Thursday Art Date: Halloween! and Paint Party Friday!

Hello Friends :)

🎃🎃🎃 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! 🎃🎃🎃

🔥🔥🔥 And a BLESSED SAMHAIN to my friends who celebrate!! 🔥🔥🔥

Will you be tricking or treating? 😁

Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is of course, Halloween! I'll get straight to the art and I have some foodie photos and recipes to post as well! The gang at Looney Tunes - and my gang here - hope you have a spooktacular day! 

I'm also linking up with Paint Party Friday tomorrow!

Here is my watercolour Vincent Price. I've been watching a lot of his movies this month, he really is the King of the Macabre! His voice is unmistakable, and he's done a lot of reading of Poe fiction and he does it so well. He even put out a few cookbooks! What's not to like? I'm sure many of you will remember his spoken voice in Michael Jackson's Thriller song! Here's the video, I think this was my favourite video of the 1980's...I even learned the dance with some friends of mine! Get ready to moonwalk down memory lane...

Here's another watercolour. Do you recognize her? The Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz. I don't know why I was drawn to painting her this week, I watch this movie around Christmas every year. But she suits this theme very well! 🌊 What a world!! 🌊

What's Halloween without a few zombies here and there? Do you recognize this lovely watercolour lady? 😉 Ladies and Gents, I present to you the Zombie Rain! She and I visit the same dentist! 😁  Must...eat...brains... 

I'm making a fun feast tonight but I'll share some of the food I made this past week. A few days before Halloween, I always make some themed food for fun. On Sunday night, I made a Ghostly Calzone. I also had some fun with treats! These are Witch's Hats and Spider Cookies! (See the Googly Eyes?) The witch hats are filled with M&M's. We had those for a few days!

Tuesday night we had spaghetti and I fancied up my garlic bread to make some mummies!

Here are this year's Jack O' Lanterns! Bloody Mary (don't say her name three times!!!) and my hero Vincent Price. Every year I carve my pumpkins while I watch the old Halloween horror films from the 1970's and early 1980's. It's become a fun tradition for me!

Yesterday Alex and I spent the day snacking and watching movies. This is my Halloween Eve table!

I made my version of a Chex mix, Rain's Party Mix and some Seasoned Pretzel Sticks.

Witch Brooms made with Mozzarella and pretzel sticks for the handles.

Some Mexican Dip and Sun Dried Tomato and Basil Pesto.

Baked Tortillas Chips shaped like pumpkins and bats.

And some festive Boo Bark!

That's all for now folks, please check out the link widget below to see more Halloween artwork! Visit Paint Party Friday tomorrow as well for more lovely creative art. And please join me on Sunday for my food and pets post. 🐾🐾🐾

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Fall Fishing on Bass Lake - the air is crisp and the sky is brilliant!

November 7th: Next Thursday's theme is Crisp and Brilliant! Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! 😊

Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.

Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! Please don't include a link unless you participate in the art date!

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Sunday Food and Pets Post - 👀 Googly Eyes 👀

Hi Everyone! 

Welcome to my Sunday Food and Pets post! How is your weekend going? Mine is going very well! I've been in my happy place all weekend - the kitchen! Halloween is only a few days away and I have so much to do, I hope I have time for everything I have planned. I made these edible Googly Eyes for some Halloween desserts!

Since I had great success with my 3-Month Cheddar, I decided to make a few more. One is a Farmhouse Cheddar (made to eat within a month or two) and the other will age for at least 3 months.

I got an American Cheese made too. This stuff is so delicious and it melts beautifully!

This is the season for comfort food! Creamy pastas are so good, like my Linguine Alfredo. Not only is this delicious, it's SO quick and easy to make! (Lots of butter and cheese Baili !!! 😊)

I had some salsa and sour cream leftover from my nachos last weekend, so I made some Breakfast Burritos.

This is a first for me, Italian Zabaglione. For those who don't know how to pronounce this (because I didn't!), it's za-ba-yoh-nee - I hope I got that right! It's like a custard or pudding and it's really delicious. I served it warm, but the next time I make it I'll serve it chilled.

The zabaglione went very well with my Almond Biscotti.

More comfort food: Cheese and Onion Bread. If you make this, I guarantee your kitchen will smell like heaven in an oven! We had this as a main course.

We dipped the bread in my warm, homemade Marinara Sauce.

As a side dish, I made my Fricassee Potatoes - though the bread was filling enough on its own - we had plenty of leftovers!

Cold autumn nights call for lots of blankets - Jack burrows under the covers every chance he can get!

Cat-stacking. :)

Here's a quick 24 second video of Jack and Marlene playing tug of war. Charlie seems to want to join in at the end, then loses interest! Jack is the one making all of the noise as he tries to pull my old slipper into his cage for safe-keeping. :) (Sorry it's so dark, it was before sunrise!)

See you on Thursday for our art date, the theme is Halloween! 💀💀💀  Bwah ha ha ha ha!!! (Cue scary music!!!) 😱😱😱

Thursday Art Date: Jack O' Lanterns and Paint Party Friday!

Hello Friends :)

Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is Jack O' Lanterns. What did you create this week? Remember, if you want to link your blog post, you have until Sunday night now to join in! 😊 Bugs Bunny loves to dress up as Cinder-Rabbit. 😊 I'd love to ride around town, all dolled up in a horse-driven pumpkin carriage!! I often use the phrase "I'm about to turn into a pumpkin" when I'm exhausted...and yes, this usually happens WELL before my clock strikes twelve! I drew this with Sharpies and Prismacolor Pencils.

I'm also linking up with Paint Party Friday tomorrow!

Here's my watercolour Jack O' Lantern scarecrow. Three years ago I brought this painting to life on my porch - I painted my watercolour from that photo. If this thing doesn't scare the crows, it definitely would scare me if I bumped into it on a dark night in a corn field! Have I ever mentioned that I once got caught alone in a corn maze at sundown? Yeah, it happened, and I did run into a few very creepy scarecrows before I got out!! It was a harrowing experience!! 😲

Here's my acrylic painting of a Day of the Dead Jack O' Lantern. I love the brilliant colours on this one!

I have two nice pumpkins ready for carving! I have some fun ideas for my Jack O' Lanterns this year! Halloween is right around the corner, I can't wait! Do you celebrate Halloween, Samhain and/or The Day Of The Dead? I have some fun food planned, lots of sweets and a bunch of neat paintings! Alex and I are going to watch the latest Halloween movie too - in the dark of course!!

On Sunday night I made a Loaded Nacho Plate with my Homemade Sour Cream. Delicious! I've been busy this week catching up on housecleaning and cleaning up the garden and yard - preparing for winter! I harvested the last of my green onions and brought in my chives and mint plant. Everything else is in the compost heap!

The hands are at it again...

My paper maché skeleton hands won't stay put! They found their way out to the compost pile and scared the bejeebers out of me!! I wonder what they have planned for Halloween! 😟

So that's all for now folks, please check out the link widget below to see more Jack O' Lanterns artwork! Visit Paint Party Friday tomorrow as well for more lovely creative art. And please join me on Sunday for my food and pets post. 🐾🐾🐾

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My Shrunken Heads (made from apples) Halloween 2016

October 31st: Next Thursday's theme is 👻 Halloween! 👻 Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! 😊

Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.

Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! Please don't include a link unless you participate in the art date!

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Sunday Food and Pets Post - Thanksgiving Poutine!!

Hi Everyone :)

I hope you're all comfy at home on this chilly Sunday...at least it's chilly here! I was scraping ice off the car's windshield this morning. And I just discovered my automatic car starter isn't working! At first, I was kind of worried now that the cold weather is arriving fast, but you know what? Life can go on without gadgets lol...I never had an automatic car starter before and I can certainly survive without one!

Last Thursday, Alex and I had our belated Thanksgiving celebration and YES I DID IT....I made a Thanksgiving Poutine! 

Here is the luxurious close up! For those who don't know, a poutine is basically fries topped with cheese and drowned in gravy. It's a Canadian dish so I figured, why not eh? 😊🍁😊 I made a traditional, mostly vegetarian dinner with Stuffing, mashed potatoes, Cranberry Sauce and Cauliflower Gratin. On top of the fries, I put a little of each dish, topped it with a mix of Mozzarella and Cheddar, then slathered it with Chicken Gravy. It was SO DARN GOOD. And we had leftovers for days! 😊😊😊 

Here is my centerpiece including the ONLY two teeny weeny little sugar pumpkins that grew in the garden this year. I planted about 30 seedlings and a few handfuls of seeds directly into my patches...2019 will be the worst year yet for my garden harvest - but I did learn a lot so it's never a total waste!

For dessert I made my Creamy Pumpkin Pie. This is very good for breakfast the next day by the way! 

To go with dessert, I made Spicy Apple Butter Old Fashioned's with bourbon. This was like drinking a dessert.

The day before our Thanksgiving dinner, I made the Spicy Apple Butter to go in the cocktails. It slow cooked for 8 hours and the house smelled divine!

Now that I can eat again, I went on a cooking spree! I made Goat Cheese and used it for my Goat Cheese Popovers. These are so delicious! I only make small batches because they're best eaten within 24 hours.

I'm still on soft foods mostly but NO MORE PUDDING AND SOUP!!! I made a nice Four Cheese Pasta Penne - so comforting.

This is a nice snack - Sun Dried Tomato and Basil Pesto. I'm not a fan of pine nuts and I don't add them to my pesto - you really don't need them! This is great on bread or on crackers with a little shaving of Cheddar cheese. We also use this as a pizza sauce.

Alex and I did some taste tests yesterday! I opened my 3-Month Cheddar and the Cherry Bounce we made in July. What a treat!!! The Cheddar tasted just like it was supposed to taste like - a mild, young cheese! (I video-ed a taste test on Rainy Day Cheese Making if you're interested!). The Cherry Bounce was lovely with the cheese, it tasted like a cherry port. Very delicious!! :)

Clockwise: Baby Oscar stretching as he wakes up...curious Dana on the mantle...Charlie longing to run like a wild coyote in the woods...yawny Leo...snuggly Jack...insecure Marlene...I'm not leaving you EVER Marlene!!! 🐶 It may be cold outside, but it's warm and cozy and full of love here at home! See you on Thursday for our art date, the theme is Jack O' Lanterns! 🎃🎃🎃