October - 2016

Shrunken Heads Dipped in Blood

Crispy on the outside, fluffy on the in, these shrunken heads are made from small potatoes. Impaled on wooden skewers, these little heads are easy to eat and delicious dipped in spicy ketchup. If you’re serving them to children or adults who have imbibed too much pumpkin beer, don’t bother skewering the potatoes; after all, you don’t want real blood sauce! This recipe is for one pound of potatoes (about 12 – 13) but you can certainly double or triple it. 1 pound small potat

Bog Brains & Bugs

I saw a Halloween macaroni and cheese dish that got its creepy green hue by adding food coloring to the water the pasta cooked in. It was a great idea but it got me thinking: what could I use to make my pasta green and add tons of flavor? Focusing on all of that green took me back to the 1970s. I remember standing in the kitchen when I was little looking at a bottle of Green Goddess dressing. And then I had it: herby, tangy, creamy Green Goddess would be the inspiration f

Bile & Bloody Bandages

If a mostly uneaten kitty litter cake at one of my Halloween parties has taught me anything, it’s this: Halloween food can look creepy or gross but it shouldn’t be totally unappetizing. And of course, it has to taste good. In my opinion, this chunky hummus and pita toast recipe fits the bill. It’s slightly disturbing...but you know, in a cute way! You can make the bile, er, hummus a day ahead. Just cover and store it in the refrigerator. The bandages get their bloody eff

Halloween Horchata

While the ingredients vary depending on where it’s made, horchata is often a creamy rice beverage rich with vanilla and cinnamon. Although it can be served hot or cold, its flavors always remind me of autumn. So when I saw black rice for the first time, I knew I could take the warm spiciness of the horchata and give it a Halloween twist. I also definitely wanted to make it vegan. So, I experimented with other seasonal flavors. I layered the horchata with a pumpkin shake—w

Roasted Butternut Bruschetta

Squash on bread…what?!? While it sounds heavy or weird, this bruschetta is neither. Sure it’s different but the flavor profile is complex in that it’s crunchy, toasty, subtly sweet, caramelized, creamy, and spicy. But it’s also simple because all of the components just work well together. Plus, the bruschetta is garnished with butternut squash seeds. If you’ve never had roasted squash seeds before, they put pumpkin seeds to shame! 1 small butternut squash 1 – 2 TBS olive

Pumpkin Lentil Soup

My mom makes two kinds of delicious lentil soup. One is a recipe from a now-defunct Middle Eastern restaurant that is rich in cumin and the other has rice and the golden earthiness from turmeric. I played around with both of these dishes. Because I had bought 14 sugar pumpkins and roasted them to make my own purée (try it once for the experience), I stirred pumpkin into the soup. The pumpkin is only subtly sweet and lends a creaminess that you don’t often find in most len

Halloween

From left: Black rice, poppy seeds, Merlot-infused sea salt, black sesame seeds, black lava sea salt At T. Rex & the Rabbit Foods, our all-time favorite holiday is Halloween. And it always has been. We used to go all out; that is until we moved to our small town where we have not had one trick-or-treater in seven years...BOO! HISS! Anyway, we always had the “basics”: parties, tombstones, and creepy noises. But we liked to challenge our creativity. One year, Rabbit even m

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