord lived up there). So one night, Andrea and V were out of town, and Tasha was fast asleep down in the dungeon. Which left Kristy, Bree, and me upstairs. We all said goodnight, closed our doors, and seconds later, heard the TV in the living room turn on. Obviously we all had a WTF moment, but since we did have downstairs roomies, we thought maybe? So we tiptoed out of our rooms, to the top of the landing and hollered down. No response. A few minutes later, the TV shut off. We were a little freaked out, but started retreating to our rooms again, WHEN THE TV TURNED ON AGAIN. At this point we were freaked the fuck out, so we ran into Kristy�s room, locked the door, and called the cops. When they arrived, we threw a key out the window to them, and they came in and searched the house. THEY FOUND NOTHING. And they seemed super annoyed at us. So after they left, we were too scared to go back to our separate rooms, so the three of us huddled up in Kristy�s bed with the bedroom door locked, and ended up having a weird, on-edge, hilarious night coming up with some of our best comedic material to date. You know who didn�t have a hilarious night? Tasha! We totally forgot about her asleep in the basement, and didn�t even realize until the next day when she very angrily told us about her night� which involved getting woken up to a cop shining a flashlight in her face and yelling �DO YOU LIVE HERE?!�

The TV turned on again, late late at night, a few more times (we seriously checked everything� no timers were on, etc), and we�re pretty certain the house was haunted. SWEET DREAMS YOU GUYS. Also, sorry Tasha!

And finally, in the less scary/more delicious category, here are some fun Halloween snackies for you to make this weekend!

• Peanut Butter Marshmallow Popcorn Balls from the archives
• Molly�s Halloween Bark and Pumpkin Chocolate Icebox Cake
• Steph�s adorable Totoro Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
• Jonathan�s Frankenstein Cake
• Todd and Erica�s Halloween Oaxaca Old Fashioned
• Naomi�s Ghostly Pot de Cr�me
• Ashley�s Bittersweet Chocolate Pepita Butter Bites
• And... the time I discussed my favorite Are You Afraid of the Dark episodes (and shared a recipe for pumpkin and mushroom pasta)

Happy Halloween!! 

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins with Coconut & Almond Meal

Happy first Friday in October! One of my favorite months� the air is a little a crisper and the trees are all shades of red and orange. And of course October is all about Halloween and everything pumpkin! It�s also the month Evan and I got married! We�re headed up to Vancouver, BC for the weekend to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary, but I wanted to leave you with a pumpkiny fall treat!

These muffins are from the blog Dishing up the Dirt. The blogger, Andrea, runs a vegetable farm near-ish my hometown, and I actually heard about her blog awhile back from my mom. I recently came across her blog again, and aside from all the beautiful farm photography, these pumpkin muffins really caught my eye! I made a few tweaks to suit my tastes and use the ingredients I had on hand, and I love the way they came out. Moist and dense, perfect for a fall weekend breakfast or afternoon snack!

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins with Coconut & Almond Meal
Makes 12 muffins
Slightly adapted from this recipe

2 eggs
1/2 cup pumpkin puree (I used canned�just make sure you find one without added sugar and spices!)
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
4 Tablespoons coconut oil, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
1.5 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice*
2 cups almond flour/ almond meal
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup desiccated (dried shredded, unsweetened) coconut

Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners, and preheat oven to 325.

In a large, whisk together eggs, pumpkin, maple syrup, coconut oil, and vanilla, until well combined. Add spice, flours, baking soda, and salt, and stir to combine. Mix in chocolate chips and coconut.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.

*I had a nearly full jar of pumpkin pie spice on hand, but Andrea has a breakout of individual spices in her recipe, if you want to go that route.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Peanut Butter Marshmallow Popcorn Balls

Let�s talk about trick-or-treating for a minute. Do you only give candy to little kids, or will you also shell out for bigger kids (ahem, cough, adults)? I guess who you give candy to is your business, but I think, in the spirit of Halloween, anyone who takes the time to put on a costume and knock on your door should at least get a bite-sized Snickers. Just sayin.

But maybe I feel this way because I didn�t have normal trick-or-treating as a kid (and because I love Halloween and I�m all about everyone at every age getting festive!). We lived in the woods, down a long driveway, with only about 10 houses within a mile on either side of us. So Amanda and I didn�t really get that door-to-door experience. Instead, my parents would drive us from house to house, hoping our neighbors would be home and would have candy.

We always lucked out at the bottom of our hill, when we hit Hank & Vesta�s house. They were an adorable little old couple, who always bought loads of Girl Scout cookies from us, and always handed out fresh made popcorn balls for Halloween.

Eventually I got �too old to trick-or-treat� (which doesn�t actually exist�that�s like saying you�re too old to believe in Santa� um, also false), and Hank & Vesta�s house sold and became a winery, and I grew up and moved to Seattle, and I developed this weird thing where I like popcorn but thinking about eating it makes my teeth hurt, and I totally forgot about popcorn balls.

That is, until I saw these amazing brown butter marshmallow popcorn balls! WHAT! Guys, we�re talkin� rice crispy treats, but with popcorn. Genius work here. The brown butter mallow combo is amazing as-is, but I decided to gussy these up a bit for Halloween, with orange and black Reese's Pieces that get all melty and peanut buttery. It's pretty amazing. 

And guess what� if you come knocking at my door on Halloween, all costumed up and saying those magic words (minus the smell my feet part), I will definitely drop one of these in your candy bucket, whether you�re 4, 14, or 45. Especially if you�re 45.    

Peanut Butter Marshmallow Popcorn Balls

Adapted from Love + Cupcakes

Makes about 30 2-inch balls. The original recipe has instructions for popping your own popcorn. I'm lazy, so I used 3 bags of lightly salted, unbuttered microwave popcorn. If you make your own, or use unsalted, just add a bit of sea salt to the mallow mixture. Also, the standard bag of mallows I found was 16 ounces, so I just didn't use the whole thing. One more thing: be sure to not get the unpopped kernels in your mix... they make for a hard little surprise when you bite down (trust). 

7-8 cups popped lightly salted popcorn 

1- 10oz bag marshmallows

1 stick butter

1.5 cups Reeses Pieces candy 

Line a baking sheet with parchment or wax paper and set aside. 

In a large pot (I used a big stock pot), melt butter over medium heat, stirring until lightly browned.  Turn heat to low, add marshmallows, and stir until melted. Remove from heat, and add popcorn. Stir (sort of gently) until all the popcorn is coated. Add about half the Reeses, stir and fold, and add the rest. Stir a few times�some of the candy will stay whole, and others will split and ooze out yummy peanut buttery goodness. Lightly coat your hands with butter or coconut oil, and get busy rolling. Let popcorn balls cool on wax paper.