October -Halloween Dinner Club

The girls had a ghoulish time at the October dinner club! Costumes were optional and boy were they clever!!!

Napkins and wine glasses adorned with, what else, but bats and spiders, oh my!

Killer Chef (awesome costume!) started us off with her appetizer of Coagulated Blood Dip with Finger Sticks! Yes, those are mozzarella eyeballs staring back at you!

 

Check out her theme plates (to prevent the blood dip from staining the good dishes!!)

Her wicked wine selection completed the dinner theme: Spellbound

Our mysterious "ghosts" of honor took on the terrifying task of prepping the main dish for the hostess.

The morbid main dish was a butternut squash and black bean chili served in pumpkin bowls.

Accompanied by coffin corn bread and hideous honey butter (the honey butter was actually fantastic, just trying to stay in the theme!)

And her clever costume for the evening......Count em out....Fifty shades of Grey! LOL

The ominous black cat carved up a creative side dish - a pepper pumpkin patch!!!  (Needed a picture of the front of the dish - each one had a jack-o-lantern face!!!)

Update!:  Picture of the jack-o-lantern faces!

She brought a spine-chilling wine - Vampire Blood!!

The invisible woman (was she there or wasn't she?) saved us creepy calories with her invisible dessert! Our blood-curdling chef though brought pumpkin spice candied pecans for an after-dinner treat.

The evening's ghastly guests did hair-raising job of creating Halloween theme dishes that no one was too scared to eat!

Weekly Farm Challenge 10/4/12 - 10/11/12 and 10/11/12 - 10/18/12

As the weather cools, the leaves change from green to red to orange, the fall bounty continues:  Tomatoes, peppers, kale, broccoli, green beans, red leaf lettuce, radishes, onions, corn (Yes, corn in October?!?!), parsley, apples, cauliflower, carrots, and eggplant.

A couple weeks of repeat dishes of salad, kale chips and salsa (for tailgating!)

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Couscous began using her veggie scraps (peels, green tops, etc.) and made her own veggie broth!

And using the veggie broth she made a corn, red pepper and potato chowder - Happy Fall!!

Weekly Farm Challenge 9/20/12 - 9/27/12 and 9/27/12 - 10/4/12

The fall veggies are coming in: tomatoes, peppers, spaghetti squash, basil, apples, zucchini, onion, swiss chard, eggplant, leaf lettuce, green beans, beets, yellow squash, garlic and butternut squash

Couscous vowed to make a dish with eggplant that Grapes would like and......she may have found a dish that passes the test!  Baba Ganoush!

 She also made salsa with the tomatoes, garlic, red pepper, and onion

Finally Couscous whipped up a batch of roasted butternut squash and shallot soup