10 October


Raw Meat Rice Krispies

October 31: Halloween

Life is busy but we always try to enjoy the festivities around one of our favorite and fun holidays—Halloween. In between the cake club and culinary book club meetings with Halloween potluck themes, and the trunk-or-treat and fall harvest socials at church, we just do not have a lot of time to prepare something elaborate but still want to impress friends and family with creative and creepy cuisine.

So when we saw the Instructables tutorial for Raw Meat Rice Krispies, we just had to make this quick and easy dessert for Halloween. There are other tutorials that called for a few tablespoons of red velvet cake mix but we did not want to buy a whole box of it. The Instructables tutorial added peanut butter and decorated the foam package with fake edible blood. We kept it simple—again for time’s sake as well as less gore for the kiddos—and just stuck with a basic Rice Krispies recipe and colored the melted marshmallows in red and blue food coloring to give it a fresh “raw meat” hue.

Try this fun, festive and freaky food for a terrific timesaving treat for Halloween!

Recipe
Adapted from Instructables

Ingredients

  • ¼ cup (½ stick) butter
  • 1 package (10 ounces) or 5 cups regular marshmallows (or 4 cups miniature marshmallows)
  • 6 cups rice cereal (Rice Krispies— gluten-free also available)
  • Few drops of red food color
  • Fewer drops of blue food color

Directions

In a large pan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Add a few drops of red food color then a few drops of blue food color. Mix and continue to add red and blue food colors until the desired shade of “raw meat” is achieved. Make the color slightly darker because it will become a little lighter when the cereal is mixed in. Remove from heat.

Mix in the cereal until combined well. Spread cereal mixture onto a lightly buttered sheet of waxed paper. With buttered hands, free form the cereal mixture into “raw meat”. For patties, form cereal mixture into balls then flatten to ½ inch thick. 

Place “raw meat” or patties onto foam trays. Wrap package tightly with clear plastic wrap. Print sales labels and stick onto package. Display at the Halloween table or give for Halloween gifts.

Notes

  • Save the real raw meat foam trays from the store and wash and dry thoroughly before re-using them for this recipe to avoid cross contamination. We found white foam trays in a pack at the Dollar Tree and Family Dollar stores.
  • To decorate with optional “blood”, use red gel icing and squirt randomly on the foam trays before placing the “raw meat” and patties. 
  • Samples of the sales labels for the meat package can be found on the Instructables tutorial webpage. Or search for other online designs and modify them for your own purposes.
  • Search our blog for more Halloween recipes under the Theme Menus tab.

Mashed Potato Ghosts

October 31: Halloween

Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters! What you gonna eat? Ghost taters! We usually serve these quick mashed potato ghosts to go with our Halloween ribs. They are a quick and cute side dish to make when the night gets frenzied with frightfully fun festivities. So get into the “spirit” and serve up some easy mashed potato ghosts on Halloween!

Recipe

Ingredients

  • Mashed potatoes (homemade or store-bought)
  • Black peppercorns (or black icing gel in a tube)

Directions

Stir warm mashed potatoes until creamy. Place in a piping bag using a large round tip. Squeeze out a large base and build to a top point. Place two black peppercorns for the eyes. May heat up in the microwave for a few seconds until hot. Serve immediately.

Notes

  • Remind people to take out the black peppercorn eyes before eating the mashed potato ghosts.

  • See more Halloween recipes under the Theme Menus.

 

Chapchae 

(Korean Stir Fry Noodles)

October 6: National Noodle Day

Islander’s most memorable summer school class in Hawaii years ago was very culturally di-verse from Asia and the Pacific. Her students were from Micronesia (specifically Pohnpei and Chuuk), Samoa (including a village high chief’s daughter and another future chief) and Asia (Chinese, Japanese and Koreans). At the end of the summer session, one of the Koreans (a fu-ture Catholic priest) suggested holding the class aloha (farewell) party at the Brothers’ Hall, a larger gathering space across from our classroom building. The students got excited and were very generous in sharing their dances, music and food. Some dressed up in their colorful cultur-al clothing. The Koreans got together and made a huge container of chapchae (stir fry noodles) to feed the entire class—plus the host brothers. It was such a joyous day celebrating the stu-dents’ accomplishments and talents.

Islander thinks of that class whenever she makes chapchae at home. No wonder her students got together to make it—many hands make lighter work. Preparation of this recipe takes a lot of chop chop chapchae-ing, slicing and sautéing. But it is worth the effort because this noodle dish is delicious!

On National Noodle Day, make chapchae! Masissge deuseyo!

Recipe
(Adapted from Korean Kitchen by Soyearn Yoo and Junghwa Yoo)

For the noodle sauce

• ¼ cup soy sauce
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 stalk green onion, chopped (green parts only)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil

Directions
In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, garlic and green onions .

Stir in the sugar and sesame seeds and oil. Set aside.

For the noodle mix

• 2 eggs, beaten, fried into an omelet and sliced thinly
• ¼ cup carrots, sliced into “match sticks”
• ½ cup onions, cut into slivers
• 8 shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated and sliced thinly
• 3 ounces beef sirloin, sliced thinly
• 6 ounces sweet potato starch noodles
• 2 cups spinach
• 1 teaspoon sesame
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• Sesame seeds

Directions
Beat the eggs and fry into an omelet in a lightly greased skillet. Cool, cut in half and slice thinly into slivers. Set aside.

Cut the carrots into “match sticks”. Slice the onions thinly. Rehydrate the dried shiitake mush-rooms in hot water for 10 minutes or until softened. Squeeze out excess water from the mush-rooms and slice thinly.

In a lightly greased skillet, over medium high heat, fry the beef pieces with the noodle sauce for about 2-3 minutes. Add the carrots and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Stir in the mush-rooms. Let the noodle sauce evaporate. Remove from the stovetop.

In a large pot, boil enough water to cover the noodles. Cook the spinach for a minute and re-move immediately. Drain the spinach. To the same pot, add the noodles in the spinach water. Boil for about 10 minutes or until the noodles are cooked through. Rinse and drain. Place the noodles in a large bowl and add the sesame and olive oil. Mix well so the noodles do not stick to each other.

Add the spinach and beef mixture. Top with fried eggs slivers. Mix well. Serve on a plate and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Notes

• Thanks to another Korean student who went on to get her Ph.D. in multicultural education for giving Islander the cookbook as a gift after tutoring her in ESL.
• Whether Filipino pancit, Japanese somen or ramen, Hawaiian chicken long rice or even Italian pasta, eat oodles of noodles on National Noodle Day!

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