Scary Good Stuffed Meatballs & Garlicky Sauce (Crock Pot)

October 24, 2015 Amanda Plott

One of my more favorite recipes here is one that is about two years old now. It's a tried and true recipe that I've kept in my back pocket and used numerous times over the years. With Halloween getting closer and closer, I decided to take that recipe out, dust it off, and give it a good scary once over.

A while back now, I had heard of these wonderful cheese stuffed meatballs and just knew that it was something that I had to give a try. So, I thought what better time than now? To make these meatballs even more scary good, I used both ground meat and hot sausage to give that nice little bit of heat. I also wanted to keep the vampires at bay, so I was sure to make the sauce garlicky...

Skinny Chocolate Ginger Bat Cookies

October 16, 2015 Amanda Plott

I've made these particular cookies for a few years now. It all started when we first moved to Austin and my mom made us all take the trek down to the famous Congress Street bridge around Halloween to watch the millions of bats fly out from under it once it was dark. It's a pretty cool thing to watch, especially when leading up to my favorite holiday, Halloween!

When we go to see the bats, and we usually do every year, I always like to take some wine and a snack. We always take the guided bat boat tours which can last a good hour or two while we wait for it to get dark enough for the bats to surface.

I had seen ginger-bread skeletons before, so one year I got smart and thought it would be super cute to make these cookies over in a healthy way while also packing them up for a 'bat night' treat...

Skinny Boo Bites (Sponsored)

October 8, 2015 Amanda Plott

This post was brought to you by Collective Bias, Inc. and it's advertiser. I received compensation to write this post … but, all opinions expressed are my own. #CelebrateLosMuertos #CollectiveBias

A while back now I had made these yummy little cookies for my daughter's birthday, and called them 'Fairy Bites'. They were more so a snack on the trip that we were taking to her fairy themed birthday destination. With Halloween and Dia de los Muertos coming up soon, I wanted to take those cookies and make them again with a few special changes!

Halloween is actually my favorite holiday. I think it has to do with the cooler weather and the fact that people get to prance around in costumes and pretend to be someone or something else for a while. Here in Texas, Dia de los Muertos or 'The Day of the Dead' is a pretty big holiday too. In fact, my mom is in love with sugar skulls. They seem to be becoming quite trendy, not just here either. There's even a neat little shop in down town Austin here that actually sells full sized sugar skull inspired skeletons year round. They are amazingly intricate while being bright and colorful too...

Spooktacular Whole Wheat Mini Pizzas

October 15, 2014 Amanda Plott

This post was brought to you by the makers of Fleischmann’s Yeast. I received compensation to write this post … but, all opinions expressed are my own.

These fun little pizzas are sure to fright and de{light} your family around Halloween. My daughter had so much fun helping me in the kitchen to make these perfectly spooky mini pizzas. Of course, as with most kids, she is a pizza aficionado... so the fact that she scarfed these pizzas down surely put a smile on my face!

But, I couldn't blame her. These little pizzas are... to die for. Muahaha!

Pun intended...

'Healthier' Mummy Dogs

October 2, 2014 Amanda Plott

My mom started this tradition several years back where we turned our hot dogs into mummy dogs around halloween. I believe our first few years doing this, we used little smokies instead of actual hot dogs, so we had about a million and one mini-mummies. They were cute... but also a little bit of a pain in the rear to make.

After we learned our lesson, we began to use regular size weenies and it was a whole lot easier of a process! Now that my daughter is older and more sentient (as my brother would say), I really enjoy sharing all the fun and festive holiday stuff that my mother used to do for my brother and I.

While it's a silly and rather minimal tradition, it's ours and we love it.

It helps too that my daughter is a hot dog fiend.

It's seriously one of the only forms of meat that she will actually eat.