Cthulhu Snowdeity

Ever since I saw this Cthulhu Snowman by amysnotdeadyet, I've wanted to make a real life version.  Well the Old Ones were smiling favorably on us yesterday because not only did we get snow, but we got packing snow. 

These are the ones my daughter made, cute little guys maybe two and a half feet tall.  This morning when she looked outside I heard, "Mom their heads fell off, Cthulhu must have attacked them!" 

I imagined something like a Cthulhu version of Snowmen at Night 

having happened, which would be fun and terrifying. 

A few more snow Cthulhu's from the wonderful internet:

Snow Cthulhoo by Peter L.

hellinahandbasket.net

Snow Cthulhu by The Savage One

While I was getting out my winter gear I questioned whether a woman in her 40's should really be purchasing all her hats and gloves in the children's department.  

Then I figured if that's where all the cool stuff is, then hell yeah. 

Creepy Gingerbread Houses

Famous spooky places in gingerbread...

First we have the Bates family home.
This one I'm assuming is by Nicole Wells, I found it on her Pinterest board. 

She also has a fantastic Paris Disney Haunted Mansion.

This Bates house by Brad Cerenzia almost looks like a real house. 

I love the Christmas lights and nativity, they really set the scene. 

Follow the link for other views and to see how this was fabricated.

This is another version of the Haunted Mansion in Paris by Chef Mason

Here is the Overlook Hotel, by Michelle McElroy

This version of the Overlook Hotel by agkeeling and family,

even has individual scenes from the movie.

This is the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by Britta.

I still remember my failed Creepmas house and that was a kit. 

All these gingerbread artists have skills I can't even fathom. 

Creepmas Ornaments

Any Creepmas tree would feel honored to be adorned with these ornaments. 

Cthulhu Christmas by WarcraftsByEuphyley

Flying Spaghetti Monster by WarcraftsByEuphyley

Chistmas Ghost by LaFemmePetit

Sugar Skulls by diablitosheart

Skulls by diablitosheart

Earl the Zombie by DapperGourd

Leonard the Zombie by DapperGourd

Hand Painted Lightbulb by TheGnarledBranch

Santa Clauctopus by bambisclaydesign

Ghost of Christmas Past by AuntLilliesAttic

Lump of Coal by AuntLilliesAttic

Grrrgl by kezeff

Zombie Claus by kezeff

This rat is listed as a vinyl toy, but it looks like a Creepmas ornament to me. 

My second thought is man, Rat Fink has not aged well at all. 

Dobu Rat by Kagemaru

Hideous Holiday Haute Cusine

badanduglyofretrofood.com

In full disclosure I'm a bit bias against most holiday foods.  First of all I dislike everything about meat; the taste, the texture, the smell. I won't even eat a lot of vegetarian "meats" because they so closely mimic the real thing. So basically the main course of any American holiday grosses me out.  Why can't everything be celebrated with pizza which is a gastronomical symphony of cheese, bread and sauce, with a limitless variety of toppings?

Regardless of my food issues, I think most would agree that this collection of  Truly Horrifying Vintage Holiday Recipes live up to their name. And joy of all joys, since I stole that creepy elf tuna tree picture secondhand I wanted to verify the source.  The picture is just one small part of a post that embodies the spirit of Creepmas and is definitely worth checking out.

I love that Molly Fitzpatrick actually took the initiative and made quite of few of the vintage recipes.  She did both a Christmas and Thanksgiving menu. The pictures are disturbing, the write-ups hilarious.  

In the spirit of disliked holiday food here are a couple of Christmas dinner themed games involving brussel sprouts.  Christmas With The Sproutifarts and Attack of the Sprouts. The first one you have to eat the brussel sprouts, but if you don't take time to fart you blow up and the second one you have to smash the brussel sprouts before they jump in your mouth or you turn green and die.  And they are adorably disturbing little sprouts with evil eyes and big gnashing teeth. 


And what are my issues with holiday food stuffs? Well, since you asked...I'm not sure if any of these are popular throughout the rest of the US or if they were just a part of my mid-west upbringing, but lets start with jello salads, which can contain everything from grated carrots to marshmallows. 

I also detest anything else with marshmallows feigning to be a salad or smothering sweet potatoes. What did the potatoes ever do to deserve that? [from NPR: Who's to credit — or blame — for topping sweet potatoes with marshmallows? "The Cracker Jack company," says Andrew Smith, editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. It put out a small booklet of recipes in 1917 to encourage people to cook with marshmallows. "Virtually all of the other recipes died with the publication of their book, but the marshmallow and the sweet potato one has survived — and has thrived — ever since."]

Then there's that hideous green bean casserole with the crunchy onions. I think it has condensed cream of something, maybe possum pus, soup in it. There would be riots if this didn't show up at the dinner table.

Another one that is normally potluck fare, but shows up occasionally during the holidays, is the seven layer salad. People get excited when they see this, and it contains thawed frozen peas and mayonnaise.  Admittedly I'm not a big fan of mayonnaise, but anything called salad that's coated in mayonnaise is extra disgusting.

Last thing, gluey starchy mashed potatoes.  I actually love mashed potatoes.  Hand mashed with a little garlic, bit of butter (real), splash of cream (also real) and some salt & pepper. But that gluey mess that results from whipping the hell out of them, ick. Again, why all the violence against potatoes?

And lest you think I don't like anything traditional, that's not true.  I love salads that contain green leafy things and none of the aforementioned items.  I love sweet potatoes, winter squash, roasted veggies, fresh warm rolls, even stuffing, if it doesn't contain meat.

The Creepmas Creature Rises Again!

Part man, part beast, part shrubbery, part goddess, no one really knows what it is or where it comes from.  Some say it was the product of an unwholesome union between a hodag, a bigfoot and a Christmas tree.  Others say it was forged during The Great Battle when Christmas merchandise was unwisely placed next to Halloween items unjustly clearanced at the end of September. All that is known for sure is that it only comes out on the 1st of December to deliver goodies in celebration of the first day of Creepmas.

This year one of the area residents managed to capture this rare photo of the creature performing it's annual ritual. 

To learn more about the 13 Days of Creepmas click on this link or on the Creepy Santa badge in the upper right hand corner.  Be sure to check out the other participating Creeps. If you're curious about my Creepmas favorites, past and present check out my Creepmas board on Pinterest. 

This year's delightfully dreadful morsels were:

Zombie Bites - Cranberry Pistachio White Chocolate Truffles - It was the picture of the truffle with the bite out of it that got me thinking of zombies in the first place with all the lovely red and green bits.

I only made half the recipe because people can be quite hateful towards nuts and I'm not talking about people with allergies, although that would be understandable even if it's not the nut's fault really, but just people who don't like nuts and act like anytime they find nuts in their food it must be some sort of personal vendetta against them.

Half the recipe yielded 18 one tablespoon sized truffles. 

I didn't follow all the instructions. I thought they were more complicated than need be.  I put the chocolate, butter and cream together in a microwavable bowl, nuked it for 1 minute at 50% power, stirred until it was all mixed and then stirred in the extract.


Elf Brains - Instead of making my usual truffle brains, I made white chocolate coated Oreos, which is actually what the molds are made for.  I decided to use the peppermint flavored Oreos in the spirit of the holidays even though I don't know if they are gross or not. The kids liked them and said the peppermint flavor had also infused the chocolate coating. 






Corpse Hands - Peppermint Bark - I used 8oz of white chocolate, 4 tsp of crushed peppermint candy (Normally I use twice that, no reason why I didn't, just had a brain fart. They were fine, just had a very mild mint flavor.) and 6oz of semi-sweet chocolate to fill four molds.


Microwave white chocolate at 50% for 1 minute, stir microwave again at 50% for 40-60 seconds.  Stir until completely melted and stir in peppermint candy.  Divide amongst molds and chill.  Melt the semi-sweet chocolate and top the molds off.  Chill again. 


Grinch Cookies - Gooey Monster Eye Cookies - I saw these with all their eyeball and greeniness and knew they would be perfect for Creepmas. 

I find the smell of box cake mixes to be nauseating, but the kids liked these and that's all that matters. Using a 1.5 tablespoon scoop yielded 32 cookies.

I've never made any claims to having great cookie decorating skills, but if you look at them from the right angle and you squint a little bit, these cookies totally almost look just like the Grinch. 

The peanut gallery wanted to know why I was putting mustaches on the cookies. After that it was even harder for me to decorate because the cookies started talking to me in really bad French accents and making me laugh.

Oui oui mon cheri !

Abomination Turkeys

The bane of my existence is to make rice krispie turkeys every Thanksgiving. My lack of patience and skills in the arena of food decorating usually never fails to deliver, shall we say, unique creations. But I have to say this year, there's not a hideously deformed one in the bunch.  There aren't any zombie turkeys that had to be pieced back together with blood colored candy melts.  I even tried something new which is usually a recipe for disaster.  Even still my husband insisted on eating one of my balls before I "turned them into abominations". 

So here are my cute little abominations...

The Golden Oreo Rice Krispies Treats recipe that inspired these is at piesandplots.net and a nod goes to joyofbaking.com for the addition of vanilla extract and salt. 


Golden Oreo Rice Krispie Turkeys

20 Golden Oreos, divided
1 10oz bag of mini marshmallows or 40 regular marshmallows
4 tablespoons of unsalted butter
3 1/2 cups Rice Krispies cereal
1/4 tsp vanilla (optional)
pinch of salt (optional)

candy corn
mini M&M's
6 white candy melts*
6 red candy melts

Coarsely chop 10 of the Oreos cookies, mix with the rice krispie and set aside. Process the remaining 10 Oreos into fine crumbs, set aside in a small bowl. Melt the butter and salt in the saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the marshmallows and constantly stir until the marshmallows have completely melted. Remove from heat and add the vanilla extract.  Stir in the Oreos and Rice Krispies cereal until all the cereal has been coated. As soon as the mixture is cool enough to touch, with buttered hands start forming it into 1.5 - 2 inch balls. Keep hands lightly buttered throughout this process. These need to be fairly tight and firm, but don't squeeze so hard you crush the cereal. Dip them into the crumb mixture to lightly coat.  Work quickly while the mixture is still warm and pliable.  After they are all coated, roll them through the remaining crumb mixture one more time, pressing the crumbs firmly.

To decorated insert candy corns for tail feathers.  Melt white candy melts to attach eyes. I microwave them in the corner of a plastic freezer bag at 50% power for 30 seconds.  Mush it around and microwave for another 20-30 seconds. Snip of the end of the bag and gently squeeze to apply.  Same thing for the red candy melts to attach the beaks. This year I trimmed the ends off the candy corn beaks.  I think they look better shorter. 

Exhibit A

*Technically I use white chocolate, but candy melts are easier.  See exhibit A where I had to prop up beaks while waiting for poorly tempered chocolate to harden.




Here's last year's variation.  I used the regular Rice Krispies recipe but substituted half the rice krispies with a knockoff brand of cocoa krispies.  Which is funny, because the original turkey recipe that started this whole mess years ago, called for cocoa krispies.  But they are gross, so we make albino turkeys. Well, Mom's Best makes a Crispy Cocoa Rice cereal that actually has a nice flavor. It would still be too sweet to use full strength, therefore the half and half mix, which might sound a little weird, but everyone liked it.  The one problem I encountered was the mixture was really gooey, I'm guessing it's because of the sugar coating on the cocoa cereal.  I added a 1/2 cup more of both cereals and that helped, but I still had a lot of turkeys fall apart once I started stabbing them with candy corn.  If I do it again, I'll use a firmer hand shaping the balls and maybe let them sit for a bit before slapping stuff on.  The result was lots of deformed zombie turkeys last year. 

And the year before I tried sprucing things up with some green candy melts. 

And then there was this cute little guy.  I'd like to say he wasn't eaten by zombies.  I'd really like to be able to say that...and now you are caught up on three years worth of sad little flightless rice krispies treats. 

Punk Skeleton Vulture

Punks Not Dead, well maybe a little decomposed. 

If you've been following along, after the craft party I meant to make a punk skeleton and ended up going glam rock.  Not to be denied my desire for punk and bones I channeled all that energy on this guy. 

Here he is before his transformation, which consisted mainly of

tissue paper, paint, feathers, a few beads and pieces of an old belt. 

This is from behind obviously. 

And here he is with a pumpkin I got on sale at the beginning of October,

which probably has a lot to do with my mindset this season. 

Zombie Guts Recipe

I use the basic dough from this Sun Dried Tomato Focaccia recipe for everything.  It's a tasty focaccia as written. It's also good with herbs tossed in the dough or spread with pesto before covering in cheese.  I use it as a pizza dough, deep dish in a pan, hand tossed or rolled thin. I use it monkey bread style either with cinnamon and sugar or garlic salt and parmesan.  (See recipe variations at the end.) And I use it to make cinnamon rolls.  On Christmas morning cinnamon rolls look like cinnamon rolls, but around Halloween they look like intestines. 

Before we get started I would like to say that I would never ever tell you to eat raw dough, in fact I would say don't eat raw dough.  Because it clearly states on the bread flour bag in bold capital letters "DO NOT EAT RAW BREAD DOUGH" and it would be reckless insanity to go against boldface warnings.  Now that I've covered that, my grandmother would make fresh bread and cinnamon rolls every Saturday morning and I would beg her for raw dough.  She would give me a look, like something was fundamentally wrong with me, because no one in their right mind would eat raw bread dough. She'd sigh and shake her head, like it was against her better judgment, but she always gave me a little dough ball.  So every time I make dough, the family gets a bit of raw dough and it's delicious and no one has even died from it. 


Zombie Guts

Dough:

1 cup water

3 cups bread flour
2 tablespoons dry milk powder
3 1/2 tablespoons white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter at room temp
2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Coating:

1/2 cup melted butter

1 cup fine white sugar*

2-4 tablespoons ground cinnamon**

Glaze:

2 tablespoons melted butter

1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk or cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F.  Lightly butter two 8 inch round pans.

Place water, flour, powdered milk, sugar, salt, butter and yeast into bread machine in the order suggested by the manufacturer ***. Set to Dough cycle, and start the machine. Dough will be 1/2 pound.

When the bread machine has finished the Dough cycle, take the dough out. Knead for 1 minute by hand. Place in an oiled bowl, and turn a few times to coat the surface of the dough. Cover with a damp cloth, and let rise for 15 minutes in a warm place. (An easy way to check if the dough has finished rising is to poke it with your figure, if the dent stays it's good to go.)

Mix the cinnamon and sugar together in a medium sized bowl and set aside. 
Roll the dough out into a 12x18 inch rectangle. Use a pizza cutter to cut it into 16 strips lengthwise.  Dip the strips one at a time first in the butter, then in the sugar mixture to coat.  Randomly place 8 strips in each pan. You want them to squiggle all over the place, but at the same time try to make sure the dough is evenly distributed across the pan.  Let them rise again for 15 minutes. 

Bake at 350 F for 15 minutes or until slightly golden on top. 

In a small bowl slowly add powdered sugar to the melted butter. You should end up with a thick paste.  Add the vanilla and stir until smooth. Smooth out any lumps with the back of your spoon. Add 1 tablespoon of milk and again stir until smooth.  Slowly add more milk a little at a time until it's thin enough to drizzle.  Drizzle over the intestines while they are still warm.  This step is important so the glaze melts and soaks in.  This makes the intestines shiny. If you wait until they are cool, it just looks like frosting sitting on top, well because that's what it is. 



*A half and half mixture of dark brown and white sugar will make darker intestines. 

**The amount of cinnamon depends on type, quality and personal preference. Varieties labeled Saigon or Vietnamese have more kick than "regular". I like a lot of cinnamon, not only for flavor but color. 

***My manufacturer instructions are pretty simplistic, the following is what I do base on information I gleaned from somewhere a long time ago: 

Unless I'm opening a new jar of yeast, it's coming from the fridge so I measure out what I need and let it come to room temperature.  I microwave the water for 30 seconds, you want it warm, but not hot. Water goes in first.  I sprinkle the first two cups of flour so it sits on top of the water.  The last cup I dump in the center and make a well.  The yeast goes in the well.  Salt and sugar go in opposite corners.  By default I put the butter and milk powder in the remaining corners.  Start the dough cycle and check it after about 5 minutes.  My machine always has a bit of flour in the corners that needs a little nudge to get incorporated.  Let it go a few more minutes until everything is well mixed and look at dough again.  If it's too wet add one tablespoon of flour, too dry add one teaspoon of water. 

I'm still working on achieving bloodier intestines without compromising taste.  One time I added red food coloring to the glaze, but I hate the taste of food coloring, so I only added a little.  Pretty pink intestine are not scary or gross.  Ok they are scary and gross but for all the wrong reasons.  I made a clear glaze once but that bored my taste buds so I didn't use it.  I've seen intestines done with cherry pie filling, but then it becomes something else and is no longer a cinnamon roll. Maybe a light drizzle of a dark berry sauce or heated jam would look nice without overpowering? Or possibly a brown sugar butter glaze with a drop or two of red coloring.


Real quick, here are other things to do with this dough. 

Cinnamon rolls are almost the same as intestines except I use half the amount of butter, sugar and cinnamon.  After rolling out the 12x18 rectangle, spread on 1/4 cup of soft butter and then sprinkle with 1/2 cup sugar (I use a mix of brown and white) with 2 tablespoons of cinnamon. Roll it up and cut it into 16 even slices, place 8 on each pan.  Let rise and bake same as the intestines.  This time let them cool prior to adding the glaze. 

When I use it for pizza either hand tossed or rolled I bake it at a higher temp of 425 F for 10 minutes.  Can't remember the time when using it pan style it's been too long. 

Remember Domino's Pizza Dots? These are similar, better if you ask me.  Usually when I make dots I make one pan of cinnamon ones and the other ones cheesy.  After the dough is done rising split it in half.  Set one half back in the bowl and cover it up so it doesn't dry out.  Keep dividing the remaining half until you have 32 pieces.  Melt 1/4 cup butter.  Mix 1/2 cup sugar with 2 tablespoons of cinnamon.  Dip each piece of dough first in the butter, then in the sugar mixture and place them in the pan.  For the cheesy dots grate or finely shred 1/2 cup of parmesan and mix with a 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt. Divide the other half of dough into 32 pieces.  Melt 1/4 cup butter.  Dip the dough first in the butter, then the cheese and place in the pan.  Bake them at 350 for 12-15 minutes or until done. Another variation on the cheese dots its to wrap the dough around a small chunk of mozzarella, make sure the edges are pinched shut and then dip in the butter and parmesan. 

Here is a label for Zombie Guts.  The font is A Lolita Scorned by Angeliq.