don't forget love: Caramel Apples, Spooky Ghosts, and Candyland!!

I don't know about you, but I had a fantastic Halloween. We had lots of friends here with great costumes (my sister even made the trek from CT to join in on the fun). We also had so much fantastic food!! My roommates and I were planning and prepping for the day for so long, it is hard for me to believe it is over. In the lead up to the big day, I got quite nostalgic for the Halloweens of my past. Although Christmas may have been the number one most highly-anticipated holiday of my childhood, Halloween came in at a close second. This is for good reason--I have a Mom who helped me put together lovely, well-planned costumes. She also made spooky treats and taught me silly Halloween songs. I also have such fond memories of carving pumpkins with my Dad and then roasting the seeds in the oven.

So, with that reminiscing aside, let me get back to the point of my post here. On Halloween I made some treats that were not only fun to make but very fun to eat!! My roommates and I also got very crafty with our costumes so I wanted to share some photos. Of course a party is not complete without some goodies made from my favorite online recipe journal, 101 Cookbooks. That links to Heidi's collection of Halloween recipes. I tried the caramel apples and the spooky ghost meringues. Both were a bit on the long side to make, but totally worth it!!

Here are some photos of the apples. I decided to use sliced apples instead of whole apples and they came out nicely. The experience of making homemade caramel was so wonderful and fun (but can be dangerous since the caramel gets hot hot!). The only problem was that my kitchen window was open and three bees flew in!! They must have smelled the sweetness of the caramel and decided it was worth a chance. This put the process on hold for a bit; moral of the story is--close the window when making sweet treats!

Now for the ghosts. This was my first time making meringues and it was very fun! The only issue was that the coolest setting on my oven is 260 and the temperature for meringues is around 200. I managed to make it work and they ended up very cute. In addition to what I made, my roommates made vegetable pate, spring rolls, and roasted potatoes and celery root. Our friends brought lots of other yummy things--it was quite a feast!

Now for the costumes!! We decided to be characters from Candyland--one of my favorite childhood board games. I was Queen Frostine and my roommates were Princess Lolly and Lord Licorice. For my costume I bought a dress and added fabric and tulle.