ghostly mist
this house has many shadows
dearly departed
Recipe of the Month – May 2019
Today is National Macaroons Day! Macaroons are the confusing cousin to the French Macaron, oddly pronounced the exact same way. However, these little cookies are dense and typically made of coconut, whereas, French macarons are meringue-based sandwich treats.
Both make great Halloween desserts, but since it is national macaroon day, I’m sharing a delightfully ghoulish recipe from MasterChef Season 6 contestant Hetal, of Milk &Cardamom, as contributed on the So Fab Food website.
Behold, Coconut Lime Macaroon Eyeballs
Ingredients:
- 2 cups sweetened shredded coconut
- 2 egg whites
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp lime zest
- 3-4 drops green food coloring
- googly eye candies
- 1 oz milk chocolate, melted
For baking instructions and full recipe, please go here:
https://sofabfood.com/halloween-coconut-lime-macaroon-eyeballs/
Doncha love it when your food stares back at you?
Scary Bites
Some of you may have noticed there was no Haiku of the Week. Please forgive me. I suffered a sudden health scare this week. Recently, during a trip to a local botanical park in Austin, TX, I was bitten up by mosquitoes. The bites turned out to be more serious than I thought because I fell ill with a blood infection. Luckily, no serious disease. I’m now recovering and should be totally fine. Haiku will return next week, but as summer approaches, I can’t help but remind everyone to please use insect repellant.
Also, think twice about using those flowery shampoos and fruity lotions when camping and traipsing through the woods. We wouldn’t want insects to take over the world just because we want to smell good.
For more heartstopping terror, go here: http://www.bogleech.com/magicinsects.html
Happy Caturday
I think whenever National Wine Day falls on a Caturday, it should be a holiday!
Haiku of the Week
an evil hex
the spell cannot be broken
forever cursed
The Scariest Moms of Horror
I was supposed to post this on Mothers Day but I was too busy hanging out with my momma.
Moms have one job, protect their children. There’s a reason why you’re not supposed to mess with women with offspring. Ever heard of mama bears? Hell hath no fury like a pissed-off mum! Now, most moms are good moms, but all moms have the potential to be scary. If you manage to survive their wrath, these terrifying ladies of horror will keep you in therapy for years.
10. Mama/Spirit – Mama, 2013
Mama is a vengeful spirit who doesn’t know how to let go. When she finds two children alone in the woods after a tragic accident, she cares for them, in the only backwoods way that a dark, scary cursed ghost can. Years later, the girls are finally rescued and sent to live with their father’s twin brother and his wife, but unfortunately, Mama is not okay with the new living arrangements. It’s unfortunate this movie tried so hard to be twisty because the plot only ended up in knots, but at its heart, this is a classic ghost story with solid jump scares.
Haiku of the Week
the dark beyond
a monster in the shadows
look under the bed
Haiku of the Week
shrill voice
mother’s not herself today
apparition
6 More Things to Do When It’s not Halloween
Happy Walpurgisnacht! We are halfway to Halloween and another long, hot, miserable summer is just around the corner. Last year, around this time, I shared with you 10 Things to Do When It’s Not Halloween. Sometimes, we tend to focus on the bad so much that we forget to concentrate on the good, like the fact there are plenty of Halloweenesque activities to do to keep us happy until October.
Plant a pumpkin
The Pumpkin is the ultimate symbol of Halloween. It’s the heralded icon. The shepherd of the holiday. One could argue it’s the whole reason that Halloween even exists. Planting your own pumpkin can be rewarding in a number of ways. For starters, you’re doing something nice for the environment. Your pumpkin can be insecticide and chemical-free. Second, it might be more economical than buying a pumpkin at the store, particularly if you live in rural areas. Next, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that gardening relieves stress. Watching your little pumpkin grow makes you happy. That alone is totally worth it. Next, you can brag about it on your Instagram and social media. Create a photo album tracking your pumpkins growth. Lastly, you’ll have an amazing pumpkin to carve into a jack-o’-lantern by Halloween!
The Farmer’s Almanac has all the info you need on growing pumpkins:
https://www.almanac.com/plant/pumpkins
Paint Halloween ceramics
Lemax and Department 56 are awesome, no doubt about it, but they’re also a little pricy. Why not try and create your own Halloween village? Everything you need, ceramics, materials, and the tutorials that teach DIYers how to create certain looks with paint, can all be found online. Likewise, you can find paint, brushes and other materials at your local arts and crafts stores. You can paint your own ceramic haunted house and knick-knacks, or add new items to storebought villages piecemeal.
Bonus: Painting ceramics can be a soothing way to relax and hone in your concentration skills
Frankie ©CreativeKreations-Etsy
Finished Frankie ©CreativeKreations-Etsy
Watch all 1225 episodes of Dark Shadows
ABC’s dark gothic soap opera Dark Shadows featuring vampires, witches, ghosts, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures, aired 30-minute episodes on weekdays from 1966-1971.
The first season sluggishly produced efficient melodrama, romance, and the usual family squabbles, as found in a typical daytime soap, until introducing the charismatic, creepy, and somewhat sexy character of Barnabas Collins, a centuries-old vampire played by Jonathan Frid. From that point, the show became his show and Frid’s portrayal of the powerful Barnabas helped boost audience viewership and eventually, made him a horror icon.
Create your own Halloween florals
You can certainly wait for fall to buy some artificial autumn florals or black roses, but it’s always been my belief that some fake flowers are “fuller” than others, during different times of the year. This is certainly just an opinion, based on no facts whatsoever, but if we always paid attention to facts, we’d have no fun at all!
For those of you looking to dye real flowers black, the good people over at Florist Chronicles have put together one of the most comprehensive tutorials on how to create black flowers that I’ve ever seen. Check it out: www.floristchronicles/2011/create-black-flowers
Create a spooky centerpiece
After you create some black florals, you may need a haunted vase to put them in. You can turn any dollar store vessel into a gothic or Halloween centerpiece with some black paint, a glue gun, some fake spiders and other Halloween objects.
Check out this amazing easy to make spider vase tutorial over at KS Craft Shack:
http://www.craftshackchronicles.com/dollar-store-crafting-spider-halloween/
Need more ideas, check out the Halloween florals board on Pinterest:
https://www.pinterest.com/halloweenkristy/gothic-halloween-florals/
Visit a cemetery
Cemeteries are lovely quiet little places, open all year around. There’s nothing more relaxing than sitting under a tree and enjoying the sights and sounds of nature of a cemetery in the springtime, a time when the flowers and trees are in full bloom. There’s something meaningful, even bit ironic, about so much life flourishing among the dead. Just when you thought your little goth heart didn’t like pastels.
Go early and you’ll have a chance to photograph the gravestones before the morning mist burns off, or try in the late afternoon to catch those eerie shadows falling over the tombstones.
Happy Walpurgisnacht!
cackles on the wind
spirited celebration
walpurgisnacht
Halloween Horror Haiku 
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