Sweet Tombstones...and a BRUSH WITH MARTHA!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

First, here are the tombstones, or headstones, for Halloween. These were fun to make. I don't know if you can tell, but the flowers are supposed to be wilted like an old neglected grave.
I used AmeriColor Gourmet Writers (food coloring pens) to write the names.
....and here they are all bagged up and ready. My husband is taking some to his customers today. :)
OK....so a "brush with Martha." Really, it's not so much HER, but as close as I'll ever get. :) Do you read Martha's Everyday Food blog? It's called Dinner Tonight, and is one of the blogs in my google reader. Well, today they have a link to some of their "favorite creations" from a gallery of creepy treats submitted by readers.

Guess who had 2 cookies make the list....ME!!! This just makes my day! Is it sad that I had to get up and do a little "happy dance" when I saw them? Maybe...probably! :)

See if you can spot them. And, have a wonderfully sweet and spooky Halloween! BOO!

Stuffed Cabbage with Quinoa + Roasted Sweet Potato

Quinoa stuffed cabbage. How's that for nontraditional?

It was a dark and stormy night... 

Wait. This is a recipe post. Let me start again. Got your cocoa? Are you settled?

Chapter 1.

The tight blue tiled kitchen glowed in the afternoon sun that slatted through the western facing junipers and spilled across the cupboards in a honeyed glaze so dazzling she had to lower her eyes to keep from squinting like a cowboy as she grabbed a frayed dish towel and cracked the oven door. The scent of sweet potatoes, apples and onion laced with garlic, nutmeg and cinnamon filled the room. She tugged her worn wooden spoon from the mustard crock and stirred the tender jewels bathed in apple juice. For the first time in days she felt connected to something tangible.

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Karina's Kicked Up Colcannon Recipe

An Irish classic- colcannon. Mashed potatoes with a twist.

Traditional colcannon is an Irish potato recipe thick with cream and sticks of butter. If served for the Celtic New Year, a bowl of colcannon might include a lucky coin hidden in its pillowy depths; the charmed recipient- if she didn't break a tooth on it- kept the buried treasure for a New Year's worth of kind fortune. 

My version of colcannon is anything but traditional. I'm a half Ashkenazi-Jewish-Scot-Irish shiksa zen Jungian humanist, after all. So you know I had to change it up a bit. It had to be vegan. And it had to be spiked with the flavors I crave. Flavors that love snuggling up to potatoes.

Because when it comes to this turning-back-the-clock dark and spooky time of year nothing beats a good potato recipe. 

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Dem Bones

The idea for these cookies came from the booklet, Martha Stewart Cookie Decorating (Simple Techniques For Extra-Special Treats). The link will get you to Amazon, but unfortunately, it is out-of-stock. My sister bought me this book last year from Michael's, but I haven't seen it there in a while. It's a great little 24-page book filled with ideas and instructions.
I always get nervous trying a new cookie idea, but every time I look at these, they make me laugh. I really like them. I used AmeriColor Avocado coloring for the skeletons and they ended up a ghostly green color, almost like glow-in-the-dark. I hadn't planned it that way, but it turned out pretty cool.Here's a question for all of you....sanding sugar or no? I started applying it like Martha suggests and then couldn't decide if I liked them better plain or not, so I did half and half. What do you think? I'm already planning for next year. :)

I'm mailing these...and some others...to my dad so he can hand them out at work. Stay tuned later in the week for tombstones!

To make the skeleton/coffin cookies:

• Pipe a coffin shape in black icing, using a #2 tip. (Spectrum Super Black)
• Thin black icing with water to a consistency of syrup. cover with a damp towel and let sit several minutes.
• Run a rubber spatula through the icing to pop air bubbles that have formed on top. Transfer to a squeeze bottle.
• Fill in the coffins with the thinned black flood icing.
• Let dry at least 1 hour.
• Using a #2 tip and light green icing, pipe a skeleton shape on the coffins. (AmeriColor Avocado)
• Before this icing has set, use the black piping icing to make eyes and a mouth on the face.
• If using sanding sugar, let the cookies dry overnight.
• Mix a little meringue powder with water and brush on the skeleton shape using a small paintbrush.
• Sprinkle with clear sanding sugar.
  
  

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