This definitely doesn't come close to the definition of what one would call "Fine Dining" but in the spirit of Halloween (hey, that's almost a pun! Spirit - Halloween, get it?) I suppose this could be considered a candidate for "Final Dining." In the past I've mentioned my family a couple of times, usually their role as my sous chefs or when I'm in trouble for burning something (pot holders more often than food). This time I'll give you a little insight into the demented family members I have. Every once in awhile, my sweetie decides to have a "themed" dinner. This was one of those occasions -- Welcome our 2020 family Halloween dinner.
As the apparently only sane member of our family, I decided to make something "normal" for dinner. I'll define normal food as being something that doesn't involve the use of food coloring, zombies, or gross body parts. Ummmm, please remember that this is my blog and my definition -- feet detached from the rest of the body should not be considered as a "gross body part." Perhaps we can just keep in mind that I'm not very artistic and in the process of trying to form my wonderfully normal meatloaf into a rectangular shape I had a little difficulty and it happens to appear to some to resemble feet.
The actual recipe for feetloaf, errr, meatloaf is pretty straightforward. The ingredients (before I doubled them for two feet) were:
1 1/2 pounds of lean ground beef
3/4 cup of bread crumbs
3/4 cup of ketchup
1/2 cup of minced onions (I "accidentally" didn't mince a couple of pieces small enough
and was told they ended up looking like toenails and bone...)
1 egg
1 tbs of Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons of minced garlic (I usually use bit more)
1 tsp of dried thyme (cooking is much more relaxing if you have thyme on your hands)
3/4 tsp of black pepper
1/2 tsp of salt
I used a large mixing bowl to combine all of the ingredients except for 1/4 cup of the ketchup which was added later. Everything got mushed together until the ingredients were thoroughly mixed and then I very carefully pressed it into an 8"x4" loaf pan. Okay, I'll confess, I didn't use a loaf pan this time. Instead, I just formed it by hand into two rectangular loafs on a baking sheet but they seemed to settle and separate a bit during baking (wink wink).
The loaves then went into a preheated oven at 350 degrees F for about 55 minutes. 10 minutes before it was done, I took it from the oven and carefully and verrrrrrry evenly brushed the top with the remaining 1/4 cup of ketchup. Then it went back into the oven until my meat thermometer said the internal temperature was 160 degrees. Strangest thing, when It came out of the oven the ketchup I'd so carefully brushed on had also moved around. The family members with vivid imaginations told me they thought it looked like blood from the leg? I think they just watch too many scary movies.
Regardless of what everyone might have thought it looked like, they seemed to think it tasted pretty good because the goblins gobbled it all up!
Along with the feetloaf, we did have quite a collection of goodies making it a well balanced meal. For appetizers we had a choice of fruit (apples/peanut butter/marshmallows - marshmallows are a fruit, right?), a prosciutto wrapped cheeseball (that was a handy appetizers), and a lovely bread bowl with carrots and cucumber.
Following the appetizers there were several entrees to choose from. Bell peppers stuffed with "toxic waste" (macaroni and cheese) turned into jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, and Frankensteins but if you were daring enough there was just plain old toxic waste without the bell peppers. Isn't amazing what you can create with black and green food coloring? Editor's note: The toxic waste was a good demonstration of the importance of presentation. It was realllllllllllly awesome home-made mac-n-cheese but it seemed to taste even better when it was dark... Of course, what Halloween dinner would be complete without your mommy's cooking? In this case it was actually turned out to be mummies cooking (the recipe is so secret we're keeping the hot dogs under wraps).
One of our family members is a little more twisted than the rest of us. Perhaps it's because she's an experienced paramedic who's seen it all? Not only did she provide the cheese ball hand but she was kind enough to make sure we had these lovely cups of lemonade to wash everything down with. At least I think it was lemonade...
Finishing off this delicious feast required an array of desserts. One of my favorites were the marshmallows dipped in caramel and peanut butter -- perhaps next time it would be better to serve them one at a time on toothpicks? Speaking of toothpicks, the toothpicks holding lychee fruit stuffed with a blueberry and a drizzle of berry sauce was tasty and looked really good. The Rice Krispie treat was to die for and the chocolate cake will probably appear on the web before too long. Those of us looking for a small treat found some nicely decorated peanut butter cups. The final choice was a homemade fresh pumpkin pie that was so good that you'd come crawling back for more -- I'm still trying to decide if it would have been better as an appetizer since it was technically a finger food.
There you have it! Halloween 2020. Perhaps you'd like to join us next year, we're dying to have you join us!
Bon appetit!
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