Halloween 2011: Alien Invasion!

As some of you may know, Halloween is the biggest holiday at my house.  As an owner of a DJ company, it's a perfect fit for our equipment, and it gives us the opportunity to connect with all the trick-or-treating families in our neighborhood (more than a hundred kids usually stop by).  They always look forward to our "getup" every year, and cars passing by during the day will often linger to check out our progress and ask us what movie we'll be showing.


Over the years, we've continued to outdo ourselves, and this year was our most complicated theme yet... aliens.  I've been wanting to do this theme for a few years now, and had finally committed to it a couple months out.  Little did I know that there was little in the way of store-bought items that followed our theme... plenty of ghouls, witches, and skeletons... but no aliens.  So with the support and help of the family, friends, and crew, we set out to create most everything ourselves.

Above is the very ambitious alien (from the movie Alien) that I made out of mostly recycled materials.  As the story goes, the Alien takes on some of the characteristics of its "host," and we jokingly referred to him as the Snowboarder Alien because he was formed from a reclaimed snowboarder helmet.  I really wanted to throw him out the window a few times, as it was difficult to figure out how to keep his head up structurally... luckily we had plenty of duct tape (thanks, Mark)!

To finish my alien, I used the paper mache technique from last year's Halloween for the head and torso, then made him silver, and painted on some details.  Plastic tubing from the hardware store finished off the look, and we even hooked up his "inner  mouth" to one of our fog machines, which turned out cool!

Our house on Halloween is usually set up with a tunnel-like entrance in the front, with decorations on the side (we're on a corner), interior "haunted house" structure that has expanded into three sections due to our new patio addition, and a 6 X 9 foot movie screen out front to show movies (we're video DJs).  With our special effects lighting, fog, and sound effects- it gets pretty crazy and impressive.  Our neighbor Gary from across the street supplies us every year with free pumpkins from the UC Davis Veg Crops fields, and can be spotted sitting on his lawn chair in his driveway to watch our movies on Halloween night.  
My husband, Mike made the awesome cyborg on the "launch pad" at the front entrance, Mark and Peter made cool UFO's out of old dog igloos, and Levon and the crew helped set up all the walls, audio/visual, and even carved a pumpkin or two!  Thanks, Cee for making awesome food- because we were about to forget about eating that day!


Here's a quick video I put together for you to see:




Yes, it's a hell of a lot of work, but in the end, there is one word that can describe this night... magic.

Little ones (and sometimes not so little ones), walking clumsily, yet proudly in their elaborate little outfits, are enthusiastically coaxed by parents to enter the scary tunnel.  Ninjas, princesses, and medieval knights huddle together as they warily walk through the fog, fake fire, and glow-in-the-dark lights towards their ultimate goal... candy.  Bravely they face their fears of unseen terror that may await inside- is that a monster? Will it get me?  Finally they're greeted by a lady in a funky space suit with funny goggles, carrying a basket full of treats!  As long as it's not her friend dressed up as a very convincing werewolf, they rush forward with their cute little voices...

"Trick or treat!  Trick or treat!"  

"What do you say?" ask the responsible adults behind them.

"Thank you!  Thank you!"

...Ah, the memories of being a kid on Halloween.

Faux Rocks and Paper Mache

No, this is not a post about food... BUT, since most foodies are pretty crafty (with their recipes), and love to find interesting ways to recycle (who doesn't?), I thought this would be a post of interest. It was certainly interesting to me!

A while back, we decided to redo our front and back yards. Good friend and housemate, Mark helped to make this long overdue project a reality last week. A large cement truck was involved, and at the end of the day, we had a beautiful front patio and a lovely sunken back patio. After smoothing everything out, Mark had the ingenious idea to use the leftovers to make two large concrete "boulders."

These remarkably real looking boulders were made simply by building a mound of dirt, covering the mound with concrete, then smoothing out the concrete and adding cracks and texture with a small trowel. Powdered concrete dye was added during the sculpting process to add some color. Pretty cool, huh?

Rocks and Boulders made of Concrete

Mark works on smoothing out his concrete rock (our backyard patio in the background)

Me and My Rock

Side view of my rock

The other project involved the nostalgic childhood art of paper mache. Every Halloween, we do something special for the kids in the neighborhood (probably because we don't have any of our own). We usually decorate the front entrance with a scary tunnel and show movies on our huge projection screen that we use in our DJ performances, as well as some of our lighting effects. It's become a Halloween tradition, and something our neighborhood looks forward to every year. Of course, we always want to outdo ourselves- but I hate to spend a ton of money on decorations! So this year, with some trepidation, I decided to make some of my own.

Once I got the hang of it, it was a pretty simple process. First, build your form, making sure it's bound tightly with tape or string. Then mix 1/2 cup of flour and 2 tablespoons of salt, and about 2 cups of water, and simmer on the stove until "gluey." Then add ground up paper until you get the consistency you want- sticky but not sticking to your fingers too much. You can also use dryer lint, among other things.

Paper Mache Characters

Tree face made with flour, water, salt, recycled paper, dirt, and pebbles for eyes

Made "spookier" with uplighting and tombstones!

Harry Potter Mandrake Plant made with a stuffed onion bag, masking tape, and branches from an old plastic plant

Adding paper mache made with flour, water, salt, and recycled brown paper bags

Crying Mandrake- the finished product! I used a little black acrylic paint to accentuate the face and wrinkles.

On Halloween night- I  used a little voice recorder (you can see it behind the middle plant) to play the screaming sounds that I recorded directly from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and put it on auto-loop with the volume on high.  The Mandrakes are sitting on top of scrunched up bags with potting soil to fill in and around the tops.

I also made Harry Potter's Dobby with plastic shopping bags, cardboard, and masking tape

Using the same technique as the Mandrakes, but I used recycled white copy paper (junk mail, old bills, etc.), which turned out gray in color

The face was painted with black, white, and yellow acrylic paint.  I then cut the sleeves and neck off an old white T-shirt and tied it onto his shoulders.  I originally wanted to have him hanging from a tree branch (thus the arm being up), but the tree was trimmed, so he got to sit in a chair, looking light a student raising his arm to answer a question LOL!

Teo gets into the spirit, and tries on Mike's SF Giants Panda Hat. They won that night, and became THE WORLD SERIES 2010 CHAMPIONS!!!

Overall, Halloween was a great success, with over 150 kids coming through!  We showed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on the big screen in front of our house, which drew some kids to stop and watch.  The front entrance to our house was converted into a tunnel with fog and lighting effects from our DJ business, as well as my props. 

Entrance to the tunnel on the left, big movie screen on the right, and we had large fire lights in each window to make the house look like it had eyes!

Entering the tunnel, which wrapped around to the left

And, here are our beautiful pumpkins that we got from our neighbor, Garry, who works at the Veg Crops Dept at UC Davis.  

We're so fortunate to have a neighbor like Garry, who provides us with free pumpkins every year!

"Giant Rat and Pumpkin Cat" and "Alien Eyeball Pumpkin" (with glowing eyeball lights!)

Mark's Pumpkin Castle, made with his Dremel carving tools... COOL!

 Special thanks to everyone who helped!  ... Now, on to Thanksgiving!

Savory Halloween Treats

I love Halloween.  Demonic worshippers and the psychotically-disturbed aside, it seems to be a holiday that is often confused with the glorification of violence and evil.  On the contrary, I think it celebrates our triumph over FEAR.  For once, we look at fear in a different way, and make light of it.  It's as if we take time once a year to shake off our fearful inhibitions to not only examine them, but to laugh at them.  How silly are we to be afraid of all the things that we're afraid of on a daily basis?  Come on, do you think people are really going over to the Dark Side, if they dress up as a prickly demonic half-vampire, half-werewolf, brain-sucking alien? [insert Darth Vader's breathing here]  If anything, it shows how wonderful it is that we DON'T live in a world where a creature like that exists, and I don't think anyone would ever, ever, want to be one (well, maybe- if it becomes sexy like vampires). 

The other side of Halloween, which I LOVE, is how it encourages us to be creative- to tap into that childlike wonder of the world of Pretend.  Something adults are mostly discouraged from expressing, due to and an overwhelming fear of being sent to the psycho ward, or worse yet- defriended on Facebook. It is perhaps the only socially-acceptable day of the year when we get to find out what it's like to be Robert Englund.

On Halloween, nothing is as it might seem, and we allow ourselves to walk around in someone (or something) else's shoes for a change.  To me, nothing is more irresistibly delicious than to be frightened without danger.  Call me twisted, but I think a zillion people in costume this year will agree with me!  

Here's some clever ways to dress up your food too.

This is simply store-bought puff pastry (I used a quarter of a sheet per coffin and they turned out to be about 4 inches long) that is cut into coffin shapes and scored with a paring knife.  The weight of the asparagus keeps the center from puffing, thus creating coffin walls!  I baked them at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes, and removed the asparagus (saving for later) from the coffins to let the centers sink down and cool.  I then spread a roasted garlic cream cheese to line the coffins, and cut and arranged the cooked "asparagus bones" to make skeletons... delicious and creepy at the same time!

Asparagus Skeletons with Roasted Garlic Tofutti Cream Cheese in a Puff Pastry Coffin

Deep Fried Wonton Ghosts with an Asian Tempeh Filling

This is just a store bought wonton skin- yes I was lucky to find a vegan one at an Asian market! The brand is called Myojo, but I couldn't find it online to order...boo.  I love the light crispness of these skins when fried.  They're pretty much just flour and water, so you could try to make them, but the key is to get them super thin which is a pain to do by hand. Maybe it could be done with a pasta maker.  The filling consisted of tempeh, carrot, onion, green onion, and garlic, which were minced in a food processor, then sauteed in a little oil with a few slices of ginger (later removed).  I then added some soy sauce and a cup of water to reduce.  I could've eaten a whole plate of these!  And, they're great boiled if you want to make Ghost Soup (evil laugh)!

Depending on how you fry them, you can also get some of these to stand straight up!

Lastly, just dot on the faces with the end of a skewer or toothpick dipped in Hoisin sauce.  The middle one is made with Siracha sauce (I like mine spicy). 


...Now I gotta get my pumpkins ready!!

Lemon Flavored Candy Corn

Prefer your candy without corn syrup, gelatin, eggs, beeswax, or artificial color? Why not make your own? Add your own flavorings to make this old classic an updated favorite!

To tell you the truth, candy corn was never one of my favorites.  In fact, I would go out of my way to avoid them as a kid, in favor of more exotic flavors.  I think you either love them or hate them.  The one saving grace is their undeniable cuteness, with those brightly tri-colored, trianglular shapes- so indicative of Fall and of course, Halloween.

A Little History
Did you know that candy corn was invented in the 1880's?  It was meant to mimic kernels of dried corn, and became widely popular due to its revolutionary tri-colored look.  The candies were made by hand with large vats, and the candy mixture was then poured into cornstarch molds in three stages to form the colors.  Today, they're still made with cornstarch molds, but automated machines crank out more than 20 million pounds that are sold annually!

Vegan Lemon Candy Corn

Note: To make traditional vanilla flavored candy corn, just omit the lemon. Experiment with other extracts to make variations of your own.

Ingredients:
1/4 C. Earth Balance Margarine*
1 C. sugar
3/4 C. brown rice syrup
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. lemon extract
1 tsp. lemon juice
2 1/2 C. powdered sugar
1/3 C. soymilk powder
1/4 tsp. salt

For coloring:
Yellow: 1/4 tsp. tumeric
Orange: 1/4 tsp. tumeric + 2 tsp. beet juice (from canned beets)

Spinz:
You can make these any size you like, and if you get tired of making candy corn, it makes a good fondant for cupcakes or to make other shapes (a lot like playdoh).  
*These turned out a little on the soft side, so next time I might reduce the amount of margarine.  For fondant, it's perfect.  
I'm pretty sure this makes over a pound of candy- pretty time consuming by yourself, so make it a fun project to do with friends or kids!

Sift together the powdered sugar, soymilk powder, and salt in a bowl and set aside.  Heat margarine, sugar, brown rice syrup, extracts, and lemon juice in a saucepan, and stir until boiling and frothy.

Take saucepan off the heat, and add the dry mixture until well incorporated (a few lumps are ok).

Using separate bowls, divide the mixture into half, then divide one of the halves into half (to make three dough balls, one twice as large as the others).  Note: You can make equal parts if you like, but you'll need to adjust the coloring,  Into the large dough ball, add the beet juice and tumeric to make it orange.  It won't be bright orange, so if you want more vibrant color, add food coloring if you must.  Also add 1-2 T. of additional powdered sugar.  To one of the smaller dough balls, add tumeric to make it yellow (don't worry, you won't taste any of these). When cooled enough to handle, knead each one until smooth and color is even.  If it's too sticky, you can add a little powdered sugar, but not so much that it won't stick at all. If it's too dry, add a few drops of water.

Now you're ready to roll!  Spread a VERY light layer of powdered sugar onto your flat work surface.  Make ropes of equal thickness of the white and yellow, and a larger rope of the orange (for the middle).  Press the ropes together gently, then lightly roll the top with a rolling pin to flatten a bit and to further press together.  Then cut into triangles as shown above.

Finally, mold corners with fingers if desired.  Place them in a single layer on parchment or wax paper, and let dry.  DO NOT pile them up until they're dry, or they will stick together! These were deliciously lemony, with a good chewy texture and shiny outer shell.

I got bored with making candy corn, so I made myself a Fall Sweater... 
have fun with it!