Ghostbusters-inspired Ectolime Curd and Stay Puft Fluff are good enough to get you believing in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis.
There are tons of uses for these sweet goos; on the Fiction Kitchen podcast I talked about using this marshmallow fluff and lime curd to make s’mores and keylime pie gram cracker thumbprint cookies, but that’s just one idea. Eventually I’d love to make a marshmallow popsicles with ectolime curd filling inspired by Andrew Heath’s pop art popsicles!
2 drops green, 1 drop yellow food coloring (optional)
1/8 tsp salt
Cream the butter, then beat in the sugar and lime zest. Add the eggs one by one, then the lime juice and salt.
Pour into a saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring, until thickened (15 minutes or so). Remove from heat and cool completely. Save in the fridge in an airtight container.
Stay Puft Fluff
From The Kitchn – this makes a TON, if I make again will do half
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons water
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light corn syrup
3 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar (if you, like me, forgot you were out, can omit)
pinch salt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Warm water, sugar and corn syrup in a saucepan over medium high heat until mixture reaches 240°.
Meanwhile, beat egg whites until foamy, then add cream of tartar and salt and beat to soft peaks.
When sugar mixture is heated, remove from heat and let rest 20 seconds. Slowly stream into the egg mixture while beating on high. Beat for 7-8 minutes until room temperature. Add in vanilla and beat until stiff peaks form.
Save in the fridge in an airtight container.
I love making and using fruit curds. See some other variations with:
Recipe for Fiction Kitchen Episode 43: Ghostbusters in which Carrie and Diana talk about the new movie and all that came before. Get ready for Ecto Cooler, twinkies, sad wonton soup, Cheezits, flying sandwiches, refrigerator portals, and wacky party food. We ain’t afraid of no ghost!
The Curse of La Llorona, from New Line Cinema and director Michael Chaves, came screeching into theaters this Friday. It stars Linda Cardellini and Patricia Velazquez, two mothers troubled in different ways, and haunted by the wailing, weeping woman of Mexican folklore.
The legend of La Llorona that the film is based on is equal parts heartbreaking and terrifying. There are several variations, but the basic story is that a poor and beautiful woman was discovered by a wealthy nobleman as he came through her village. He took her as his wife and they had two sons, but as he traveled he grew further apart from her and eventually he left her alone for a younger woman. She was driven mad by the betrayal, and in a blind rage drowned her sons in a river.
When she realized what she had done the river had washed them away. Not permitted to enter heaven without her sons, she was cursed to wander watersides as a lonely ghost, crying for her children, and kidnapping and drowning children she mistakes for her own. This myth is a mother’s worst nightmare…but also falls into that category of terrifying Bogeyman tales to tell your children to get them to behave.
The legend is bleak, but this recipe is bright, a Mexican pozole verde. With a base of hearty hominy, most often pozole is made with pork, but I went to the waters for this La Llorna inspired one and used shrimp (creek shrimp would be especially apt if you can find it). I love the technique of using shrimp shells to make a briny broth, so that’s done here. The poblano mixture flavored with garlic, cumin, coriander and oregano makes the broth a watery green, and the strings of spinach evoke underwater plants as the ghost is known to scrape the bottoms of rivers and lakes, desperately looking for her children.
This swampy mixture is a flavorful blank slate for toppings such as avocado, radishes, tostadas, and lime. You can make is spicy by including peppers like jalapeños or serranos in the poblano pepper mixture, but since I was cooking for children (also apt!) I left out the spicy ones and just served with hot sauce on the side.
LA LLORONA POZOLE VERDE
2 poblano peppers
2 jalapeños or serranos (optional – I left them out to serve kids)
To serve: avocado, sliced radish, crushed tostadas, limes, hot sauce
Char poblanos (and optionally jalapeños or serranos) in a 450° oven. I do this by putting the poblanos right on the grate with a sheet pan below it and turn occasionally until evenly charred. If I’m doing the smaller peppers I’ll put them on aluminum foil so they don’t fall through. The little ones won’t take as long to char, so just check as they are cooking. Peel and deseed poblanos and add them, and trimmed jalapeños or serranos if using, to a food processor and blend until smooth, adding a little water if necessary.
Meanwhile, rinse and peel the shrimp, reserving shells. In a saucepan, boil shrimp shells with 3 cups water for half an hour to create a shrimpy broth. Drain and reserve the broth, adding enough water to get it back up to three cups.
In a soup pot, heat oil on medium and cook onion until translucent and beginning to turn golden. Add garlic and stir for a minute or two, then cumin, coriander, and salt and stir until fragrant. Add the shrimp broth, the pepper mixture, and the hominy and simmer for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, and adding more water if necessary to keep a somewhat thick somewhat brothy consistency. Stir in shrimp and cook until they just turn pink. Stir in spinach and oregano and cook for another few minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
Serve with garnishes. Enjoy, but keep an eye on those children.
What’s your damage?Heathers, the 1989 black comedy written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Lehmann, is the liaison between 80’s materialism and 90’s nihilism. Winona Ryder is exquisite as Veronica, who’s wealthy and beautiful, yet dark and down to earth in a sea of Heathers led by Heather Chandler (Kim Walker). She practically defines the voice of the next generation.
Besides its cultural significance, there also happens to be LOTS of food in this quirky film. “Great pate, but I gotta motor,” Veronica quips after an afternoon with her parents. Pate is synonymous at this time with the wealthy, and seems significantly grown-up. The high school kids on the other hand, even the rich ones, prefer convenience store food – turbo dogs, Twizzlers and cherry Slushies! That’s charming, but the food references in the movie that age much less well are the flippant jokes about eating disorders, however significant in the story. Heather Duke (Shannen Doherty), timidly suffers bulimia under Heather Chandler’s rule, but after HC’s untimely demise she blossoms into the new queen whilst chowing on a drumstick.
Pulled from some great options, what we’re making for Heathers are homemade BBQ corn nuts, that Veronica and Heather Chandler procure from the gas station. Delightfully both high brow (homemade!) and low brow (still corn nuts!), my main draw was that these crunchy little nuggets were queen bee HC’s dying words. (Sidenote, what would my dying words be? Probably crunchy tuna roll…)
Giant white corn kernels can be purchased in Hispanic groceries and perhaps even your grocery’s latin aisle. Soak them overnight to prepare. I tried one batch baked, and while I believe it’s possible, this is the less desirable option as your final product will be oilier, chalkier, and with a higher chance of burning your spices. I don’t deep fry often, but I find several inches in my smallest sauce pan isn’t too much clean up, just fry in batches and you’re golden, literally. The BBQ spice mix is super simple and can be used on meats, veggies, and whatever you choose, but today…it’s corn nuts.
BBQ Corn Nuts
1 pound giant white corn kernels (soaked at least 8 hours, preferably overnight)
vegetable oil for frying
1 tablespoon sea salt
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Drain and towel dry corn kernels. On medium high heat, heat 3 inches or so of oil. Fry the kernels in single-layer batches for 9-12 minutes, turning gently every few minutes, until golden and slightly puffed. Remove with a slotted spoon to a large paper towel-lined dish.
While the first batch of kernels are frying, combine the sea salt, brown sugar, paprika, cumin, and garlic powder in a small bowl with a fork. With each drained batch, sprinkle generously with the spice mix, and once the batch is cool enough to handle, toss to coat.
Serve with drinks – preferably beer, less preferably drain cleaner.
Like many I fell into the seductive trap of HBO’s Sharp Objects (2018), the miniseries adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s 2006 novel. Created by Marti Noxon (who I would follow anywhere since Buffy) and directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, the series perfectly captures a small town underbelly, mommy issues, rollerskating, addiction, and murder mysteries, and Amy Adams’s performance as Camille is painful and exquisite.
However, it’s Patricia Clarkson’s Adora that inspried this dish. She’s an elegant and cruel Southern Gothic anti-goddess, sipping amaretto sours and crushing souls out on the veranda. Like Adora, this Calhoun Day pineapple upside-down cake is classic and old-fashioned. It’s marinated and swirled with lovely amaretto, and dotted with luscious maraschinos – “Mama, couldn’t you just take a bite out of her?” “Like a plump, juicy cherry.”
Amaretto Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
For the topping
1 cup amaretto
9 pineapple slices
4 ounces butter, melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
maraschino cherries
Marinate pineapple slices in amaretto for several hours, preferably overnight.
Prepare a 9×9 square pan, and spread the bottom with melted butter and brown sugar. Arrange pineapple slices evenly, with maraschinos in all the spaces. Reserve remaining amaretto/pineapple juice mixture.
For the cake
8 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup sugar
7 ounces almond paste
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Reserved amaretto/pineapple mixture, cooked and reduced to a thick syrup
Preheat oven to 350°
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Crumble in the almond paste (try to get it as fine as possible) and mix in well. Mix in eggs, and vanilla.
Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt, and add to the wet mixture with a spatula. Combine, being careful not to overmix. Gently spread the batter over the pineapples and cherries in the baking pan. Gently swirl in the amaretto/pineapple syrup (I don’t know if this made much of a difference but I was feeling like Adora and being a little extra).
Bake for 30 minutes, then cover with foil and bake 15 minutes more, until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean.
Cool slightly, loosen with a knife, and use a large plate or tray to invert. Cool a bit more before serving.
(I referenced several recipes that all look delicious, including this, this and this to come up with this almondy, boozy, and gorgeously caramelized mishmash).
Recipe for Fiction Kitchen Episode 65: Nightbooks & Sharp Objects in which Carrie and Diana discuss the JA White middle grade novel and the HBO miniseries. Spooky modern Sheherazade and midwest gothic folktale with pumpkin pie, oatmeal cookies, kousa mahshi, pineapple upside down cake, ham after ham, all washed down with vodka and amaretto sours.
#FFDahlicious is a month for tasty eats inspired by Roald Dahl hosted by Katarina @ Pretty Cake Machine. Check the hashtag or the link up for lots of Dahl-inspired dishes.
Violet Beauregarde, the gum-smacking, slang-slinging, disobedient daughter of a car salesman, is the second child to meet her demise in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, but not before enjoying a lovely three course meal in the form of gum.
Before she’s rolled away to be juiced, she enjoys tomato soup, roast beef with a baked potato, and then the cause of her downfall: blueberry pie.
Without Willy Wonka’s assistance, I was unable to create this gum exactly as it was described (probably a good thing), but I did create the meal that inspired it! This tomato soup was completely simple, yet fabulous thanks to the slow roasted tomatoes, it had become my go-to recipe. The roast beef was nicely cooked with a red wine gravy. And the blueberry pies were miniature with an almond crust, a sweet bite at the end of a lovely meal. Don’t feel bad for Violet, all in all it’s not a bad way to go.
Violet Beauregarde’s Three Course Dinner
Tomato Soup
2 pounds roma tomatoes, cut into thick slices
1 head garlic
1/2 an onion, sliced
olive oil, salt & pepper
5 cups chicken broth (homemade and flavorful if possible, I made mine from the bones of an Arabic style roast chicken)
cream to garnish
Heat oven to 350°. Toss tomatoes with a good amount of olive oil, salt and pepper, and spread in a single layer on a baking sheet (or two if you don’t have a very large one). In another baking dish, toss the onions with olive oil, salt and pepper. Cut the top off a head of garlic and wrap it in foil, drizzled with a little olive oil. Put everything in the oven.
Bake, flipping the tomatoes every half hour and stirring the onions once in awhile, until tomatoes are cooked and caramelizing and onion is golden (tomatoes will take about an hour and a half, onions probably only a half hour – check and make sure not to burn). Leave garlic in until roasted and soft, an hour to an hour and a half.
Puree tomatoes, onions, and garlic in a blender with a little chicken broth, then pour into a pot. Stir in the rest of the chicken broth, adjusting seasoning if necessary, and gently heat, slowly simmering for 15 minutes or so. Serve hot with a little cream for garnish.
Roast Beef
I shall direct you to Simply Recipes, whose detailed method I followed pretty much exactly, including making the red wine gravy.
(Mini) Blueberry Pie (with almond crust)
For the crust
2 cups almond flour
2 tablespoons butter
1 egg
good pinch salt
Blitz together almond flour and butter in a food processor, then blitz in egg and salt. Press into a prepared mini muffin tin and bake (before filling) at 350° for 8 minutes.
For the filling
I made this lightly sweetened, still very tart. You can increase the amount of honey to 1/2 cup if you’d like.
1 pint blueberries
1/4 cup honey
pinch salt
1 tablespoon cornstarch
In a small saucepan, heat half the blueberries with honey and salt. Mix cornstarch in 1/4 cup of water and add to the saucepan, stirring until blueberries are broken down and mixture is thick. Remove from heat, and stir remaining blueberries into the mixture.
Spoon into the crusts in the mini muffin tin and bake at 350° for 20 minutes. Cool in the muffin tin before removing.
Recipe for Fiction Kitchen Episode 21: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in which Carrie and Diana talk the book and movies, including awful and/or bland children, mint sugar grass production techniques, wistful buttercup sipping, questionable treatment of animals and small humans, a little chocolate and a lot of vegetables.
Edgar Allan Poe, an author synonymous with American gothic horror writing, and Vincent Price, an American horror actor with a velvet voice and looming stage presence, are a match made in hell. Working with filmmaker Roger Corman, Price starred in a number of Poe pieces adapted for the silver screen, and brought macabre classics such as House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), and The Raven (1963) to life.
Price wasn’t just an actor though; a true Renaissance man, he was an accomplished art collector and museum founder, as well as a fantastic cook and co-author of several cookbooks with his wife Mary Price. A Treasury of Great Recipes (1965) is probably the most well-known, but Mary and Vincent Price’s Come into the Kitchen Cook Book (1969) seemed like a good place to find a recipe worthy of Poe. It is organized by era with an enlightening historic intro to each, beginning in colonial America, spanning Antebellum years and westward expansion, and ending in “modern” recipes that are charmingly very 60s.
Poe was born January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts, so a classic regional recipe seemed like the perfect choice. For this New England Clam Chowder, I started with a combination of Price’s recipes for “Chowder” and “Stewed Cod,” and added potatoes to pad it out and celery to scandalize everyone in my house who claims they don’t like celery (but then gobbles up what I make with it anyway). Instead of the white wine that the recipes call for, I opted for sherry. But not just any sherry – amontillado – for that ominous Poe flourish.
New England Clam Chowder
1 pound clams, chopped, juice reserved
2 tablespoons butter
2 slices turkey bacon, chopped (if you use pork bacon, which is recommended but my kids don’t eat pork, you can omit butter)
1 onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 cup dry sherry (preferably amontillado) + 2 tablespoons to finish
3 cups vegetable broth
1 pound potatoes, peeled and diced
1/2 teaspoon thyme, roughly chopped
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup heavy cream
juice of half a lemon
chopped parsley, oyster crackers, and hot sauce for garnish
In a pot, heat butter on medium heat and cook bacon until brown and crispy. Add onion, celery, salt and white pepper and cook, stirring, until onion begins turning golden. Lower heat and add flour, and cook, stirring, for several minutes.
Turn heat up to high and add sherry, cooking and stirring until almost dry, then add vegetable broth, potatoes, thyme, bay leaves, and reserved clam juice. Bring to a boil then lower to a simmer and cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes until potatoes are very tender and able to be easily smashed against the side of the pot with a spoon. Smash a few but leave some for texture.
Stir in the heavy cream, lemon juice, and remaining 2 tablespoons sherry. Serve hot, with chopped parsley, oyster crackers and hot sauce.
It’s the Christmas season, and our days are merry and bright…but our nights are cold and dark, and there’s enough Christmas horror that the holiday can almost be a second Halloween. If you like a little creepy in your Christmas, here’s a festive and simple cocktail menu inspired by seasonal horror films. These recipes are enough for a small gathering but can easily be doubled to share with all your fiends and family.
First up, drinks! I have a special place in my little black heart for 1984’s Gremlins, as it was the first horror movie I ever saw as a child. The Christmastime creature-feature gave me nightmares, and it was years before I realized that it is actually very funny and not the most terrifying movie ever made. That’s not to say it’s not terrifying; imagine being attacked by manic murderous cackling gremlins in your own kitchen. If you remember that scene, you’ll know why this is a green drink made in a blender! It’s green tea and bourbon sweetened by a Chinese five spice simple syrup that evokes the Chinatown antique shop that little mogwai Gizmo came from and bonus, it smells like Christmas. Just don’t serve your guests after midnight.
Spiced Gremlin (Cocktail)
2 cups strong green tea
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder
1/2 cup bourbon
green food coloring
green maraschino cherries for garnish
Freeze the green tea in ice cube trays. To make the simple syrup (you’ll end up with extra, but you can use it for other cocktails or tea), heat sugar and water in a small sauce pan on medium high, not stirring, until the sugar is completely melted. Remove from heat and stir in the Chinese five spice powder. Cool completely.
Combine green tea, 1/4 cup of the spiced simple syrup, bourbon, and several drops of green food coloring. Blend and serve, garnished with green maraschino cherries.
Next up is a savory snack. 2015’s Krampus is the story of a dysfunctional family holiday gathering turned dark by the demon from European folklore, and though a fairly recent film, is already a modern Christmas horror classic. There are some great food scenes, whether a tracking shot through the kitchen of the German grandmother’s copious Christmas baking, or the epic gingerbread battle. This appetizer comes from the dinner – every black humor family film needs a dinner scene – that the mom, Sarah (Toni Collette) has prepared. If you’re a fancy fussy host like Sarah and would take comments like “It looks like Martha Stewart threw up in here” as a compliment, but don’t have a week to cure gravlax, then these smoked salmon toasts with lemon dill sour cream, pickled red onion, and crispy capers are perfect. If you’re less fussy, just go with macaroni and cheese and hotdogs.
Krampus Smoked Salmon Toasts
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
red wine vinegar
12 ounces pumpernickel bread, the little party size or else sliced into 2 inch squares
1/2 cup sour cream
zest of one lemon
4 sprigs dill, finely chopped
1 tablespoon capers
olive oil
4 ounces smoked salmon, sliced
Combine red onion and enough red wine vinegar to cover and set aside for at least an hour. Heat the oven to 350° and place bread slices in a single layer on baking sheets. Brush with olive oil and bake for 15 minutes until toasty. Cool. Stir together sour cream, lemon, and dill. In a small frying pan, heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil and fry capers until just turning golden, and drain on a paper towel.
Assemble the toasts: smear each square of pumpernickel with a spoonful of the sour cream mixture, top with a curled slice of smoked salmon, and garnish with a couple of slices of red onion and a sprinkle of crispy capers.
Finally we’re going sweeter, and a lot darker, with this treat inspired by the 1974 slasher Black Christmas. As one of the very first slasher films, it follows a deranged killer stalking a group of sorority girls, and is so creepy and unsettling that you’ll definitely need to stress-eat chocolate after viewing. So for that, we have these lovely truffles that are a bite-sized version of traditional English Christmas pudding. They are made from crumbled fruit cake, and are a little boozy, drizzled in dark chocolate and decorated with pretty green pistachios and dried cranberries.
Black Christmas Pudding Truffles
1 pound store-bought fruit cake
3 ounces dark chocolate chips, divided
2 tablespoons sherry, brandy, or rum
1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips, divided
chopped pistachios and dried cranberries for garnish
Break the fruit cake into pieces into a food processor, and pulse a few times. Microwave 1/2 cup of the dark chocolate chips in 30 second increments, stirring in between, until completely melted. Add to the food processor along with the sherry, brandy, or rum, and combine, but don’t over mix.
On a parchment-lined baking sheet, roll heaping teaspoons of the fruit cake mixture into balls. The mixture will be very sticky, so to make this easier, every few balls coat your hands in a thin layer of vegetable oil, and don’t worry too much about the shape at this point as you’ll be able to correct it later. Put the baking sheet in the fridge for 30 minutes to set.
Once set, you can roll the balls again to get them rounder. Heat the remaining cup of dark chocolate chips in 30 second increments, stirring, until melted. Put the melted chocolate in a piping bag or ziploc with the corner cut off, and pipe over the balls. Garnish with pistachios and cranberries.
In the same way folklore transforms over time, 2018’s Suspiria is a thorough retelling of the classic 1977 Dario Argento Giallo horror. Though both films tell the twisted fairy tale of a beautiful, talented and determined American ballerina coming to an elite, witch-inhabited dance school in Germany, the space between the plot points is distorted and the tone completely shifted. The original is drenched in a vibrant, almost garish color palette and an intense, powerful Goblin soundtrack, while the reimagining directed by Luca Guadagnino is soft and de-saturated with the dreamy, droney sounds of Thom Yorke. More in the Nightmare on Filmstreet review.
Much like the films, this dish is heavily inspired by Snow White. Indeed our heroine, Susie Bannion (played in 1977 by Jessica Harper and in 2018 by Dakota Johnson), is a modern Snow White, who wanders into an enchanted world and has to fight attempts on her life from a jealous crone. As the Grimm brother’s Snow White tale comes from Germany and Suspiria takes place in Berlin, I definitely wanted the dish to have a German leaning, so chose a mixture of vegetables to roast with sausage.
Color is so symbolic in both films, with the sweet ingenues often dressed in white, and red used in violent, jarring ways. The veggies used here are all white: darling little creamer potatoes, fennel, turnips and garlic. To accompany them I made a rich red wine reduction, also reminiscent of the wine Susie’s doctor gives her to drug her when she becomes too suspicious….it’s suspiciously delicious.
Snow White Roasted Vegetables and Sausage with Red Wine Reduction
For the veggies and sausage
1 1/2 pounds yellow creamer potatoes, halved or quartered
2 large bulbs fennel, trimmed and chopped into large chunks
2 medium turnips, peeled and chopped into large chunks
7 large cloves garlic, gently crushed and peeled
olive oil
2 sprigs rosemary, finely chopped
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 pound peppery or sweet German or Eastern European-style sausage (we made this vegetarian by using Polish-style soy sausages), thickly sliced
Heat oven to 425°. Divide potatoes, fennel, turnips and garlic into two large baking dishes. Drizzle with a generous amount of olive oil, sprinkle with salt and white pepper, toss with your hands and spread into a single even layer. Bake for 20 minutes, then stir/flip, making sure to scrape up any brown bits on the bottom of the dish, spread evenly again and bake for 20 minutes more.
Meanwhile, heat a little olive oil in a pan and brown the sausage in batches, removing to a plate. After the first 40 minutes of roasting, reduce oven heat to 350° and divide sausage between the dishes. Bake for another 20 minutes. Check the veggies at this point; they should be very soft, some gently caramelized, and the potatoes and turnips not mushy but easily pierced with a fork. Bake another 10-20 minutes until they reach desired doneness. Transfer to a serving dish.
For red wine reduction
2 tablespoons butter, divided
1 medium shallot, finely chopped
1 cup vegetable broth
1 cup red wine
In a saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon of the butter and cook shallot until golden. Add vegetable broth and red wine and stir. Bring to a low simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture has reduced to about a third of its volume. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining tablespoon butter.
To serve, spoon vegetables onto a plate and drizzle with the red wine reduction. Serve with warm, crusty bread.
This is a collaboration with Geeks Who Eat. Check out all their geeky recipes, including many inspired by horror!
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, based on the 2014 Archie Comics series of the same name, is coming to Netflix in just a few days and it looks positively spooktacular! It’s a darker, scarier Sabrina the Teenage Witch, but also seems to be keeping a lot of the same humor. Kiernan Shipka (who I adored in Mad Men) seems like the perfect pick for Sabrina Spellman, the half-witch half-mortal who has some choices to make on her sixteenth birthday, and I’m excited for Miranda Otto and Lucy Davis as Aunts Zelda and Hilda as well. It’s set in the 60s and has a very cool retro vibe (look at those dresses!), and takes place in the fictional town of Greendale, “where it always feels like Halloween.”
Zoeya is pretty damn witchy.
So here’s something chilling…Halloween Birthday Cake Milkshakes! The undercurrent of the show is pure soda shop, so a milkshake version of her birthday cake seemed fitting. But not just any birthday cake – this one is pumpkin spiced up so feels like Halloween. Now just imagine Sabrina and Harvey sipping one milkshake through two straws.
Side note, I snobbishly thought I’d never buy a box cake mix ever again, but something this retro, fun and kitschy screams for it.
Halloween Birthday Cake Milkshakes
2 cups ice cream
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup yellow cake mix
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Hot fudge and Halloween sprinkles
Combine ice cream, pumpkin puree, milk, cake mix, cinnamon and nutmeg in a blender. Drizzle hot fudge down the sides of two glasses (5 points for a nice pentagram), pour milkshakes and top with Halloween sprinkles.
‘Tis the season! We’ve decked the halls with cobwebs and pumpkins, and are so ready for the final confrontation between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers in 2018’s Halloween, directed by David Gordon Green.
John Carpenter’s original Halloween film (1978), is iconic. We get the fearsome, stalky villain that launched a thousand slashers, the original Scream Queen, goddess Jamie Lee Curtis, and the spooky synth soundtrack that became a genuine classic. The film is almost beyond reproach. Almost.
The one problem…it doesn’t feel like Halloween at all! The houses are barely decorated, and a few half-hearted trick-or-treaters do not a proper Halloween make. Most of the lack of seasonal feel comes from the fact that though it’s set in the Midwest in October, it was filmed in Southern California in May. The film crew struggled to find pumpkins, used artificial fall leaves on streets lined with fully green trees, and every once in a while you even get a glimpse of a palm.
Here’s hoping the new film is every bit as scary and trope-y as the first, but pumped up with pumpkin spice! To honor the original, we’re making a pumpkin pie – the official pie of Illinois (which also happens to include our fictional town of Haddonfield) – marbled with California citrus. And not just any citrus: Myers, I mean Meyer, lemons. Meyer lemons are sweeter and less sharp than your basic lemons, but they aren’t quite in season – so if you have trouble finding them, using a mixture of lemon and orange works as well. The pie has a very snappy gingersnap crust, which is unfussy and compliments the filling well. There’s also a ribbon of pomegranate molasses flowing through, a quite autumnal ingredient with a gorgeous color that I never miss a chance to use. It works particularly well here to evoke blood. Slice with a BIG SHARP KNIFE and serve!
Myers Lemon Pumpkin Pie
For the crust
9 ounces gingersnap cookies
3 tablespoons butter, melted
Heat oven to 350°. In a food processor, blitz the cookies to crumbs, then add melted butter and pulse several times to combine. Press into a greased 9 inch glass pie plate, using the heel of your hand to flatten and gently spread it up the sides of the plate, and toast in the oven for 10 minutes until golden. Cool slightly before filling.
For the pumpkin mixture
1 15 ounce can pumpkin puree
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick butter, melted
3 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup flour
Using a hand mixer or whisk, blend together pumpkin puree, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, butter, eggs, vanilla, and heavy cream. Sift flour into the mixture and blend until combined.
For the citrus cream cheese
6 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 teaspoons Meyer lemon zest (or a combination of lemon and orange zest)
2 teaspoons Meyer lemon juice (or a combination of lemon and orange juice)
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons heavy cream
Using a hand mixture, blend all ingredients.
To assemble
2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses (you can purchase this at a Middle Eastern grocer, or make it yourself by boiling down pomegranate juice to about a third of its volume and cooling)
Pour pumpkin mixture into pie crust. Spoon cream cheese mixture over top and use a knife to marble it into the mixture. Drizzle pomegranate molasses on top and give it a last swirl with the knife before putting in the oven, at 350° for 50 minutes until just set.
Allow to cool at least 3 hours and even better, overnight, before serving.
