Crawfish Fettuccine

Today's recipe is an oldie, it comes from a grandmother of a high school friend I had. I haven't had it for 10 years now and forgot that I had the recipe until I was flipping through and came across it. It also didn't dawn on me this recipe makes a BUNCH of food so hubby will be eating it for the rest of the week for lunch and probably next week. I suggest you cut it in half unless you are feeding a crowd in which case make the full batch. It's a great make ahead dish just make it till the baking part, cover and refrigerate then bake it when you're ready to eat. It may seem watery when you put it in the baking dish, but don't worry it'll soak up when you bake it. The only thing I changed is adding more spice as usually. I added Old Bay, red pepper flakes and cayenne right before you add the noodles in. You can also use egg noodles if you want to skip using a knife at dinner. Overall this is a hardy recipe that you can easily swap the crawfish for shrimp, chicken or whatever you like.

Crawfish Fettuccine

3 onions, chopped

3 bell peppers, chopped

3 celery sticks, chopped

2 sticks margarine or butter

1 pound noodles

3 pounds crawfish

4 pods garlic, minced

4 tablespoons parsley

1 (26 ounce) can cream of mushroom soup

1 pint half and half

1 pound Velveeta cheese

jalapeno peppers (optional)

Saute onions, bell peppers, celery in butter. (I cheated to cut down on time and used pre-chopped bell pepper and celery.)

Boil noodles, drain and set aside. Add to onion mixture.

Cook crawfish, garlic, parsley and soup for 15 minutes.

Add half & half and Velveeta cheese. (Add jalapeno as well if desired.) Simmer for 20-30 minutes.

Add noodles and pour in casserole dish. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees F.

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

Hope you aren't having an upset tummy from all the candy over the weekend! We had a great time seeing all the kids dressed up.

As Fall creeps in and we had two nice cold fronts last week, I wanted to make one last sweet summer treat to use up some strawberries left over from my Tiramisu dip. These where very tasty right out of the oven and later in the day, but after that they're not so great. I see now why they recipe says their only good for one day.

Strawberry-Shortcake Cookies
(Adapted from Martha Stewart)

12 ounces strawberries, hulled and cut into 1/4-inch dice (2 cups)
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
3 ounces (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2/3 cup heavy cream
Sanding sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine strawberries, lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons granulated sugar.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining 7 tablespoons granulated sugar in a large bowl.

Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, or rub in with your fingers, until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Stir in cream until dough starts to come together, then stir in strawberry mixture.

Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop or a tablespoon, drop dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment, spacing evenly apart.

Sprinkle with sanding sugar, and bake until golden brown, 24 to 25 minutes.

Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool. Cookies are best served immediately, but can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 day.

Finishing touches for Halloween decor

I'm soooo excited it's almost time for Halloween! If you're looking for some last minute decorating ideas you've come to the right place. I've got some super easy and inexpensive things that will do the trick! First up is my cookbook stand. I really hate to just decorate the table and that's it, so why not extend the area a little? I took a black sheet of scrapbook paper and some shiny silver letters as well as some 99 cent star/magic stickers. I just slip the sheet of paper over the cookbooks and poof you have a simple quick and easy cover for your stand.

Next thing I did was rummage through my flower vases. By adding some water and a few drops of food coloring you get a vase of blood and green science jars. I added some dry ice so they would bubble away then later added some floating candles when the dry ice was done. Don't fill them full with water if you plan on adding dry ice, because you'll end up with a lot of water on your table from the bubbles.

Toss around some extra spider rings and arrange all your food.

I've been busy trying out recipes for a chili contest coming up so can't post the recipe yet as I'm still tweaking it. I will show you my "moldy cornbread" though. :) For this I just added some green food coloring to the Jiffy box mix recipe and baked them in mini muffin cups. It's the little details that count! Not sure why they look neon with the flash on and super pale in the natural light but they looked really good in person. I used about 6 drops of food coloring with 2 box mixes.

And last but not least don't forget to use the pumpkins as a vase! These work great as a hostess gift or a center piece.

Hope you have a super safe spook-tacular Halloween!!

Punch and fun ice cubes

I really enjoy the punch that's served at every shower, but when you use colored sorbet it turns it into a nasty looking punch. I decided it would be great to use as a Halloween cocktail and name it Bug and Spider ice served in Swamp Water Punch. I also played with dry ice for the first time this year and added some to the punch to keep it nice and cool with a neat effect.

Swamp Water Punch

46 ounces pineapple juice

1 (2 liter) Sprite

3 cups coconut rum

1 1/2 cups vodka

1 pint rainbow sorbet

Combine all ingredients and serve.

Once again go for the details in your party! I can't tell you how important it is and people will notice the little things. I stocked up on a bunch of the glow sticks and picked a lot of different colors so you could crack them and place them in your drink, this helps keep track of who's drink is who's while doubling as a stirrer.

Another fun touch was gummy worms. I like to garnish the glass with something edible instead of some fruit everyone is gonna pick off. I also found some cheap plastic cups I filled with the gummy worms.

Now on to some more creepy additions for your drinks.

For my spider ice I used the little plastic spider rings and washed them. Once you fill your ice cube tray with water place the rings in the center of each cube and press down slightly. I used a neon color spider so people could see them in their drinks and not eat them.

The bug ice is done the same way except you replace the spiders with raisins.

Tiramisu Dip

Today's recipe is more of a treat then a trick. If I had to pick one of my favorite desserts I would have to say tiramisu. I hate to order it when we go out to dinner, because it's really hard to find a good one. If you make it at home there's a lot of waiting and it takes a while to make a good one. Then there's the mess factor as my hubby would call it with cocoa all over the place. Well, I've found something even better! This is really good made in advance since it takes 4 hours in the fridge to chill. I don't know while because it tasted the same and looked the same as when I made it, but whatever it's in the directions for a reason! This is one of those dishes that inspires me to change up a classic dish to something totally different like a dip. I do hope you try this it's really really good!!

Tiramisu Dip

(Adapted from Fiesta monthly mailer)

4 ounces mascarpone cheese

4 ounces sour cream

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons Marsala cooking wine

2 tablespoons cooled espresso

2+ tablespoons heavy cream

seasonal fruit

lady fingers

Combine cheese, sour cream, brown sugar, wine and espresso in small bowl. Mix with electric mixer until smooth. Add 2 tablespoons cream and blend, adding additional cream until dip reaches desired consistency. Chill 4 hours. Serve with fruit and ladyfingers.

Brain Hemorrhage and Tootsie Roll shots

You always hear on the shows where they're throwing a party and they want their own "signature cocktail". Well I thought it would be fun for a cocktail to welcome guest that goes along with the theme of the party. I did a search online for some creepy cocktails and found two that sounded pretty good and didn't have some random liquor I'll never use again. The Tootsie Roll shot tasted just like a tootsie roll, except would have been better if I read the instructions a little better (see my note below). It's supposed to look more like chocolate milk then layered like my picture. The brain hemorrhage is pretty nasty looking, but taste like peaches and cream. The cool thing is you can make them a little ahead of time and it holds it's shape so it's not one you have to make to order.


Brain Hemorrhage

1 1/2 ounce peach schnapps
float 1/4 ounce Baileys Irish Cream on top
drop 1 teaspoon grenadine through the Baileys

Tootsie Roll Shot

2/3 ounce chocolate vodka

1/3 ounce amaretto

drizzle of chocolate syrup

Shake ingredients over ice and strain into a shot glass. (I messed up and just put the syrup in the bottom of the glass instead of shaking it with the vodka and amaretto. Shake it with it so you won't have the issue I had where it seems like no point in the syrup because it sticks to the bottom.)

I arranged all the shots on a platter and decorated with plastic bugs and eyeballs.

Yummy Intestines

So glad to see ya'll like the candy apples! They are a huge hit in my house so I love passing along great ideas that work well for us. Today's spooky recipe is one I saw online last year and ran out of time to make so I put it in my file to try this year. She stuffed hers with guacamole, but I decided to use my favorite spinach artichoke dip which can be found HERE. Use your imagination and whatever you like as the filling. She had a great idea of using something sweet like nutella or vanilla pastry cream which I think is a great idea.

The only suggestion I have is to make the red a little darker at first because when it bakes it turned more pink then the blood red I was looking for. I think I should have cut the 3 rectangles into halves long ways, but wasn't sure until it baked they turned out really fat.

Check back on Friday, because I have a really cool frightful cocktail.

Icky Intestines

(Adapted from Canary Girl)

1 package packaged Puff Pastry

choice of filling

1 egg, beaten

food coloring and brush

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Now, you’ll need to cut your pastry into long rectangular strips and paste them together (brush a little beaten egg and press down–it doesn’t matter if it’s not perfect, after baking, the seams don’t show anyway) to form a loooooong strip of dough.

Spread your filling down the entire center of the dough, leaving a bit of space on each side to pinch closed. Bush the edges with a little egg and pinch the whole thing closed.

Carefully lift the intestine onto the baking sheet and form an intestine looking thing, rolling it over so the pinched edge is on the bottom. Brush the pastry with beaten egg.

Dip your small brush into some red food coloring (I added a little blue, too, to get a darker color) and paint on the “blood.” (I just added the food coloring to the egg that was left and then brushed the whole roll instead of the little details. I think I'll do it the way the directions are next time.)

Bake for about 20 minutes, just until golden, but not overly brown.