Halloween Party

Happy Election day!!!  Now, before you finish reading, get up.  Go walk to your car (or to your polling place, if it happens to be close enough . . .) and vote.

Finished voting?  Ok, now keep reading.  (Or, if you have already voted, or it's no longer election day when you're reading this, or you're not in the country and/or have already sent in an absentee ballot . . . I suppose that's ok, too.)

I'm also kind of a hypocrite.  I haven't voted yet.  But I will!!!!  As soon as NES gets home, we're going to walk over there and vote.

Meanwhile, I am feeling accomplished and eating a questionably-composed lunch to celebrate!  I got the sheets and towels changed and the laundry started by 8:45 this morning.  And, I just finished my last complex analysis project of the semester.  I feel as though today has been productive.  I just won't mention that I still have a 3-5 page paper to finish later.  It'll get done.  Will I regret posting this later if I'm up late writing it?  Possibly.  Kind of like I might eventually regret throwing a Halloween Party during a busy weekend during the school year.  Oh well.

Ah, yes.  The Halloween party.  I'm getting there.  In a round about sort of way.  My questionably-composed lunch is actually partially leftovers from the said party.

Yes, I'm eating pumpkin dip for lunch.  However, in my defense, it's Cool Whip Free, pudding mix, pumpkin and spices.  And I'm having it on apple slices and a rice cake.  So it really can't be THAT bad for me.

Anyway, to the party!  So, NES has been hosting a party ever since we started hanging out.  The first one was actually not too long after we started hanging out, but I had a concert that night.  Last year, I had made cake pops and everything and was all ready to be there, and looked out the window to find 6 inches of snow (and counting!) on the ground.  So, no party for me.  But this year, I was there.  And that's good, seeing as it was in my apartment.  It would have been bad if I hadn't been here.

Anyway, I might have gone a little overboard with food.  We didn't expect people to contribute, so I made quite a bit.  My food:

The food later in the evening when everyone had come:

Yeahhhhh.  But it was all very tasty!

I made Oreo truffles again.  I think I was inspired by the cake pops, but didn't want all the trouble again.  The truffles are so much easier and just as yummy!

However, I tried to cover half of them in the orange candy coating instead of chocolate, and I kind of failed miserably.  I thought it was just me; that I just can't get the consistency right because I'm heating them wrong or something.  But then I read an article by one person saying she adds 6-7 tablespoons of shortening per bag of candy coating.  So, THAT's why I can't ever make it work.

But, anyway, coating them in chocolate worked wonderfully.  And I used KEB's fork trick (well, it's not really a trick, I just always used to use a spoon), and it made my life so much easier.

I also made the pumpkin dip I'm now eating for lunch.

And I put it in a pumpkin.  Thank you, Pinterest!  I served it with apples and ginger cookies.  Mmmmm.

I felt so accomplished on Saturday, too, when I had carved a pumpkin, gone grocery shopping and started truffles by 11:00.

And I had every intention of roasting the pumpkin seeds, but, well, apparently they don't cook as well in the toaster oven.  Oops.  I had to throw them all away.  Sad day.  Someday, I will try again!  And not burn them!

I was planning on making monkey bread, too, but I realized JK was bringing pumpkin bread.  Boy, am I glad I decided not to!

Now, the snafu of the morning surrounded butter extract.  I had never heard of butter extract, but the recipe NES had found for butterbeer (like from the Harry Potter books) called for it.  After asking three different people at the grocery store, I came to the conclusion that it either doesn't exist or has been discontinued.

So, I decided we'd use butter flakes instead.

Yeah.  Well, in my defense, the butterbeer tasted good.  It also however, had yellow specks floating all over the top.  Oops.  They eventually did disintegrate.  It just took a little while.

Anyway, we were so full from appetizers, JB's chicken wings, ZNS's desserts and everything else, that we didn't even get dinner like we were planning to!  And I finally got to cook!  Huzzah!


Pumpkin Dip 

15 oz. pumpkin
5 oz. box of vanilla pudding mix
16 oz. cool whip
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger

Mix the pumpkin, pudding mix, cool whip and spices in a large bowl.  

Chill for several hours.  

Serve (in a pumpkin, if desired!) with apple slices and ginger cookies.

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