Here’s a recipe I tried on my family this weekend. It would be especially fun for Halloween night.
This is adapted from a recipe from cooks.com.

Dinner in a Pumpkin
1 small or medium pumpkin
1-2 lbs. ground beef
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 c. green pepper, chopped
1/4 c. soy sauce
2 T. brown sugar
1 8-ounce can water chestnuts
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 4-ounce can sliced mushrooms, drained
2 c. cooked rice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cut top off pumpkin and clean out insides. Draw a jack-o-lantern face on pumpkin with a permanent marker, if you’d like.
Brown beef, onion and green pepper in skillet; drain. Add soy sauce, brown sugar, soup, rice, water chestnuts and mushrooms. Put into pumpkin and replace pumpkin lid. Place on baking sheet and bake 1 hour.
When serving, scoop out pumpkin with meat mixture.
Serves 6-8.

By Tanya Manus

A friend of mine was telling me how much she’s looking forward to a holiday at home this year with her family and some steaming pots of soup.

She and her husband both have large families who live in the area. Holidays in years past have been spent shuttling themselves and their children to and from grandparents’ houses. This year, however, she, hubby and the children are staying home, and family members will be visiting them instead, dropping in throughout the day.

Smart hostess that she is, my friend is foregoing a formal, sit-down Christmas day meal. Instead, she said, she’ll make a couple of pots of soup and keep them simmering on the stove. Any time guests stop by, there will be warm, homemade French onion and chicken noodle soups for them to enjoy, and my friend will have lots more time to spend with her family and lots less time she’ll have to be in the kitchen.

I love this idea, for a holiday or any wintertime parties. And it brought to mind my favorite recipe for Chicken Noodle Soup. Add a green salad and some crusty bread, and you’ve got a wonderful meal. Merry Christmas!

 Fran’s Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

1 chicken, about 2-1/2 to 3 lbs., skinned and quartered

3-1/2 quarts water

1 tbsp. salt

1 medium onion

6 whole peppercorns

6 celery ribs, leaves reserved, divided

6 whole carrots, divided

4 cups uncooked egg noodles (and if they’re homemade, even better!)

1/4 cup chopped parsley

3 to 4 drops yellow food coloring

Put chicken, water, salt, onion, peppercorns, three ribs of celery, all the celery leaves and three carrots in a soup kettle. Cover and bring to a boil. Skim off foam. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for two hours or until meat is tender. Remove meat, vegetables and peppercorns from stock. Discard cooked vegetables and peppercorns. Dice remaining celery and carrots; add to stock. Cook until vegetables are tender. Remove chicken from bones and shred. Add meat and bring stock to a boil. Add noodles and continue to boil for 5 minutes. Turn down heat and add parsley. Stir in food coloring. Makes 10 to 12 servings.

By Lynn Taylor Rick

When I was little, our neighbors used to make something called turkey birds with their leftover turkey. I adapted the recipe over the years. I don’t remember exactly how they made them, but here’s how I make them for my husband and daughters. They are usually a big hit.

Chop up left over turkey into little pieces. Mix the turkey with cream cheese and anything else that sounds good. I usually add celery, sometimes some onions and occasionally some green olives.

Flatten individual Crescent rolls (just a bit) on a baking sheet. Put a spoonful of the turkey mixture into each Crescent roll and wrap it to look like a little turkey. Bake it according to the Crescent roll instructions.

Eat the turkey birds covered in gravy with cranberries on the side.     

By Tanya Manus

Our online readers have been reminiscing a lot about the good old days - when you’d buy Halloween candy and then you’d actually get trick-or-treaters at your house who you could give it to. These days, you can buy the candy, but it’s hard to predict whether any little princesses and goblins will show up.
That was my dilemma last year. It was a rare Halloween when I was actually home, instead of having to work. I bought candy. As is customary in the complex where I lived, I taped a little drawing on my apartment door signaling that I wanted trick-or-treaters.
And I waited.
I think four kids showed up. The last two were preteen girls so unenthusiastic that they couldn’t even bother to say “trick or treat” when I answered my door. And after they left, I was left with a pile of unclaimed candy.
I guess I could have just pawned it off on my co-workers, but I wanted to do something more creative than that. So I started searching to find out how to reuse the miniature Butterfinger candy bars I had bought.
Much to my delight, I found out that another cook had paved the way with a delicious recipe for Butterfinger Cookies. Consider them peanut butter cookies with attitude.
This year, only two trick-or-treaters arrived, so there are a few miniature milk chocolate Hershey bars leftover at my house. To use these up, I think the infamous Neiman Marcus Cookies fill the bill.
Oh yes, and then there’s that jack o’lantern. Don’t waste him. Bake him, then scoop out the cooked pumpkin and use it in wonderful soft, chewy pumpkin cookies.
Bake a batch of any of these cookies and freeze them, and you’ll have turned Halloween leftovers into homemade treats ready for the Christmas cookie exchanges and holiday parties that are fast approaching.

Butterfinger Cookies
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 egg whites
1-1/4 cups chunky peanut butter
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 Butterfinger candy bars (2.1 ounces each), chopped (or figure out how many miniature Butterfinger equal five regular-sized candy bars)

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Add egg whites; beat well. Blend in peanut butter and vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in candy bars. Shape into 1-1/2-inch balls and place on greased baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire racks.

Neiman Marcus Cookies
5 cups blended oatmeal**
2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 cups brown sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
24 oz. chocolate chips
1 (8 oz.) Hershey Bar, grated (or the equivalent number of miniature bars, grated)
3 cups chopped nuts (your choice)

** Measure oatmeal and blend in a blender to a fine powder.
Cream the butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla; mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Add chocolate chips, grated Hershey bars and nuts. Roll into balls and place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet.
Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Makes 112 cookies.

Pumpkin Raisin Cookies
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 cup cooked pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Dash salt
1 cup raisins

FROSTING:
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1-1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a mixing bowl, cream shortening and sugar. Add pumpkin and vanilla. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Fold in the raisins. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto greased baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 14 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on wire racks.
For frosting, melt butter in a saucepan. Stir in the sugar, milk and vanilla until smooth. Frost cooled cookies.

Easter Candy — mmmmmmmm, I love it. I love it. I LOVE IT!

Yeah I really like Easter candy. Each of my sweet taste buds look forward to this time of year the way little children look forward to Christmas. In fact, I’m 28 and I’m pretty sure I will be getting an eater — uh, I mean Easter basket for myself this year. I’ve been thinking about it all day, so I figured I would share my sweet Easter dreams with you via blog.

Cadbury Crème Eggs
I have sort of a weird reaction in some foods – I get ritualistic about eating them. Not ‘praying for rain’ ritualistic, just ‘I always do it the same way and for some reason it makes it more satisfying’ ritualistic. That’s not weird is it?

Well, whether it is weird or not, Cadbury Eggs (and pretty much every other Easter candy I love) evokes this ritualistic response from me.

I won’t go into the eating ritual I have with Cadbury Crème Eggs, but I will say I eat them in private because it is rather involved and I like to eat the middles before I finish the shell.

Hershey’s Eggs
First of all, I think the shell to chocolate ratio in Hershey’s Eggs is fantastic. And the shells are thicker and taste better than any other candy shell I have tasted. When I ritualistically devour these little pastel beauties I always try to bite them exactly in half and then chip the shell off. After crunching up the shell I let the two remaining chocolate chunks melt on my tongue.

Peeps
Okay, I know most people think these little crystal-sugar-covered marshmallow chicks are gross — and, honestly I agree. But I also cannot resist them. My first step when eating these day-glo yellow treats is to lick all of the sugar off the back. Then I bite off the tail. After I swallow the tail I pick the eyes off the chick, and then I go for the head. After that I eat the body in 2 separate bites.

Jellybeans
I like to crush the outer shell of a jellybean and then sort of peel it off with my teeth and my tongue. Then I slice the jelly center into little slivers with my teeth and swallow the slivers one at a time.

Mmmm, this is making me feel like I need to get some sugar. Am I the only one?

Plus, now I’m dying to know, do any of you have food rituals?