Freaky Fungus!

 At the beginning of the school year I told my 4th graders that I love making fun things with food!  Since that day they have been asking and begging for me do to bring something in.  I decided Halloween was the perfect opportunity since we always have a classroom party.  I needed something fun that wasn't just your average cupcake, because these kids were expecting something really cool.

I had seen at Target a creepy Petri-dish Jello set, however it looked really phoney.  It had large gummy spiders and other large gummy things that you would not normally find under a microscope.  This wasn't going to work if I wanted to blow these kids away.  So I decided to start researching how to make the Petri dishes look more realistic.  I started by ordering Petri-dishes off of homesciencetools.com.  Once they arrived I got to work.  I bought strawberry sugar-free jello (I find that it tastes the same as regular, and these students will have plenty of sugary cupcakes, cookies, and candy!, and went through my collection of sprinkles.  I tried several different kind I came to the conclusion that black non-perils dissolve the best and really look like mold... Perfect!

The next trick was to make enough for the whole 4th grade!  

Ingredients:

• Plastic Petri-dishes
• Any red sugar-free Jello (one box makes about 25 dishes)
• sour gummy worms
• black non peril sprinkles

Directions:

• Rinse out and air dry Petri-dishes
• Make jello according to package
• Lay out dishes on a cookie sheet or wire rack and fill
• Gently shake sprinkles into dishes, do not over do it.  They will dissolve to look like mold, and if you have to many it just look like a black blob

• Let sit in fridge until solid.  Keep refrigerated until ready to serve

 My students went crazy for them!  Hope yours do too!  

Easter in October!

I was looking in my refrigerator and noticed I needed to use my eggs before they went bad so I decided to hard boil them.  While they were cooking I remembered a picture I had seen of Easter eggs that looked like dragon eggs because there were a crackled green color.  I thought to myself, well it is Halloween, and Dragon Deviled Eggs" would be a perfect treat!

                                                  
Ingredients: 

• Eggs
• Red and green food coloring
• 1 cup distilled vinegar
• 1/2 cup cottage cheese
• 1 Tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tsp sweet relish
• 2 Tbsp mustard
• garlic salt, pepper, and onion powder to taste

Hard Boiled Egg Directions:

• Place one layer of eggs to a large saucepan, do NOT over crowd the eggs.
• Add water (just enough to over the eggs)
• On high heat bring water to a boil
• Take the eggs off the heat once water starts to boil and cover.  Let sit covered for ten minutes
• Transfer eggs gently to a bowl of ice water, leave eggs in the water until they have cooled.

Once the eggs were done cooling I gently rolled each one on a cutting board to crack the shells.  This way the food coloring will penetrate the shell and leave a crackled pattern on the egg white. I pulled out my green and red food coloring, distilled vinegar, and got to work.  

Directions for Dying the Eggs:

• Mix 20 drops of green food coloring with 5 drops of red, a cup of vinegar, and 2 cups of water all together in a class bowl.  
• Add eggs.  Make sure eggs are completely covered in the dye mixture, rotate occasionally, and leave over night.

 (Matt thought these looked like rotten avocados!)

• Under running water gently take the skin off the eggs. They will look like this:

• Cut eggs in half with a paring knife and scoop out the yolk.
• Mix yolk and last 5 ingredients on a bowl.  Combine completely
• Spoon the yolk mixture back into each egg and put the two halves back together letting a little of the yolk squish out for effect.

This is a super fun and easy project to do with kids in the kitchen!  Who doesn't love a good Dragon Deviled Egg!

October is here!!!

It is finally October! Which just happens to be one of my favorite months of the year! Why, you might ask... well that is because there are so many crazy fun things you can do with food in October.  To celebrate, all the posts this month will be Halloween related.  Hope you are as excited as I am!

To start October off right, I will show you one of the first Halloween meals I made.  This was the beginning of my obsession with Halloween food.

Halloween happened to fall in the middle of the week and we both had to be up in the morning, but I wanted to do something fun.  I decided to create the perfect dinner; spooky and fun all in one!

Graveyard Meatloaf and Brainy Cottage Cheese 

Ingredients:

• Stouffers Family Pack of Mini Meatloafs (You can make your own meatloaf if you want, but I told you I am all about semi-homemade)
• Mashed Potatoes (I used the instant box...Don't judge, I was a college student at the time!)
• Cottage Cheese
• 1 package of Raspberries
• Red and Green Food Coloring

 Directions:

• Make Meatloaf and mashed potatoes according to package
• Separate mashed potatoes into two bowls.  Leave one bowl white and color the color green for grass
• Put the green mashed potatoes on the plate and add two mini meatloaves on top to look like graves
• Pipe the white mashed potatoes on top of the "graves" to give an image of ghosts. I used food coloring for eyes
• Tint the cottage cheese red, and garnish with red raspberries 
• Serve and Enjoy!