Tricks or Treats? It’s a party!

Sometimes I’m lazy, sometimes I’m really lazy and sometimes I’m just a little lazy.  When it comes to parties I vow to not be lazy.  I try my hardest to come up with awesome ideas and work hard to make sure everything pans out.  There are those heavenly times, though, that I can mix lazy and not lazy and still seem really cool.  That’s what happened for the husband’s 31st birthday.  Dan’s birthday is exceptionally close to Halloween and Halloween also happens to be his favorite Holiday.  It didn’t take much to summon the lazy bones out of the grave and combine the two occasions.  Then there was the phone call to the spirits of Martha Stewart and Monica Geller to pull it all together.  I decided to have a “Tricks or Treats Halloween Party” and this is what happened

Here’s the lowdown. I wanted to have food that looked like one thing and COULD be another.  I’m not very good with “treats” though, so I made them all tricks.  Here’s what I made:

There was the Kitty Litter cake.  Not many people were brave enough to eat it, but I did and it was DELISH.  This is where I found the recipe.  It was a treat, but a trick on me since most people were too grossed out to eat any.  It’s just fake poop people.  It was doody-licious.

Next up was the Meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato frosting.  I’ve seen many variations of this, but the one I used and I thought  was sooooo tasty was from the Every Day with Rachel Ray October 2008 issue. Recipe here. NOM NOM.  I dyed the potatoes, but next time I’d use blue or something less cheesy looking.

I called the punch “toxic sludge” which is not very creative nor was it fooling anyone, but I needed a drink and this was really freaking delicious, so BAM!

To me, the creepiest thing I made was this BBQ hot dog mess.  They really look like worms and EW.  Just EW.

And the coolest looking TRICK goes to the “pizza” which was just a strawberry Jam tart.  I loved this one and it was also very yummy, too.  It made a fool out of everyone.  I love that.  FOOLISH MORTALS!  I made this also using the October 2008 issue of Every Day with Rachel Ray.  The recipe is here.

I also made some Meatballs called “Sweet Balls of Fire” (enter giggle here).  instead of a tablespoon of  hot pepper sauce, I added like half a bottle of Chili sauce.  Of course I didn’t tell anyone else that and when they ate them, they hated me with the burning of their tongues.  I’m telling you…AWESOME.

Overall, it was a really fun get together full of eating and games.  I had a blast watching people try to figure out if they were being tricked or treated.  No one should have that much fun scheming.  If you can get a hold of the October 2008 issue of Everyday with Rachel Ray, there are many more fun “Trick” recipes to try.  This would be so fun for the kids for Halloween OR April Fool’s day.

Oh yeah!  And I made all the costumes for us that year. I was still really new to sewing and it was a very risky move.  I looked like Wilma Flintstone who decided on a career in bee keeping but after a few stings and a lot of swelling, had to quit and be a stay at home mom.  In other words, my costume was NOT flattering  But the rest of the Flitstones and the Rubbles looked great!

Have a spookalicious  trick-or-treating Halloween Bash!!!

-Crystal-

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Wanted: Small Fries and a Cherry Coke!

Ok, maybe not a cherry coke, but if you have one…

This is Crystal and I’m putting this call out there to all of you culinary HEs & SHEs!  We need some of you to spotlight in our Small FRY-day posts for November and our theme is “Thanksgiving Nomming” (Well, THEY’RE calling it “Family Favorite Recipes”, but I like Nomming).  If you have a favorite fall recipe that you think would be the bomb diggity on the Thanksgiving table, we want to feature you!  Fill out the form here and let us know what recipe you’d like to share with us.  If we pick you, we’ll let you know all the deets (that’s details in the language of “awesome”) as far as due date and content.  We want to spotlight you and your kitchen couture…kitchen calamity…whatever!  Thanks for letting us show you off.

Nom Nom Nom,

Crystal

P.S. You do not HAVE to have a blog to contribute.  We want to hear from all of the lovely & creative folks out there!

A Pixie Birthday Party

My little girl V is turning one on the 13th of this month.  It’s so hard to believe that she’s been with us a year while at the same time it feels like she’s aways been with us.  At the end of last month we used part of Mr. Viever’s paternity leave to travel to see friends and family and at that time through her birthday party celebrating her first year among our family members in Arizona at my in law’s home.  We did the same for S when he turned one and it was so nice spending time with family and being with those who loved us most to celebrate the life of our child so we had to do it again for V.

V is a bit on the small side and I call her a little pixie, so a party theme was born! Now some random background, I’m not a fan of Tinkerbell.  Just plain don’t care for her, her sass, or the fact that Pixie Hollow took over what used to be Ariel’s Grotto at Disneyland- I know I’m a bit of a freak but Ariel’s my favorite!  So when I was on my search for decorations, I wanted fairies but not of the Disney sort.  I found the perfect little cupcake toppers and matching garland on Amazon and suddenly two days before we were to leave for Boston for a week, (we’re a little on the nutty side and planned travel to Boston for a week, one day at home, then drive to AZ for the weekend of party fun and a relay triathlon) I was struck with a NEED to make V a party dress to match the fairy decor.

I used Zafarani’s Saffron Twirl dress (It’s still on sale price for $5, go get it now!) as my base for the dress knowing that it would make the perfect party dress and that with a small adjustment to the back button band I could create some awesome removable wings.  So I ran off to JoAnn’s during  naptime and bought fabric and all I needed to make wings– that’s right make the wings, never mind the fact that I ordered wings as party favors already…. crazy lady right here.

During her second nap, I used these tutorials (no sew wings and these gorgeous textured wings which when I have the time I want to fully do justice) as  guides to make my own wings. I didn’t quite follow either exactly as I knew I wanted the center piece to attach to the dress as in the second tutorial but I didn’t have the time to do the layers or the wire shaping of the second tutorial.  I did do some sewing for my wings as I used one set of panty hose and did the bottom portions of the wings separate from the top requiring a seam as I wanted more shaping than the first tutorial did.  Also to attach the pantyhose to the center I also hand stitched the panty hose in place there then used felt with my glue gun to cover up the wire and any panty hose ends that were sticking out.  I also used a glitter glue stick in my glue gun to add some texture to the wings before spraying it down with fabric glitter paint.  Thankfully I remembered to throw the dress fabric into the washing machine at this point otherwise sewing when the kids went to bed would have been postponed, whew!

Now to the dress.  I changed up a few things.  I added an additional skirt layer of a shimmery/glittery tulle material to mimic the look of the fairy dresses in the decoration pieces.  I also made it so that the button band was removable (rather than sewing in the band as instructed I made the whole dress and then did two button holes on the dress and attached two buttons on either side of the band) so I could use a band without snaps for the wings on days we didn’t want the fairy look.  The outfit was done with one day to spare for packing for our whirlwind adventure.

The food.  I knew I was going to need to pick something that would appeal to the toddler crowd and the great-grandparent crowd while also being easy to prepare.  So we went with the theme of brunch finger foods.  We made apple pie dip and cinnamon chips, bacon corn muffins, set out the fixings for fruit parfaits; bought a few different sweet dessert type breads (banana nut, pumpkin strudel, and pound cake), mini cinnamon rolls, BBQ wings, and a veggie tray; catered a few subs and our favorite slushy drinks Eegees (local to Tucson, if you are ever in the area you HAVE to try some my favorite combo is lemon strawberry and favorite flavor of the month cherry cider, and get some fries and ranch too, yum).  My in laws made a mu shu pork dish for lettuce wraps and my husband’s grandmother made sausage/potato/gravy burrito wraps.  All in all the food was GOOD and best of all we didn’t run out of anything.  My in laws actually informed us this last weekend that they were still eating down the leftovers a full week post party.

Lastly I made fruity cupcakes (used 1 banana and subbed the second for 3 medium strawberries and substituted the honey for maple syrup) topped with a little whipped cream sweetened with a little maple syrup.  Birthday girl was very happy with her first tastes of cake.  Kids and adults alike also got to have mini ice cream cups served with their cake though the birthday girl missed out on them (mean mama I know.)

Party ended post cake when the birthday girl declared (loudy) that it was naptime.  Our littlest guests left donning Peter Pan hats or fairy wings while our grown up guests were invited to TAKE FOOD HOME!  All in all it was a wonderful family gathering and a lovely celebration for  our girl’s first year of life.

— Viever