Halloween 2012

I had been planning a Halloween party for several weeks and it finally arrived.  I love planning things!  On Friday night I did most of my food prep because my family was going out to the City for a cousin's birthday party during the day before the party.  This meant that I would have no time to do any food prepping the day of. While I prepped, Nick cleaned.  It was all working out really well until the end of the night when we realized that our dishwasher was massively leaking and we had to wash everything the old fashioned way.  It's time for an upgrade anyway.

The plan was make as many things as possible that would keep over night.  I put together an easy cheese ball, baked my Apple Churropies, blanched brussel sprouts, cut up tortillas to make homemade tortilla chips, chopped celery, onion, cauliflower, and bacon, assembled Halloween themed tags for the food, and painted my nails.

As far as I could tell, everyone had a fantastic time.  We watched the third game of the World Series, which the Giants won so we were all in high spirits.  There were plenty of beverages going around (I went back to Costco and got two more of those Deadman's Ale growlers) and everyone seemed very relaxed.  After dinner was finally served, we played a couple of board games before dessert.  I deem this party a major success!

This was Nick's dinner.  I picked up premade turkey from Sprouts and he added
cheese, hot sauce, avocado, and sour cream.  I was too busy to end up eating. 

I couldn't resist some of the easy, inexpensive, and usable decorations. 

I got this little guy at the dollar store.  He is so cute!

I found these Halloween tags online.  Some came premade while the small
rectangular ones I used a blank template and added in my titles using dafont.com.

Rat Brain: Roasted cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, and red potatoes
Ghost Guts: Cheese ball
Zombie Snot: Bacon brussel sprouts
Bat Wings: Buffalo chicken wings
Dragon eyes: Meatballs in bbq sauce

Night Crawlers: Hummus
Zombie Teeth: Homemade tortilla chips
Decomposing Eels: Burgundy pork tenderloin
Bat Guano: Cheesy salsa dip

I actually botched up this recipe a little bit by grabbing a carrot cake mix instead
of spice cake.  They still turned out really well though. 

Cheese ball, hummus, and cheesy salsa dip.

Nick kept his Gagnman jacket on for about five minutes
because it was so hot in our apartment, but at least we
got a picture in. 

The Burgundy pork tenderloin turned out really well and it was super simple.
We ended up having way too much food as usual.  I made six tenderloins
thinking that there would be just over one tenderloin per couple.  I always
forget that not everyone eats the big portions that Nick and my family does.
My parents just got back from their China trip and were very jet lagged.  We
brought over two whole tenderloins, brussel sprouts, and two trays of veggies
so that my Mom didn't have to cook dinner.  Now we might actually have a fighting
chance of finishing off our leftovers without them going to waste.  I have some
plans for how I'm going to repurpose the leftovers this week.   

Roasted in the oven at 350 for about an hour.

Cauliflower, red potatoes, and cherry tomatoes.  We parcooked the potatoes
to cut down the roasting time and for them to crisp up.  I will use the extra potatoes
for mashed potatoes this week.