Cucumber Boats

Cucumber boats
Cucumber Boats

Cucumber boats floating on their blue ocean plate with fully open egg-white sails, rigging of toothpicks with whimsical olives making the mast, and filled with egg salad. Ahoy!

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Pirate Party Menu and Recipes

Jolly Roger of Rack Rachham

Pirate Party – It’s a Pirate Party! This is a fun menu to make for your own pirate party, whether for kids, or adults who are celebrating International Talk like a Pirate Day. Of course, you can use these recipes at any time of the year.

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Day of the Dead Brownies

Day of the Dead Brownies
Day of the Dead Brownies
Day of the Dead Brownies Inspired by Crystal Skull on Exhibit at the British Museum
Crystal Skull at the British Museum

These Day of the Dead brownies have an extra kick from Chipotle and Cinnamon that takes them out of the realm of the ordinary brownie.

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Cranberry Brown Betty

Cranberry Brown Betty
Cranberry Brown Betty Cooling

This is fast becoming a staple Thanksgiving dessert. I don’t like pumpkin pie, and mince-pie is wonderful for Christmas, so this has the one for this holiday. It’s very simple to make with only a few ingredients that you probably already have on hand.

You will want to use Panko breadcrumbs because they are large and very dry. Broken up bread will not absorb enough of the juices to make a nice top on this. Breadcrumbs that come in a can will not work either, as they are too small, and you would just have a cranberry pudding instead of a Brown Betty.

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Bride and Groom Ghosts

Took one look at her groom and hung herself!
Took one look at her groom and hung herself!

Crafts in this Post

Halloween is my favorite holiday for crafts. There are so many fun projects you can do. Amber is making Zombie Dog Pumpkin for her son’s pumpkin contest. I’m sure she’ll win. I decided my theme this year was going to be about dead people, as I already have some Styrofoam I am going to use to make tomb stones.

We started our Halloween project this afternoon. A few weeks ago, I found some Polyethylene Foam laying discarded on the side of the road. As I walked past it, I thought, gee, it kind of looks like a ghost. Well, I went right back, picked it up, and took it home. Then when I was helping at the school a few days later, I found some smaller sheets and took those home, too, thinking I could make smaller ghosts.

So, I thought I would make a Bride and Groom ghosts, since I still have a lot of tulle left over from making Spane’s First Communion favor bags.

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Pasta Fagioli Soup

When the stars make you drool
Joost-a like pasta fazool (Pasta Fagioli)
That’s amore
When you dance down the street
With a cloud at your feet, you’re in love
When you walk in a dream
But you know you’re not dreamin’, signore
‘Scusami, but you see
Back in old Napoli, that’s amore

Pasta Fagioli Soup

We all remember Dean Martin singing That’s Amore, either on television if you’re old enough, or in the movie Moonstruck if you’re not. It was raining here today in Glendale, and I had a PTA meeting to go to, so I thought that soup would be an excellent idea.

I have a wonderful book, The Mafia Cookbook, where I know I can get very authentic Italian recipes. This soup can either be an appetizer, having very little meat, as it is in the book, or you can add meat like I did and have a full filling meal.

Well, let’s get started.

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A Crafting We Will Go

The flip flops, Bow, matching barrettes, and bracelets
The flip flops, Bow, matching barrettes, and bracelets

A Girly Birthday

Spane and Noelle are very good friends, and play together a lot. Her mother, Amber, and I sat down a few weeks ago and started making plans for the party. Amber is going to make a waterfall scene cake, and I told her I would make some pixies for it. I will be posting that when I make them made the Pixie wings, as the party is not for another 10 2 days, and now, I have made the pixies out of marzipan. But, we went to Michaels and got some great gifts to make for Noelle. You can view the album of pictures we took to see the completed projects.

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