Halloween 2011 & Mushroom Pinwheels

We had a wonderful Halloween evening last night. I was a bit concerned for all of the trick or treaters when around 5:00pm the sky opened up with quite a downpour of rain, but thankfully the rain cleared up, and the weather stayed nice throughout the evening.

I spent the day making snacks and appetizers for our guests. The kids ended up having a nice number of their friends over, we had a full house of wonderful teens, including two exchange students, one from Germany and one from Thailand, I thought it was so fun to be sharing our American Halloween traditions with them. We live in a safe small rural town, so they all went out to walk through the neighborhood, as well as visit the home of their choir teacher, and other parents. Some of the neighbors had little haunted garages and tunnels set up in their yards for the trick or treaters, which were pretty fun as well.

Here are Sarah and Joseph in their costumes- Joseph was Edgar Allen Poe along with The Raven, and Sarah was a Bat Princess with Purple Glittery Hair.

While the teens were out having fun, Gary and I stayed here to pass out treats and enjoyed seeing all of the creative costumes. Turned out to be a wonderful Halloween.

We went through loads of candy!

I love making mulled Hot Cider in my Crock Pot every Halloween and for Thanksgiving- I just add a gallon of Apple Cider to my crock pot, and clean two apples, peel away a band of the apple skin all the way around the apple, then stud with whole cloves. I also use a tea bag style of mulling spices made by Martinellis and I drop a couple of those in, if you can't find these for sale, I imagine floating a few cinnamon sticks in the cider would do the trick. This needs about 3 hours to heat up, when it is ready to serve, I set out caramel syrup and whip cream to put on top- delicious, and makes the house smell wonderful.

We had lots of good snacks, of course we had little smokey wraps, which always are eaten right up.

I also made Crescent Mushroom Pinwheels that turned out really good. I first found a similar recipe for these years ago in an add for Pillsbury Crescent rolls and I hadn't made it in many years, nor could I locate my recipe. I think the recipe I used is pretty close, and it turned out great.

Mushroom Pinwheels

3 tubes of Crescent Rolls

2- 8 oz. packages of Cream Cheese (set out to soften, or soften in Microwave for 1 minute)

3 teaspoons Onion Powder

2 cans of Mushroom Pieces- drained

In a small food processor or blender, mince both cans of mushrooms until they are finely minced.

Mix minced mushrooms and onion powder into cream cheese, and stir until thoroughly combined. Open the tubes of crescent roll dough, and break each roll in half at natural seam, then unroll each one, there should be 4 triangles in each, press together all of the seams and you will have two long rectangles, spread the cream cheese filling onto the dough, then roll up, using a sharp serrated knife cute the roll every 1/3 inch. Place each pinwheel on a parchment lined baking sheet at least an inch and a half apart. Bake at 375 F. for around 10 minutes until light golden brown.

I will definitely be making these again to serve during the holiday season.

I also made a tray of cream cheese brownies- these are very easy, and turn out yummy every time- make up a brownie mix, or your favorite homemade brownie batter, pour batter into 9 by 13 inch baking pan sprayed with non stick spray, in a separate bowl combine 8 oz. softened cream cheese, 1/2 cup of sugar and one egg and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, stir until combined , for Halloween I use a few drops of red and yellow food coloring to dye it orange. Then pour cream cheese mixture over the top of brownie batter, and using a knife, swirl it into the brownie batter.

Bake the brownies as you normally would according to brownie mix box, or your brownie recipe. This is a quick and yummy dessert!

I hope everyone had a nice Halloween celebration. This week I will spend time putting the garden to bed for the winter, the frost has really set in, so it is time to get the yard ready. I will be getting the house decor switched from Halloween to Harvest and Thanksgiving decor, and finish up my Thanksgiving to do list as well as getting to work on Christmas Crafts and Planning.