Mummy Dogs

 I make these every year for Halloween to add to my chili. I don't put the cheese slice in there, just use cheese hotdogs instead. 

This is the recipe however on Pillsbury's site. They have a lot of great recipes!

 

 https://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/crescent-mummy-dogs/d52a57d7-ab8a-4a1c-8dae-f9f90d03b912

 

 Mummy Dogs:

Costumes, candy, and mummy hot dogs—that’s what Halloween is all about! Have your little ghouls and goblins help prep dinner by wrapping the Crescent dough strips around hot dogs. They’ll love seeing these simple-yet-spooky mummies bake into cheesy, crescent-wrapped mum...

By Pillsbury Kitchens

Updated Jul 30, 2021

Ingredients

• 1 can (8 oz) refrigerated Pillsbury™ Original Crescent Rolls (8 Count) or 1 can (8 oz) refrigerated Pillsbury™ Original Crescent Dough Sheet
• 2 1/2 slices American cheese, quartered (2.5 oz)
• 10 Oscar Mayer™ beef hot dogs
• Cooking spray
• Mustard or ketchup, if desired

Make With

Pillsbury Crescents

Steps

• 1
  Heat oven to 375°F.
• 2
  If using crescent rolls: Unroll dough; separate at perforations, creating 4 rectangles. Press perforations to seal. If using dough sheet: Unroll dough; cut into 4 rectangles.

  
• 3
  With knife or kitchen scissors, cut each rectangle lengthwise into 10 pieces, making a total of 40 pieces of dough. Slice cheese slices into quarters (1/2 slice cheese, cut in half).

  
• 4
  Wrap 4 pieces of dough around each hot dog and 1/4 slice of cheese to look like "bandages," stretching dough slightly to completely cover hot dog. About 1/2 inch from one end of each hot dog, separate "bandages" so hot dog shows through for "face." On ungreased large cookie sheet, place wrapped hot dogs (cheese side down); spray dough lightly with cooking spray.

  
• 5
  Bake 13 to 17 minutes or until dough is light golden brown and hot dogs are hot. With mustard, draw features on "face." 
   
   
   
  These are just that easy to make!  I love to set them into a bowl of chili, leaning up on the side so you can dunk it into the delicious chili!
  

Ant Covered Devil's Food Peanut Butter Iced Surprise Cupcakes

 

These were just amazingly fluffy and talk about melt in your mouth! WOW!

 

The trick to making a scrumptiously moist cupcake is to make them and eat them fresh. Having worked at a bakery, they tend to make their cupcakes ahead of time and then freeze them. When they freeze them, they are just put in a big plastic bag and tossed in a box and that is that. This allows air to get to the cake and causes freezer burn.

Anytime you refrigerate cake of any kind, it will start to dry it out. It loses it's moistness and freshness.

 

So when I make cupcakes for someone, I always try to make them the day of.

It's the icing that you want to make a day ahead if you wish, especially if you are coloring the icing, you will want to make the icing ahead of time as the color will deepen and set overnight. This allows you to see how true of a color it is and also helps you to not use as much color as you think you need and thereby avoiding the colored teeth and after effects when the color has gone through your body.

 

Ahem..yea...that.

This icing however is not colored, but the natural tan of the peanut butter so you can make it the day of so it will be the most soft and fresh.

 

For the cupcakes, it is a simple Devil's Food box cake mix. You can make it from scratch if you want, go for it, but it's pretty easy from the box. Now the icing, I made that from scratch because it is very difficult if not impossible to find a peanut butter icing and besides, it's not going to be as good as you making it yourself and it's super easy to make! The 'ants' of course are chocolate sprinkles. The surprise is a miniature Reeses' peanut butter cup baked inside.

 

Here's the Recipe:

 

1 boxed Devil's Food cake mix, doesn't matter the brand

Eggs, (according to the back of the cake mix box)

Oil, (according to the back of the cake mix box)

Water, (according to the back of the cake mix box)

24 miniature Reeses' peanut butter cups

 

Icing (From: allrecipes, http://allrecipes.com/recipe/84429/fluffy-peanut-butter-frosting/)

1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)

1 cup creamy peanut butter (I used the chunky cause I prefer the nuts to crunch and it adds to the 'ants')

3 Tablespoons milk, or as needed (I just put this in gradually enough to make the icing creamy and light)

2 cups confectioner's sugar (powdered sugar, I added a lil more if I put too much milk in to help thicken it)

 

 

Directions:

Prepare the Devil's Food cake mix according to the instructions on the back of the box using the Eggs, oil, and water in the quantities they list.

Preheat the oven to the temperature according to the cake mix.

Line 2 cupcake tins, 24 cupcakes total with paper cupcake liners.

Pour the cake mix equally amongst all the cupcake portions.

Unfoil the Reeses' peanut butter cups and remove all the paper so they are naked and bare and ready to pop into your mouth but instead, push one peanut butter cup into each of the 24 cupcake batters.

Bake as directed.

Don't worry about the peanut butter cups not being covered up when you put these into the oven. The batter will rise and cover it up for you.

Take them out when done and set them to cool. I left the cupcakes in the pan until they were cooled down well and then I made the peanut butter frosting.

 

Icing Directions:

Place the butter and peanut butter into a medium bowl, and beat with an electric mixer.

Gradually mix in the sugar, and when it starts to get thick, incorporate milk one tablespoon at a time until all of the sugar is mixed in and the frosting is thick and spreadable.

Beat for at least 3 minutes for it to get good and fluffy. I used the highest speed to really whip it, adding more milk or powdered sugar depending on the consistency you are looking for and then I added a couple more tablespoons of peanut butter to also help thicken it too and make sure I had enough of a peanut butter flavor, the one of choice I used was the Natural Skippy Chunky.

 

Once the cupcakes are completely cooled, I frosted them with the icing. It's important to let them cool completely before you put the icing on so the icing does not melt with the warm cupcake.

Then I sprinkled the chocolate sprinkles (or jimmies if you call them that depending on where you are from), these are the 'ants'. You also want to sprinkle these on right away so that they stick to the icing before the icing dries a bit, otherwise they will just bounce off.

 

Enjoy!! These are the bomb! So light and fluffy and not too sweet. The Reeses' peanut butter cups melt down to a flatter disc inside the cupcake, making them a little crunchy. They also dropped to the bottom but man these were so delicious!

 

Halloween Baking Championship

I don't normally watch the Food network,  but one night, I was flipping thru the channels and saw these super creative Halloween desserts and food competitions and just had to stop and watch! 

How inspiring to make your own really cool Halloween foods! 

Check it out!

Here is the link for more info:

 http://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/halloween-baking-championship.html

Bagging the Candy!

I recently was watching one of my favorite Halloween shows, The Halloween Tree, with my grown daughter (and later with her boyfriend's help) as we were bagging the Halloween candy. (500 bags!!) Each year you see, I get ziplock bags and a lot of candy and I bag the candy into equal portions so that each kid who comes to my house, trick or treating on Halloween night, will get the same amount of candy. Also, since I am bagging it all, I know exactly how many bags I have and therefore, when Halloween is over, I just count the bags that are left and I will know exactly how many kids came by on Halloween night. This helps me to prepare for the next year. Last year, I had 343 kids come thru the Haunted Cave! They came from as far as Euless and downtown Fort Worth! Simply amazing! From Euless it is over 20 miles away! They had heard about my place and came up! I was so touched. But I refuse to ever run out of candy and so I am always prepared!

Here is just some of the candy about ready to be bagged:

I have added a Halloween sticker and a jumping spider to each ziplock bag as well. Usually it's a spider ring or some kind of little trinket.

I also do put together gift bags (100) of extra items and I have stuffed animals and such for the little kids who can't eat candy so much. I collect the stuffed animals usually after Halloween is over or from garage sales or some that I won in arcade machines or on the boardwalk at Seaside, NJ. The gift bags are limited and normally I have them outside for kids to take but they swarmed last year hahahaa so I will be keeping them with me to hand out instead. I also give away seek and find pc games I've played once or old movies or Halloween music cds. Straws, puzzles, pencils, stickers, tattoos, bubbles, mini notebooks...are just some of the items in the gift bags.

We also have small water pod bottles to hand out and glow bracelets for the first 100 kids. I am fixing up the plastic container I had bought for a party to hold sodas and thought it would be good to use it again for Halloween for the water. It was red, but faded to pink in the sun! DOH! So I am in the middle of spray painting it and will blog a post of how I did it to make it look like flames coming up as a cauldron! :) This is the water so far:

There will be cupcakes, cookies and some extra candy as well possibly, depending on how hot Halloween ends up being. I'll take pics as it gets closer to Halloween as I make them.

Halloween is always a huge to-do for me. While checking out this year at a grocery store, a cashier told me it was too dangerous for her to hand out candy at night, so she turns her lights out that night. She just shook her head at me to see me having so much candy and the bagger men said the way to cure having to buy so much candy was to turn the lights out. DOH!
I told them, no, not likely I will do that as my garage becomes a haunted cave! :)

I found this so sad. I feel lucky in that my neighborhood is safe and we do not have any problems on Halloween night. I can't ever see me turning my lights out and not having some type of setup for the kids.

Why do I do this? some might ask....

I will tell you...

It is for many reasons. First, to see the kids' faces when they come in their costumes and watch them face their fears in order to get candy. And this one night out of the whole year, they get to dress up and be whoever they want to be. They can be their hero, Thor, Spiderman, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman or a fairytale princess, butterfly or any cartoon character they wish! They can be fairies, mermaids, wizards, witches, mummies, werewolves, vampires....anything their own creativity and minds can think up!

I am also there until the very end, around 9:30 or 10 pm even to be sure all the kids who are going to come have come. I remember a couple years ago when a kid got out late and he was so sad that everyone else had turned their lights out long ago and they had run out of candy and his bag was so empty. I felt so bad for him. So I took his bag and filled it with a bunch of candy that I had left over and I gave him two fistfuls of the giant pixie stix too and he ran down the street full of glee and yelled back over his shoulder, "Never stop doing Halloooooweeeeeennnnnn!!!!"
Hahhahaa! I loved it! That just made my night to have been able to put a smile on his face like that.

No other holiday am I able to do something like that. My turn to give back just as the many parents and adults had given candy out when I was a kid and to my own two kids, now it is my turn to give back to the kids of today.

Halloween for me is not about evil or sinful things or anything negative at all. It is a time for the kids to be who they want to be. Get together with friends and laugh and talk and see all the crazy and scary setups, go to local haunts, and see how giving people really can be.

And now, lately, I have begun to do what I used to do as room mom for my kids when I brought in goodies for the kids and had holiday parties, teach. I used to teach the origins of the holidays, dispelling fears. For Halloween, I helped kids to not be afraid of ghosts, for those who came along during Halloween, when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest, that those ancestors are their own and would they be afraid of their grandmother? No. So I have included in our video projections, some history of Halloween and I will be continuing that each year, including more history of the different countries and their beliefs and holiday celebrations, making Halloween a truly fun time for the kids and educational at the same time, and even more so, giving them the memories to carry with them for a lifetime! :)

Do you know, I have a haunted cave where kids come thru to get their candy and many, when they see the wonder of the black lit cave as parts of their costumes light up and glow from it, they come thru again and again and are so honest when I went to give them candy, they tell me, "No thank you, you already gave me candy, I just wanted to come thru again!" :)
You have to like kids who are that damn honest. You really do.

So yea, so long as I have at least one kid to come knock on my door, I will never turn out my lights and I will 'never stop doing Halloween! :)

Dr. Seuss - It's Grinch Night!

Everyone is familiar with How The Grinch Stole Christmas, but not many know about Dr. Seuss' It's Grinch Night!

This came out in 1977 and it was once released as "Halloween is Grinch Night!"

It's about how the Grinch is plotting to terrorize and scare the people of Whoville on Halloween and how one kid wanders out to the 'Euphemism" and ends up facing his fears to help save his family and town from the scary shenanigans of the Grinch.

It's a cute animation and is an Emmy Award Winner. :)
Here it is on Youtube:

For those who can't get enough of the Grinch, it's a great addition to your collection and for the kids' Halloween collection!

I watched it again just yesterday with my daughter as we put together the Halloween cupcake boxes for all the cupcakes we are to give away on Halloween Night.

I like to put the cupcakes I give away in these cute little cupcake boxes. They hold one cupcake each and have an insert to hold it upright and stop it from sliding around in the box. It does allow for quite a lot of room at the top for your icing and decorations. I got these from Oriental Trading Company. I also have regular black and orange boxes and some other Halloween iconic cupcake boxes.  Sometimes you can get them on sale as well! :) 

Since it is so hot outside here in Texas still, it's hard to work out in the garage so I like to do as much as I can inside the house and really enjoy the buildup for Halloween while watching Halloween specials and shows and movies while doing something like putting these boxes together or bagging the candy or filling the gift bags. As I watch different movies or shows, I'll put up a review here of them. :)

In the meantime, if you like the Dr. Seuss movies/cartoons, you can pick up not only Grinch Night, but a single dvd over on Amazon that includes Green Eggs and Ham, The Sneetches,  The Zax, and Grinch Night! The Sneetches is one of my favorites as well!

Check it out:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009ZVNO

~*Bugs N Hisses*~

Wanda

Oriental Trading Company Freebies Again!

I just wanted to give a shout out to The Oriental Trading Company for their freebie page here:

http://www.freefunhalloween.com/halloween-recipes/

Check out their links at the top as well for more fun Halloween ideas!

I often visit Oriental Trading Company around this time of the year to order some of the free novelties and trinkets that I give away in my candy bags and gift bags. Some of my favorites to give away is the plastic jumping spiders and the scaredy cats for the little kids who are too scared to go into my Haunted Cave. :)
I get an assortment of items, stickers, tattoos...etc. I love to get the glow in the dark items if I can as they are the most fun for the kids.

So do check them out! Also, if you think you will be purchasing from them often as they are great for party decorations as well, be sure to sign up and collect points so you can get discounts or coupons in your email for later purchases! :)

Triple-Layer Lemon Meringue Pie

Only fair that I share the lemon after sharing the lime!
Now what makes a lemon meringue pie for Halloween? Well the topping is white marshmallow type of meringue and with that, you can easily make little ghostie pies with it!

I'll post the regular recipe here and then what you do for individual servings is use the small individual graham cracker crusts and then fill them as you would the large one, layering the lemon pudding, and then the lemon pudding mixed with some cool whip and then the marshmallow cool whip meringue. While adding the top, you form a peak with the meringue, either in the middle or towards the top (head of ghost). Then draw a smaller peak to the left and one to the right (hands/arms of ghost). Let these set in the fridge.
When you take them out to eat, you take two chocolate chips and push in the points into the meringue for eye balls. Then you can leave them like that or take some cake decorating gel and draw on little mouths! :)

I made one big pie this time, but when I make it again, I'll be sure and do the smaller ones and decorate as I just explained above and take pics for you all. :)

This is super easy to make!

For now, here is the recipe and a link for it:

Triple-Layer-Lemon-Meringue-Pie

2 cups cold milk
2 packages (4 serving size each) JELL-O Lemon Flavor Instant Pudding & Pie Filling
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 Honey-Maid Graham Cracker Pie Crust (6 ounces)
1 tub (8 ounces) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed, divided
2 1/2 cups JET-PUFFED Miniature Marshmallows, divided
2 Tablespoons cold milk


POUR 2 cups milk into large bowl. Add dry pudding mixes and juice. Beat with wire whisk 2 minutes or until well blended. (Mixture will be thick)

SPREAD 1 1/2 cups of the pudding onto bottom of the crust; set aside. Add half of the whipped topping to remaining pudding; stir gently until well blended. Spread over pudding layer in crust. Place 2 cups of the marshmallows in large microwaveable bowl. Add 2 Tablespoons milk; stir. Microwave on HIGH 1 1/2 minutes or until marshamallows are completely melted, stirring after 1 minute. (I only had to heat them 30 seconds as my microwave runs hot so check this after that much time and stir til the marshmallows are melted!) Stir until well blended. Refrigerate 15 minutes or until cooled. (I also put the pie in the fridge so both could keep cool).
Gently stir in whipped topped; spread over pudding mixture. (Stir the rest of the whipped topping with the melted marshmallows it means to say).

REFRIGERATE 3 hours or until set. Top with the remaining 1/2 cup marshmallows just before serving. Store leftover pie in refrigerator.

Makes 8 servings, 1 slice each.

--JAZZ IT UP-- Garnish with lemon twists or 1/2 cup sliced strawberries just before serving.


I added more marshmallows when I went to serve each piece, cause can never have enough of those!


I have to say, these are really AWESOME!
I can make true lemon meringue pie from scratch, but this was just too easy and very delicious!

I got the recipe from JELL-O & COOL WHIP
Summer Desserts booklet! :) Also Featuring: JetPuffed and Baker's.

Best S'mores Cupcakes

While volunteering at Moxley Manor Haunted House, I often would bring some goodies for all the actors. Usually it was cupcakes with something creepy on them or unique or unusual food like eyeball lollipops on sporks or something bizarre like that.

Last year, I was challenged by Don to make s'mores cupcakes. I never had but of course being a huge dessert maker and cake decorator, I accepted and went looking for a good s'more's cupcake receipe. I found one as he wanted it to be more chocolate and that one, had the graham crackers on the bottom and a chocolate cake base. Well they didn't turn out so well, came out a bit hard and just didn't have the taste or texture I think I was looking for. I am not a huge s'mores fan either but he and everyone else really liked them.

So this past Wed night as I was volunteering at Moxley for the HAuNTcon folks who came out on the tour (more on HAuNTcon later! ;) ), I decided to try another recipe for the s'more's cupcakes.

That's the premise of this and why I thought to put it here on this blog as it is a good recipe for those wanting something wickedly delicious and there are all sorts of ways you could decorate this for Halloween!

S'mores Cupcakes:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 15 whole crackers ground in processor---I just crushed them with a thick glass in a metal bowl until I got enough crumbs)
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter (at room temperature)
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup whole milk
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate (do not exceed 61% cacao--I used Ghiradelli), chopped
1/2 cup (scant) heavy whipping cream
3/4 cup plus one 7 ounce jar marshmallow crème
Nonstick vegetable oil spray (I used Pam Olive Oil)
12 1-inch pieces broken graham crackers (for garnish)

Special Equipment: Apple corer (I used a little juicer gadget)



Now before I type the preparation, a few hints here:
Take your butter out ahead of time to let it get to room temp.
I crushed the graham crackers in a metal bowl with a small juice glass that is thick and heavy as it works really well!
The salt I used was the Himalayan pink salt that is tons better for you than regular salt as the regular old salt is a toxin.
I tried the broiling of the dollops of marshmallow crème but it didn't work well enough to my liking so next time I am going to try to use mini marshmallows as a garnish right on the cupcake first and then heat them with a candle lighter to get that toasted look for the garnish, then insert the graham cracker. I also added another piece of Ghiradelli chocolate as you can see in the pic, cause well, can't have too much of that!
I also doubled this recipe to make 24 and I had overfilled the muffin cups so I probably could have made  26 - 28 cupcakes instead that wouldn't have overflowed and stuck a bit to the pan when I went to take them out. I wasn't sure how they would do if they would go higher up or splooge over. They splooged. But the resulting 'crusties' from the pan were great little crunchies to munch on!


Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 12 standard muffin cups with paper liners. Whisk graham crackers, flour, baking powder, and pinch of salt in medium bowl. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating to blend between additions. Beat in vanilla. Add graham cracker mixture in 3 additions alternately with milk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with graham cracker mixture. Divide batter among muffin cups.

Bake cupcakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 22 minutes. Transfer cupackes to rack; cool completely.

Place the chopped chocolate in medium bowl. Bring cream just to boil in small saucepan; pour over chocolate. Let stand 1 minute; stir until smooth. Cool ganache until lukewarm.

Push apple corer about 1 inch into top of each cupcake; remove cake, forming a hole. Spoon 3/4 cup marshmallow crème into resealable plastic bag (I used a pastry decorator bag with no tip, but making a saran wrap bullet of marshmallow crème first), pushing into 1 bottom corner. Cut 1/2 inch off corner.  Pipe into holes in cupcakes. Spread 2 teaspoons ganache over each cupcake. DO AHEAD can be made 8 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature.

Preheat broiler. Coat rimmed baking sheet with nonstick spray. Spoon dollops of marshmallow crème on sheet (don't make these too large as they will spread). Broil until slightly charred, 1 - 2 minutes. Spoon dollop of charred crème over each cupcake; garnish with piece of graham cracker.


Makes 12

From: http://www.thewickednoodle.com


Like I said, I had a harder time with the broiling part, my oven doesn't have that setting and the marshmallow crème was VERY SUPER sticky and hardened as it cooled and I found it kinda chewy for what I was going for. So  I will eventually make these again but using the mini marshmallows and use my candle lighter to get the charred or  more so toasted look and texture.

For Halloween, I'd probably pipe lil marshmallow crème ghosts much like my icing ghosts I use for the pumpkin muffins and then toast them slightly with the lighter. I'll probably give it a whirl again and if so, will take pics and post an update!

For now, I wanted to get this recipe out there to you! :)


More on HAuNTcon and the incredible vendors and classes soon! Be looking for more updates to the link lists too!


Bugs n Hisses,

Wanda

Tangy Green Key Lime Margarita Pie!

I know I haven't posted in a while and I need to catch up on quite a few blog posts, a special one is coming too of another who has this amazing set up for their Halloween Village!

But!

Before I do post on that, I wanted to share this wicked green, tangy and most delicious dessert with you! Green of course reminds me of Halloween or even St. Patrick's Day, this is a great dessert for either and especially in the heat of the summer which will be coming soon I am sure!

I got this recipe from Kraft. It's called: Key Lime Margarita Pie. And get this, it's without the alcohol! But it tastes just as great and just like a key lime margarita!

I think it's the crushed pretzels that really sets this off but make it and you decide! :)


Key Lime Margarita Pie

Prep Time: 15 mins
Total Time: 6 hr 15 mins
Servings: 10


Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups crushed pretzels
1/4 cup sugar
6 Tablespoons butter, melted
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup lime juice
1 env. Kool-Aid Lemon/Lime Unsweetened Soft Drink Mix
1 tub (8 oz) Cool Whip Whipped Topping, thawed, divided.



Mix pretzel crumbs, sugar and butter; press onto bottom and up side of a 9 inch pie plate. Refrigerate until ready to fill.
Mix next 3 ingredients in large bowl. Whisk in 2 1/2 cups Cool Whip; pour into crust.
Freeze 6 hours. Remove from freezer 15 mins before serving; let stand at room temperature until slightly softened.
Top with remaining Cool Whip.

I have to say, this one is really delicious!! It's a favorite at my house at any time of the year!
I hope you all enjoy it!

Free n Fun Halloween Stuff

Check it out! From Oriental Trading Company!

Along with all their great deals (I just placed a nice order for a few things), they have on their site some free things for Halloween!

Don't miss out on these from Pumpkin Stencils to Coloring pictures to Recipes!

Gotta love it!!


Click here:
Free and Fun Halloween

The Best Chili!

Ok what is more awesome to have on a cold Halloween night but a nice bowl of hot chili?!
A couple years ago during one of the first few Halloweens that we utilized the garage to make the Haunted Cave, we also created the Haunted Cafe! We made chili, mummy dogs (hot dogs wrapped in crescent roll dough), spiderweb cream cheese brownies, witch hat cookies, and pumpkin pie. We gave it all away for free to the parents of the trick or treaters! I can't tell you how many returned for seconds and thirds!! We didn't keep it up however cause the chili combined with the beeswax candles and other scents in the garage just made the whole place smell kinda funky! Haha! Which can be a good thing or bad one on Halloween night! But the chili was just awesome!!

So for those who might be wondering about the chili recipe, I wanted to share it here with you all!

Now this is not too hot at all of a recipe, it's a good basic chili recipe that you can spring off from and add what you like to it for your own individual tastes. I prefer the basic recipe myself as I am not one for the too hot and spicey stuff. I may add a few more dark red kidney beans to it, but not a lot. I also add in half of an onion that we chop on down in the chopper real fine. For the cafe, I quadrupled this recipe, it was ALOT of chili! But for just 4 people, I usually double the recipe so that we can have leftovers a couple of times. I used to make this and then wrap up some chili burritos and then freeze them and have them for lunches. Toss in some shredded cheese before wrapping them up in the tortillas.

I wanted to give credit where credit is due however and let you all know that I got this recipe from the Phil Donahue show. I sent for the transcripts for when The Recipe Detective was on, many years ago and she had figured out the ingredients to some of the more famous fast food places' special and secret recipes. At least, as close as she could get! What we got then was a bevy of wonderful recipes!

This is the Wednesday's Original Chili recipe.... I hope you all enjoy it as much as we do!

"Wednesday's Chili" the Wendy's-Style Chili

• 2 Tbl Oil**
• 1 1/2 To 2 lbs ground round beef      
• 10 oz Can French onion soup (not creamy)
• 1 Tbl Chili powder
• 2 tsp Ground Cumin
• 1/2 tsp  Black Pepper
• (Few drops of Tabasco)
• 21 oz Can Dark Red Kidney Beans - undrained
• 6 oz Can Tomato Paste
• 8 oz Can Tomato Sauce

Brown the ground beef in the vegetable oil in a nice deep, large skillet. Break the beef into tiny rice size pieces.
Blenderize soup in blender and add to browning meat.
Then add the rest of the ingredients and let simmer.
Serves 6
Source: Gloria Pitzer, Secret Recipes Newsletter

**On another note, I don't use vegetable oil, I use olive oil instead. I also put extra chopped onions into the pan as I am browning the lean meat. Drain off the fat. I pour the blenderized soup right into the pan of meat and onions thereafter and then stir in the spices and then add the paste and the sauce and undrained cans of kidney beans (I know that part is weird eh?). Once I get it all together, I transfer it to the slow cooker and let it simmer all day long and turn it up to piping hot just before we serve it. Add some shredded mexican cheese and wha~la! YUM!

We usually add a mummy dog for Halloween. You can also add some tortilla chips, I like the blue corn. It's just amazing stuff!

Check out her page for More Great Recipes <----click that link!

I hope you all enjoy it!!

Pumpkin Bread Muffins & Buttercream Frosting

Here it is! The pumpkin bread recipe that is from my junior high school's home economics class, believe it or not! ;)
This is a timeless recipe that I just absolutely love and since I am about to bake this in the 3D Skull pan from Wilton, I thought I'd share it! I usually make this recipe into muffins and add some buttercream frosting I make from scratch also. Here they are as muffins with a little buttercream icing ghosts:

Now don't be scared of this recipe cause it's from scratch (meaning no box mix here). It is the most simplest recipe! You simply dump it all and blend! It looks bad when you mix it but it sure does taste awesome! My kids love them!


So without further ado...


Pumpkin Bread


1 3/4 Cups Flour
1 1/2 Cups Dark Brown Sugar
2 Eggs
1 Cup Pumpkin (I use the canned Libby's, NOT for the pie making, just regular canned pumpkin).
1/4 lb (1 stick) Margarine or Butter. (Best to use butter)
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
1 teaspoon Baking Soda (not the powder, the baking soda)
1/2 Cup Chopped Nuts (walnuts work best)


Grease well and flour a 1 lb coffee can. (Yes, a real metal coffee can that's been cleaned and dried. You can actually bake in it and the original recipe called for you to do just that! Wild eh?!) I take Crisco/shortening and rub it all inside and then take a bit of extra flour and dust it and then tap the extra flour out into the trash. You can also use a loaf pan if you are wanting it to be a pumpkin bread loaf you slice.
OR
Line muffin pan with liners.


That's the hardest thing to this one! ;)


Place all ingredients except nuts into a large bowl and mix with an electric mixer for 2 minutes.
Add nuts, stir by hand. Pour the batter into the coffee can or fill muffin cups about 1/2 - 2/3 full, depending on how high you like your muffins.


Bake in 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 25 minutes for muffins and 1 hour for the coffee can. The coffee can sits upright and I know, its weird but it works!


Should have a slightly rounded top, thin, tender, orange-brown surface, small, fairly uniform holes, fairly moist, and distinct flavor with even distribution of nuts.




If you make this in a loaf pan or other sort of pan or coffee can, you want to take it out after about 10 minutes of cooling down. Once it has completely cooled, for the muffins, I add a frosting ghost out of the buttercream frosting recipe from Wilton:


Buttercream-Icing

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (for white frosting and not a cream color, use clear vanilla extract)
• 4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar (approximately 1 lb.)
• 2 tablespoons milk

Makes:

About 3 cups of icing.

Instructions:

Step 1

In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use.

Step 2

For best results, keep icing bowl in refrigerator when not in use. Refrigerated in an airtight container, this icing can be stored 2 weeks. Rewhip before using.

Step 3

For thin (spreading) consistency icing, add 2 tablespoons light corn syrup, water or milk.

Step 4

For Pure White Icing (stiff consistency), omit butter; substitute an additional 1/2 cup shortening for butter and add 1/2 teaspoon No-Color Butter Flavor. Add up to 4 tablespoons light corn syrup, water or milk to thin for icing cakes.




I use the normal recipe and again, I use butter and not margarine. I also add a bit of corn syrup to make it a little more softer and this I tend not to measure but just eyeball it to make sure the icing isn't too thick or stiff.


Now here's a trick I learned from a friend of mine when I went thru the Wilton cake decorating courses....(and if you haven't taken them, you should, they are fun!)...
Rather than put that icing into a pastry bag that oozes out the back end and gets your hand all messy with icing, you take a piece of saran wrap and lay out some frosting like you are going to make a burrito and then you wrap it just like a burrito, leaving one end open and the other is folded up. My friend/instructor called them 'bullets'. Then you put one of those couplings into the bag to fit it right and take the bullet and pop it into your pastry bag so that the open end of your bullet is towards the smaller opening of the bag. Squeeze it from the top after twisting it closed and see the icing come out the tip. You can then add one of those metal tips and then a ring to screw onto the coupler to hold the tip on and there you have it! Then, when the icing is gone, you open the pastry bag and slide out the used up saran wrap bullet and toss it! You can change colors much easier that way and the only mess is at the tip of the pastry bag! Nice eh?! Cool trick! Thanks Madeline!


So ok...from here...I take the buttercream icing, (which is just fantastic and not too sweet), and I make lil icing ghosts with it. I'll take a few pics here this afternoon and put them up to show you. But they are very easy! Then I'll take a lil icing gel and make eyes and a smiley mouth. Just that little bit of icing is so well worth the effort to make it! Trust me! It adds a lil touch of yumminess to your pumpkin bread muffins.


A friend of mine inquired about a jelly roll log using this recipe of pumpkin bread and I have not tried it out yet. If I do in the near future, I'll let you know how it came out as I've been wanting to try my hand at making a yule log.


Hope you all enjoy this one! Not just for Halloween but great this time of year!