It's here!

Local home haunts and events this weekend

Earlier in the season I had placed an ad on craigslist looking for local home haunters in the greater Phoenix /Scottsdale area who would be interested in having their homes featured on my blog.
I only received a few replies, and I wanted to share one today.

If you are looking for something to do tonight that also raises money for a great cause, check out The Nightmare Manor in Scottsdale.
This is a walk thru home haunt that raises money for ALS, a cause close to the home haunters own hearts as their son, Andy, has ALS. Entry is a minimum $5 donation which goes to ALS.
The hosts require that anyone under age 13 is accompanied by an adult, and suggest that some rooms may be a bit too scary for kids under aged 10.

You can find this home haunt at 8702 E. Lone Mountain Rd, Scottsdale, AZ 85266, open tonight from 7pm until 9:30 pm.
If you can't make it out, but would like to make a donation you can do so online by going to the ALS website, under the One Dollar Difference events. And you can get further information including info on the Nightmare Manor and "AJ" -  HERE


I am going to try and make it to this one. A haunted house to raise money for this great cause definitely beats dumping a bucket of ice over my head.

I have a couple more I will post about later this afternoon. 

One day left until Halloween! Trick or Treat, ya'll!

Lighting up the yard

Three days left until Halloween and we are starting to get our lighting up in the yard. I'm so pleased with the first couple

Of lights we have put out, now I'm debating whether or not to even hang string lights at all. Decisions, decisions!! 

Here are photos of the yard so far. 

During the day-

 Joe putting some spider web up on the roof with our monster-

Night shots, green lighting only

With green and blue-

Just blue

A few more-

I love the green so much that I was debating whether or not to do the entire yard in green, but I think I will leave the porch lit up in blue and light up the roof with more green.

Hopefully we can find a way to get it all done by Friday! 

Happy Haunting all. 

Drawing for the Winner of The Halloween Chick instagram giveaway!

 

Congratulations to the winner! Please email me your name and mailing information at thehalloweenchick@gmail.com or via DM on instagram.

Since we had such great participation, we also decided to draw a second place winner to receive a small prize and that winner is instagram user jeka420. Congratulations! Please also email or DM me your name and mailing address so I can send you a small second place prize.

Thank you to all who participated. Stay tuned to my instagram page and blog. I will be doing another giveaway for Thanksgiving, because every day is Halloween.

Perfect Pumpkin Bread

We visited one of our local farmers markets this weekend and purchased a small loaf of pumpkin bread to have for breakfast. It was spicy and delicious and inspired me to make my own later that evening for the whole family to enjoy.
After some recipe searching for measurements and ideas, I went ahead and got started on mine. I ended up realizing after the mix was ready that I only had one bread loaf pan and enough mix for three loaves! (Whoops)
Because bread is finicky and I knew putting the batter in the fridge was not an option, I grabbed my bundt pan, poured the remaining batter in, and hoped for the best.
The result was excellent so I thought I would share the recipe with you all!
This recipe made one loaf of bread from an 8x4 bread pan, plus a bundt cake. If you just want bread, it should be enough for three loaves in either a 7x3 or an 8x4 pan.

Tis' the season of pumpkin everything! Enjoy.

Ingredients:
1 Can of pumpkin puree (I used Libby's)
1 Cup of Vegetable oil
4 Eggs
2/3 cup of water
1/2 tsp vanilla

3 Cups white sugar

3 1/2 Cups Flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground ginger

For the spices, you can adjust according to your preference. If you love nutmeg, use 1 1/4 tsp and so forth. It's up to you!

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease and flour your bread/cake pans

Mix together the wet ingredients (the first five listed) plus sugar until blended well.
In a separate bowl, whisk by hand your dry ingredients (the last seven listed).
Next, stir the dry ingredients into your wet ingredients, stir by hand until just blended. Don't over mix or worry about a few little lumps.
Pour your mixture into the prepared pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45-55 minutes depending on your oven.
Both the bread and the cake took about 50 minutes and came out perfectly. You know it is done when you can insert a toothpick and it comes out clean from the center.

I made a glaze for my bundt cake and used orange food coloring to give it a bit of a Pumpkin/Halloween feel. The glaze is just four tablespoons butter, melted. Then add 2 cups of powdered sugar and stir, add 2-3 tablespoons of milk until you get the desired consistency. I also add a pinch of salt to cut the sweetness and a 1/4 tsp vanilla extract. Glaze your cake as you like!

Some additional thoughts/tips:

This bread would be great with raisins or nuts or both.

I may try it next time with melted butter in place of the oil. 

The glaze recipe makes enough glaze for at least 2-3 cakes if glazed lightly as pictured above. 

(This would look really cool done in orange and black for Halloween.)

The bread and cake are even better the next day than they are immediately. All of the rich flavors and spices come out after it has a chance to sit.

I love the bread warmed up with a tiny bit of butter. 

I hope you enjoy and feel free to comment your results, suggestions, etc below. 

Homemade pumpkin spice creamer

We are already a week into October and I still cannot find pumpkin spice coffee creamer anywhere! My wallet can't take any more trips to Starbucks so I decided to do some web searching and what do you know... dozens of recipes for pumpkin spice creamer were just waiting to be found!

So, after looking through what I had in the fridge, I took some ingredients from one recipe, some from another and instructions/guidelines from a few others and came up with this-and let me tell you, this stuff is addicting!

2 cups half n half

1/4 cup maple syrup 

3 tablespoon pumpkin purée 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk

Some of the recipes I found have you divide your cream or half n half and add part later once cooled. I have no patience so I just put the first four ingredients into a sauce pan and cooked on the stove top over medium heat, whisking frequently for about 10 minutes, then I added the condensed milk, whisked let it simmer on low for another 5 minutes, whisked some more, removed from heat, let it cool down a bit, then poured it in a jar I had saved.

I tasted some from what was left that didn't fit into the jar and it was amazing.

You can also make this recipe with heavy cream rather than half n half. I chose half n half because it was what I had available. (It's also cheaper and obviously less fatty if you care about that sort of thing)

So, do you have a go to pumpkin spice creamer recipe? If not, try this and let me know what you think!

Dollar store (or cheaper) crafts

Easy, quick and super cheap. This little jar can sit out on a Halloween display table or shelf. It's cute and functional.

Jar- empty welch's jelly jar I saved.

Label- bat juice label stick on from a package of 10 halloween labels I got at Michaels for $3.

Straws- bat design straws for $1 from dollar tree.

This is why I save my jars all year long. They always come in handy for holiday crafting.

You could dress it up more with some ribbon or tulle tied around the top. 

Cute, simple, happy Halloween!