I received the funniest comment from a reader the other day. It made me laugh and then worry. It read:

“Hi Lorraine, off-topic – saw you and Mr. NQN at the shops today. I was much too shy to say hello, but I did spy a jar of glucose syrup in your trolley. Can’t wait to see what you’ll be making with it! Cheers, K”.

The first thing I thought of was “Oh dear, what was I wearing? I hope I was dressed appropriately” and then “I hope there was nothing embarrassing in my shopping trolley!” Thankfully if I did reader Kat was too polite to say anything about my casual attire or possibly odd trolley occupant and simply mentioned the glucose syrup.

She might have also seen in my trolley a most unusually cut loaf of bread. Minutes before I had gone to a bakery to ask for bread sliced lengthways. They looked at me slightly skeptically and asked me if I was sure and then confirmed what I wanted done. Now there is a reason why people don’t get bread sliced lengthways and put into bags. It falls apart within the bag and so I wrestled with this loaf of bread that kept threatening to come unhinged before ceremoniously placing it in the upper trolley compartment. It was probably good that she hadn’t seen me then.

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Welcome to my Halloween graveyard!

Happy Hallowe’en my pretties! It’s the Wicked Witch of the East(ern Suburbs) here! Hop onto the end of my broomstick for a personal tour of my very own Hallowe’en party! I promise to lure you into my cottage with all sorts of gruesome, ghastly and frighteningly freaky goods.

I still don’t know what on earth possessed me to make 13 items for this Halloween party. Did I mention that I grossly overcater for these types of events? It seemed like a good idea at the time and I just kept adding things as I discovered them or thought of them. This over eagerness to feed does have its downsides and I found myself on the evening before the night of the party exhausted. Mr NQN had gone out for work drinks and didn’t come home until 10pm where he found me an incoherent mess. All I could wail was “I want my television” (i.e. the laptop) while lying prone on the bed kicking my feet in the air like an upended hedgehog.

Tombstone cookies-one for each guest!

Brain Shots!

Ghost open sandwiches and pumpkin open sandwiches

The next morning I awoke refreshed and glanced at my schedule. You can never keep a good ghoul down and inside me is also a strange mutation of Bree Van Der Kamp and Martha Stewart crossed with Morticia Addams. That day I had to pick up some cupcakes from Sparkle Cupcakery who were giving me some Halloween themed cupcakes for my party in a pumpkin spice flavour. My father had made the little menu cards (so please excuse some of the typos). I was visiting the Party People who were generously loaning me a whole bunch of gorgeously gruesome props and we also had to pick up some last minute items and Mr NQN’s costume. He of course wanted to go as Dexter Morgan.

Dragon’s Eye Devilled Eggs

“Can I go as Dexter?” he asked.

“In the white outfit with the blood spatter?” I asked him.

“No…not really”

“What do you mean then?

“I’ll wear a polo shirt and shorts”

“Nice try”.

Wobbly brain pate anyone?

Baked Brie spiderweb

As for me? I went as Little Red Riding Hood. I’m not quite sure why except that I’ve always wanted a red cape. I was going to wear fangs as I was supposed to be the mutant offspring of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf but the fangs that I bought made me look like I had a severe overbite. Mr NQN was going to come as the wolf except that all of the wolf masks that he tried on were itchy.

I handed out Vampire Cookie Pops to all of my guests-recipe to come!

Medusa’s head. Sing along with me “Isn’t she lovely…”

Witch’s Gingerbread House

I know, I know, Hallowe’en in on the 31st of October but this year, my friend The Second Wife and her fiancee Gravy Beard are getting married that weekend so we decided to have Hallowe’en a bit earlier this year. This meant that you could also use the recipes if you were so ghoulishly inclined. And many of the thirteen recipes here are very easy to do. Of course I don’t include the sanity straining gingerbread house above in that list

Floating Teeth Juice

“Worms in dirt anyone?” I ask as I hand out some delicious proteiny goodness

Or how about some bat wings?

There was food a plenty and all of my nearest and dearest were invited along. Everyone came dressed in costume-I am a costume nazi and if you don’t come in costume, you are banished to the gallows to live in eternity. We spent the evening eating, drinking, talking and playing games including the very fun horror movie version of charades. That’s right, if you come to my Halloween party, you will be subjected to games!

Broken glass shards and blood

All of the food worked a treat except for one item. These were supposed to be Dexter Blood Slides but they didn’t work so they became broken glass shards with blood which Queen Viv loved as they reminded her of toffees at school fetes (except for the blood I presume ).

Sparkle Cupcakery Pumpkin and Spice cupcakes $4.50 each

The Sparkle Cupcakes were an undeniable hit. Lou passed them around and they got an unanimous thumbs up from everyone that tried them. There was actual pumpkin in the cake itself which made it very soft and moist and we may have had a riot on our hands with this half dozen eagerly contested cupcakes!

…or eyeballs?

Anyway, without further ado, here are the recipes, should you wish to indulge your inner vampire! Settle in with a cup of tea or coffee though as this story is the most picture filled NQN story ever! And if you want to see my ghoulishly fabulous guests, scroll down!

So tell me Dear Reader, what would you get dressed up as for Halloween?

Bloody Brain Shots

This is such a seriously brilliant and brain like idea. I got this idea from fellow Halloween afficianado Not Martha who originally saw this recipe on Folkinz. I was amazed at how ingenious it was and used the curdling effect of lime on Baileys. I’m sure this is not what the Baileys people had intended for use of their creme liqueur but I have to say that it works beautifully. I also used the vodka and cranberry and vodka and blood orange that Smirnoff sent me in a cask no less. I used  a little syringe to add to the effect but according to the people at Folkinz the same effect can be had with a straw.

• 2 parts Smirnoff Vodka and Cranberry or Vodka and Blood Orange
• 1 part lime juice
• 1 small bottle of Baileys

1. Mix vodka and cranberry or vodka and blood orange with the lime juice and pour into shot glasses. Using a pipette, small syringe or straw, slowly drop small amount of Baileys into the shot glass to form a brain. It may gather and collect at the bottom of the glass but for the best effect place the droplets of the Baileys towards the edge of a glass. Using a spoon you can gently dislodge it from the bottom and the “brain” will float to the top! Watch your friends grimace and gag at how accurately brainy it looks.

Worms In Dirt

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I’ve never proclaimed to be a fan of many sports – tennis and ice skating are about my  limit. In fact I watched my very first game of Rugby Union a few weeks ago. Granted the lure was that it was hosted by Tourism New Zealand and we were watching Australia vs New Zealand in a giant football by Sydney Harbour. So you understand that I now expect all rugby games to be catered affairs with free flowing wines in giant rugby balls…

Not Mr NQN, when he is playing on the computer he likes to put channel 1 on and this is when things get ugly. We barter that whomever has the laptop must give up the rights to channel selection and I inevitably get to choose as he usually hogs the laptop. I’ll even admit that once I stuffed the remote control down my pants so that he couldn’t change the channel.  I’m not a cruel wife though, he is allowed to watch what he wants on occasion and when he really wants to watch a game I will make something nice for him (but yes mostly to entertain me). This weekend has two football games and no doubt he’ll want to sit pitched in front of the television watching them.

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