Each week we round up our most yummy posts and recipes from our friends at the Kitchn.

This week, the kitchn celebrates Halloween this year with homemade candy corn with candy dough.

Also in the kitchn, roasting stuffed pumpkins, dyeing pasta, oreo bat cookies, and panna cotta puddings.

• Autumn Supper: Savory Stuffed Pumpkin: Have a hallow pumpkin that is going to waste… add roasted garlic, bread, spices and cream… Yum!

• Colorful Cooking: How To Make Colored Pasta: All you need is vegetable puree to add some color to your pasta.

• Halloween Recipe: Thomas Keller Oreo Bat Cookies: Try these crunchy chocolate cookies, with a white chocolate ganache sandwiched in between them.

• Autumn Cooking: Savory Kabocha Squash Panna Cotta: Savory Panna Cotta Puddings are delish!

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So the countdown is upon us for celebrating Halloween.  Do you need to bring something sweet and tasty to your son or daughters school?

I know I do.

If your in a jam and don’t have a lot of time here is a great opportunity to buss out the cupcake tin and whip up a batch of yummy Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting.  At the end, you get to top it off with a little surprise of candy love, that’s right candy corn love.

SO….. hop, skip, or jump in the kitchen and start baking, your kids will love it!

Enjoy! 🙂

Pumpkin Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting

(From Real Simple)

1 18.5-ounce box yellow cake mix (plus the ingredients called for in the package directions)
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree
2 8-ounce bars cream cheese, at room temperature
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
24 pieces candy corn

Heat oven to 350° F. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners. Prepare the cake mix as directed but with the following change: Add the pumpkin pie spice and substitute the can of pumpkin puree for the water called for in the package directions.

Divide the batter among the prepared muffin tins and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 18 to 22 minutes. Let cool.

Meanwhile, using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and sugar until creamy. Spread on the cupcakes and top each with a piece of candy corn.
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Halloween is almost here, and if your like me your waiting to the last minute to find a halloween costume… SIGH! Maybe I will go this year as a crazy mother on the verge of a meltdown… I wonder if that would go well!?!

I guess I really don’t need to dress up for that lately since everywhere I turn I think my kids are waiting to see if I’ll jump off a very high bridge because they have been testing my nerves.

Yep! Definitely going as a mother whose lost it!

If you feel like you can relate to how I feel then you  definitely need to make some of these tasty cocktails, from Fine Living, for yourself, especially if your having a halloween party or gathering.

• Cemetary Slime Punch: non-alchoholic diet root beer and frozen yogurt, gruesome looking punch.

• Witches Brew: A mixture of pineapple and cranberry, with a shot of malibu rum.

• Blood Sucker Punch: This vampire-friendly cocktail, with triple sec, vodka and pineapple juice.  Add strawberry or raspberry puree to add streams of “blood” down the sides of the glass.

• Bloody Brain Shooter:  Become the mad-scientist you’ve always wanted with this Bloody Brain Shooter.  Add chilled vodka and lime juice to a shot glass, then use a straw to drip Irish cream into the glass.  The acidic lime juice will cause the Irish cream to curdle, creating realistic strands of “brain.” Crazy eh!!!!

• Liquefied Ghost:  Mix vanilla simple syrup, cream, vodka and soda and serve in a martini glass.  This is what we call a grown-up milkshake… Yum!

• Zombie Cocktail: Add apricot brandy and three types of rum: light, dark and high-proof Bacardi 151. Grenadine and orange juice give the drink its lovely pumpkin hue.

• Black Devil Martini: Dark rum and a black-olive garnish gives this drink its midnight hue, rim the glass with coarse orange sugar.

• Vampire Cocktail: This dessert-worthy combination of vanilla ice cream, triple sec and white crème de cacao.

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If your anything like my sweet tooth hungry belly pickney (fyi, pickney in Jamaican means children) then your jelly bean fanatics.  No matter what time of day, when they see jelly beans they go nuts over them.  So you know when its Halloween time and these colorful candies come out they are on cloud nine.

So when I heard that the Jelly Belly Candy Company had launched a new line of jelly beans that were particularly targeting this Halloween holiday I was quite excited to see how my kiddies would react to these lil mischievous jelly beans.   I could just imagine what my son would say to me while, shoving his little hand inside a jar of multi-colored jelly beans expecting to taste blue jelly beans and coming to find out what he was tasting was toothpaste.  Or what about expecting to taste yellow one and it really be moldy cheese, or buttered popcorn. Hahaha!

All these crazy creations are being made possible by BeanBoozled, where you are given the chance to mix and match your own blend of jelly beans online.  Pretty funny… Eh!

I know my son would get a huge kick out of it…. Would you?
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(Image: ccharmon/Flickr)

Fall is here, and everywhere you turn pumpkins are saying hello.  Which means its Pumpkin Season. 🙂

Even with all hallows eve around the corner, pumpkins are being carved everyday buy children and pumpkins are being cooked, sauteed, and baked by mommies.  I know I fall into this same problem as many of you do wondering what do we do with all of those pumpkin seeds after the carving is done and decorating is finished.

Well, did you know that you could just roast and salt them and have an easy snack.  It’s that easy, and to be even a little more adventurous you can eave the shells on…. WOOOOOOOOO!

I know, scandalous! 😉

Just boil them in salted water, then toast them in the oven.

Simple, Easy, Tasty!
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(Image: methTICALman/Flickr)

Caramelization occurs when sugars are heated so much that their molecules break down.  These molecules will in turn react to brown the sugar and create hundreds of new and varied flavors.

Any type of sugar can caramelize, but glucose and fructose are “reducing sugars,” which means they react more easily to form new flavors.

Caramelized sugar can have a number of different tastes ranging from fruity to buttery, sweet, roaster or even flowery.  In the end no matter what when the sugar is caramelized it loses its initial sweet flavor and takes on  a bitter taste.  Due to this you must be careful caramelizing pure sugar or other foods so that they don’t become unpleasant.
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• Oreo Cookies and Cream Cheesecake Bars, there even better than they look!

• Table manners and children, what a long process.

• Snickers, yum-o, what’s your favorite Halloween candy?

• Dulce de Leche, kinda like caramel.

• Do you like fried chicken…. well then learn these tips for frying.

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So let me just state that when I made these killer Cookies and cream cheesecake bars I was the Love of everyones life… 🙂

That’s right I think these not only settled my undying sweet tooth I was having the other day bit also everyone else’s.

Who doesn’t love oreos and then when you combine it with cheesecake…. come on now…. Simply Heavenly!

I promise you all they won’t disappoint you!

If they do then let me know and I’ll take full blame… hehehe!

Oh and let me just say that this is a GREAT and fun recipe to do with your little ones… just see for yourself…. I should really call them Kayla’s Cookies and Cream Cheesecake bars!

Enjoy!
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Each week we round up our most yummy posts and recipes from our friends at the Kitchn.

This week, the kitchn brings us a heaping bowl of tender meatballs in tomato sauce… perfect for a cold day.

Also in the kitchn, a cookbook devoted to grits, no-stir polenta, chewy chocolate (low-fat) cookies, and yummy butternut squash pasties.

• Glorious Grits by Susan McEwen McIntosh: A whole cookbook, including more than 100 recipes in all, simply devoted to the wonderfulness of grits.

• Marcella Hazan’s No-Stir Polenta: That’s right, it can be done without stiring, “Polenta is like risotto, but…”

• The Best Chocolate Chewy Cookies Ever (& Low-Fat Too):  These cookies look to die for, plus there low-fat, gotta try.

• Recipe: Butternut Squash, Sage, and Parmesan Pasties:  These Pasties are a vegetarian’s dream snack to munch on.

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(Image Source)

Elbows off the table.

Feet in the center of the chair.

Back straight, don’t slouch.

Bathroom breaks.

Chatter non-stop.

Burping, Slurping… I’m sure I could go on with the lovely list…

These are the issues that every parent finds they have when sitting at the table trying to eat as a family… I know I do.

I know at my table I sometimes feel as if I am a broken record, that keeps spinning and spinning, and spinning.  Anytime when we are eating at the table, I am always a big stickler for teaching my children the proper ways to eat.  I try to enforce these rules because I know that as they get older and when they are in public people will judge them based on their table manners.

The best way to teach kids tough is through PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!

Not only do good manners provide them with more confidence but also as welcomed guests.

To avoid burping and slurping all throughout dinner, teach your children some of these important rules:

• Wait until everyone is seated and ready to begin eating. In our house, no one can eat until after we bless the food and the hands that made it.

• Place your napkin on your lap.  This usually oversized napkin definitely comes in handy due to spills and messes little ones tend to have while eating.  Allow your little one’s the opportunity to do it themselves and feel independent.

• DO NOT talk with food in your mouth.  I know my two have such an issue with this.  It’s as if they have everything under the sun to want to talk about while they are chewing.  Remind them to chew all of their food, swallow, and then speak.  (We all know that children are NOT the only ones with this problem)

• DO NOT chew with your mouth open.  Explain to your kids that only cows smack their lips and unless they live in a barn they too should keep their mouths closed.

• Teach your children the use of using their napkins to dab at the corners of their mouth, and how at the end of each meal to wipe your entire mouth.

• At home, go through all the foods that are allowed to be eaten with your fingers and which ones aren’t.  For example, fried chicken, french fries, and hamburgers are all ACCEPTABLE to be eaten with your fingers.  But macaroni and cheese, carrots, pasta, and rice etc. are a big no no.

• Last but not least try to instill in your children that though you may be a quick eater and finish before others do, NO ONE gets removed from the table until EVERYONE is finished eating.  This will help instill great eating habits especially when you are eating out at a restaurant as a family and your child wants to go off and visit another table.

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