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Lori, aka The Cowboy's Wife, over at My Wooden Spoon has a great and easy contest to enter.
Lori's Shrimp Stroganoff Casserole was chosen for the Velveeta Casserole Challenge. Vote for her casserole, post a comment on her blog, and you get entered in for the Reed and Barton Silverware set. Nice, easy blog contest. She has other ways you can get extra entries into the drawing too. So stop on by her contest here and get yourself entered!
My daughter is all set to be Dorothy for Halloween. She is so excited. She has the full costume (I ordered it for her), the ruby slippers and a basket for her Toto dog. So her older brother (age 10) decided he would be a scary scarecrow to go trick or treating with Dorothy.
Needless to say, we can't find a scary scarecrow costume. So I told him we could make one. Well you'd have thought that was the dumbest idea ever thought of on this planet! So I told him about the wonderful Halloween costumes I had as a kid. All hand me downs from my older sisters! And my mom hand sewn each and every one.The DEVIL! This is the most classic of all the costumes. I so wish I had pictures to share, but they are all at my parent's home. My mom made this red devil costume obviously for when we were little, cause when we grew out of it the dogs started wearing it for Halloween. It had a bonnet with the horns on it and even had the pointed tail. The classic photo is one of my middle sister throwing a temper tantrum in that devil costume. I need to enter that in some photo contest. It's hysterical! (She was the queen of temper tantrums! At the age of almost 50 she still is!)
The Angel - I guess as we got a little older mom thought we turned into angels cause next we got to be an angel for Halloween. I hated that costume. Who dresses up as an angel for Halloween? From here on out, the costumes get even better. Whew! Lucky for me.
The Pilgrim - I'm sure I got made fun of with this one. I never got to be anything good for Halloween. Full-fledge Pilgrim costume with the goony white hat and apron. Talk about embarrassing.
Then I moved up to being an ELF! I must say it was a great ELF costume. Looked just like the ELF that spins the kid in A Christmas Story before putting him on Santa's lap.
Last, but not least, the Lady with the Bustle. I'm too lazy to look up what decade ladies wore that weird thing that made their rears stick out three feet behind their bottoms, but that's what I got to be.No wonder I hate dressing up for Halloween! It's because I was traumatized by my costumes as a child.
One of my favorite things about Halloween is carving the pumpkins and making fresh home made pumpkin seeds. This was always my dad's job. My dad was quite an artist so we always had some "cool" looking pumpkins that he carved every year. My favorite was the cat he did of Paul Stanley from the rock band KISS.
Anyway, my dad LOVES pumpkin seeds. He eats them year round. We used to walk up to the little drug store on the corner just to get a pack of Indian Pumpkin Seeds. They are SO salty and SO good. They were also a nickle a pack back then too.
So when dad carved the pumpkins my job was to get all the pumpkin seeds out of the pumpkin goop so dad could make his good pumpkin seeds. My dad bought and carved lots and lots of pumpkins just for the seeds!
Here's how to make dad's pumpkin seeds:
Pull out all the goop from inside the pumpkin.
Separate the seeds from the goop.
Soak seeds in a bowl of water for a while (hm.. I guess a while is about 2 hours)
Throw salt and some garlic powder in the seed water mixture. (Do this when they first start soaking, mix it up a bit)
Heat oven to 250 degrees.
Place seeds flat on a large cookie sheet. Don't overlap them.
Salt them to your tasting. I like salty pumpkin seeds so I throw a ton of salt on them.
Bake til done. You have to check them. Cook for about 1/2 hour and then keep checking on them. You want the seed to be crisp. It'll depend on your oven as to how long it takes for them to get crispy.
ENJOY!
This is such an easy meal to make. It makes great left overs, and the whole family will eat it. There's no written down recipe from my mom for this, but I just make it the way she had told me to years ago.
1. Brown up a pound of ground beef. Add 1 packet of taco seasoning mix. (I don't get the Taco Bell brand of seasoning for anything - otherwise it tastes like Taco Bell. If I want Taco Bell, I"ll go to Taco Bell)
2. Drain the meat, and put it in a large bowl. Allow to cool a bit.
3. Add 1 can of drained dark red kidney beans. Mix
4. Add lettuce. I'm now lazy and use already shredded lettuce. If you cut up a fresh head, it may take about 3/4 of the head. You have to judge how much lettuce you want. Mix
5. Add shredded cheddar cheese. Again, judge how much you want. I buy a 2 lb bag of it, but don't use the whole thing. Mix
6. Add almost an 8 oz. bottle of Western Salad Dressing. Mix this all up.
7. Add grape or cheery tomatoes cut in half or fourths. Again, judge how much you want.
8. Mix all together really good. I'm careful not to add everything to the max all at once. I taste and add as I go. You can always add, but but you can't take a way.
9. Serve with regular Nacho Cheese Doritos. I like to put the Doritos in the bottom of the bowl and put the salad on top. My hubby and kids just eat the chips - Heaven forbid something make their Dorito soggy!
10. The reason I don't crunch up the Doritos into the salad is so that you can put the leftovers in the fridge. The Doritos would be icky the next day. The salad is ok for a day. This makes such a wonderful lunch the next day.
Enjoy!
The below post about the dinner salads and my dad reminded me of a classic event in Karene's Kitchen. In the 70's my mom had the typical row of hanging plants in the goony macrame hangers lined in front of the windows in the kitchen. That was where my poor dad sat at the table, so sometimes when the plants got a little long they'd tickle his bald head. Too funny.
Anyway, my last sister had just left for college which meant it was just my mom, dad, and I at the kitchen table. So instead of dad sitting under the plants that he loved so much, he was excited to sit on the side where my sister always sat. Well what do you think happened! The plant that was usually right above my dad's head came crashing down onto the table. That was so hysterical! Usually dad's head would have been under there! I don't think those plants stayed up much longer after that.
