So there I was, waiting for a batch of blood for my annual Halloween party. Not the human kind mind you, but nevertheless a batch of blood. The only problem? It was about to arrive when I was going to have a meeting with my book publishers at Penguin to discuss publicity for my upcoming book.

“What am I going to do?” I asked Mr NQN. “It needs to be fresh, and I can’t pick it up any other time”

“Bring it with you to the meeting?” he suggested.

“I suppose, I can’t be the only author that has brought a bag of blood to a meeting, can I?” I reasoned.

Well as it turns out, blood isn’t the easiest thing to get and it ended up being late which saved me from a fate of explaining why I was carry half a litre of cryovaced pigs’s blood (well at least it wasn’t in a bucket and I wasn’t in a 70′s style prom dress I didn’t have said bucket tipped over me a la Carrie…).

Every year I look forward to my favourite time of the year, Halloween where I get to say goodbye to the pretty and embrace the ghoulishly morbid. This year for Halloween I ended up making 14 items – I know 13 is a lucky or unlucky number depending on who you talk to but an additional thing just slipped in in my excitement. I prepped the party for the week prior to it-I was holding it early as I wasn’t able to hold it on the last weekend of October and I also figured if anyone wanted to cook the recipes they would have time in order to make them. As I have for the past few years, I went to my favourite party supply store The Party People for items including a backdrop that would transform our neutral toned apartment into a dungeon and for good measure I hired a fog machine so that guests could be treated to the sight of a foggy, misty Halloween evening! I do love the delightfully creepy!

A few days before the party I sent around a little reminder to my guests:

“My dearest, darling ghoul
I’ve been busy mixing up spiders and gruel
For a Halloween night
That will give you a fright
See you on Saturday at 7pm, don’t forget there’s only one rule…

Please wear a costume! ”

Well I never laid claim to any poetic talents. So without any further dithering allow me, dressed as your Disneyland Haunted Mansion Maid wearing a costume made by my mother, to present you with my hellishly horrible Halloween party of 2011!

Press the doorbell to enter…

Blood punch

My esteemed guests, let us start with something to drink. Some blood punch Madam or Sir? Presented most delightfully in a clear blood fountain, the mistress of the manor likes to drink blood so she thought you might like to try some. Perhaps you’ll get a taste for it like she has…

Please help yourself to anything on the dining table…it’s all gruesomely edible…

Have you ever visited  a pet cemetery? Here is a haunted one made of an avocado, spinach and chickpea hummus dip where ghosts abound visiting tombstone crackers and pretzel fences keep them in.

If you haven’t visited a dentist lately I wouldn’t recommend these apple rotting teeth with caramel peanuts…

Watermelon brain

This was the brain of someone that displeased the mansion’s mistress. She’s a little despotic so she decided off with his head and that she would share it with all of you…

Oh dear, and here is the rest of the man that displeased the mansion mistress. Apart from being a despot she also has a nicer side and believes in nose to tail eating…So she thought that we should eat all of him from his bbq pork ribs to his spicy sausage intestines! With a bloody tomato sauce of course

Smokey pumpkin cheese ball

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I have to admit that my habits of late are changing. Apart form the occasional movie which I enjoy if it’s not too commercial and “Hollywood blockbuster”, I watch much more television than I do movies. I think it’s because I often find myself disappointed in a movie whereas with  a television show, I know roughly what I am going to get. Mr NQN thinks it’s this same creature of habit status that means that OCD trance-like, I repeat songs over and over again and it is why I don’t really listen to the radio as I want to know what song will be on next. I hate to think of myself as predictable but then again, all evidence does point to me winning the Miss Predictability award at the pageant.

When I do watch a movie, however, it is much more likely to be a movie that I watched when I was younger. I hate to sound like a whiner, but they really don’t make movies like they used to. My two favourites when I was young were E.T. and The Wizard of Oz. My favourite part from the Wizard of Oz were the parts with the Wicked Witch of the West. She scared me a little but I did like the music that they played whenever she came on the screen and the fact that she could ride a bike in the sky. As someone that a) cannot ride a bike or b) fly she seemed to be somewhat of a superhero (did I mention I wasn’t quite a normal child?).

Regular readers will know how much I love Hallowe’en for it allows me to invite goblins, demons and witches into my house. And this year I wanted to make a gingerbread house with a difference. Rather than being nestled in the snow and possibly have Santa Claus as an inhabitant, I wanted the owner to be a witch. I wanted there to be cobwebs, spiders and pumpkins and I also wanted it to be dark as the night as would befit a witch.

The gingerbread recipe that I used is one that is soft and easy to roll and reroll and reroll. Like all gingerbread houses, you can really let your imagination go wild as far as the decorating is concerned and of course readers in the United States will undoubtedly have an enormous range of impressive candy options at their disposal. You don’t have to royal icing the outside of the gingerbread house in black, indeed this would save a lot of time if you didn’t. To save your precious sanity, you could also buy gingerbread house cutters. There are gingerbread house cutters for sale here at Mini Gourmets which you could also use for Christmas (I’m not into single use items ). And they’re giving NQN readers 20% off these gingerbread house cutters if you use the code: lovenigella – this expires on November 18th, 2010.

I won’t lie, it did take me ages to make but I always feel an odd sense of satisfaction when making a gingerbread house-it’s like a miniature version of building your own house. I also wanted to pay a little homage to the Wizard of Oz-can you see where that is Dear Reader?

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The best part of Easter, aside from the 4 day long weekend is of course Hot Cross Buns. Chocolate is fantastic of course but it is available all year round, but the appearance of the Hot Cross Bun (that seem to appear earlier and earlier every year much like Christmas decorations in October), signify an impending 4 day long weekend!

I know people are divided with Hot Cross buns, some like no peel, some like a lot of fruit, some like a little spice, some a lot. And then there are those that don’t like fruit at all and go for the Choc Chip Buns. I wanted to do something slightly different this year though so I went to my cupboard and what jumped out at me were the wonderful Cinnamon chips that Barbara sent me. I decided to make Cinnamon Chip Chocolate Hot Cross Buns.

I always feel like the cross should be sweet, like icing I suppose and am always a little disappointed when eating the cross. I decided to make the crosses out of white chocolate and I hope that doesn’t violate some traditional Easter tradition but hey as the saying goes Jesus Loves You no matter what you do, right? I think that includes fiddling around with a Hot Cross Bun recipe which is a lesser sin than others. The smell of these baking is truly incredible and as for the taste, imagine a Norwegian cinnamon bun crossed with a Hot Cross Bun. Try to resist them, if you can. I wasn’t able to and ate my record in no time.

On another non-Easter note, big thanks go to the lovely Darcie from Zing PR and the very nice people from Lap-rap who gave me my very own Lap-rap which I heart very, very much. See their website for other cool designs or design your own as I did.

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