Trick or Treat!

Tonight, in honour of Halloween, we had an orange menu for Sunday dinner - pumpkin soup, cheese and bacon buns, carrot sticks and mandarin orange slices.

Cheese and bacon buns are a comfort food that I remember from when I was a kid. They aren't hard to make. First fry some bacon, say 6-8 slices, and set aside. Line a cookie sheet with foil, split some burger buns and place on aforementioned foil-lined cookie sheet. Top burger buns with either cheese whiz or a cheese slice; choose the petroleum-based cheese product of your choice. Now cut the bacon into bite-sized pieces. I use kitchen scissors to do this. Sprinkle the bacon generously on the buns (I make 6 at a time). Now set your oven to broil (high) and place the buns under the broiler for 3-5 minutes. I personally like when my cheese gets slightly charred under the broiler. As I learned the hard way tonight, my kids do not. Instead they accuse you of burning their food. I made these bacon-less and tried to sell them as open-faced grilled cheese for the kids and yet they still rejected them. And don't get me started on their reaction to pumpkin soup, which they at least tasted this time, unlike when I served it at Thanksgiving. 'Yuk' was one of the nicer things they had to say...


For dessert I made a chocolate brownie snack cake with spiderweb glaze which the kids liked just fine, of course, but I found somewhat disappointing:

The cake ate fine, and was super easy to make, but my glaze wasn't runny enough so the presentation suffered as a result. Which is kind of ironic, because normally when I'm working with icing sugar my problem is all about the runny, as in I can't make it stiff enough. I blame this on multi-tasking. Because as I was making the icing I glanced out my kitchen window and noticed this:


So of course I had to run out and take some pictures. This maple has granny smith apple green leaves Spring and Summer, then in the Fall, seemingly overnight it turns a brilliant red. We've been so busy I hadn't even noticed it had turned until today. Between this and the need to wear mittens to trick or treat comfortably tonight (we are closing in on about 160 treats doled out), I'd say it won't be long before we get some white stuff visiting the neighbourhood.