Witchy Kitchen

Tag: horror

  • Pomegranate and Orange Sangria

    Pomegranate and Orange Sangria

    I watched Gaspar Noe’s 2018 psychological horror Climax alone in the dark, and while I loved it, declared that I never need to see it again. The raw intensity was just too much, and (small spoiler), anything involving harm to children I find extremely hard to watch. However, it stuck with me, and the following week I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and so ended up showing it to my husband so I could discuss all the feelings I had bubbling up, and maybe also lighten the torment.

    The film is light on plot but heavy on style and the complexities of relationships and trust. It takes place in the mid 90s and focuses on a newly formed troupe of French dancers from diverse backgrounds about to embark on a tour to America. Their bon voyage party turns frightening as they are unwittingly drugged with LSD-laced sangria, and their confusion and mistrust create horrific consequences. And we feel every bit of it, winding through a terrifying wonderland of rooms in an empty school, bright lights and writhing bodies.

    There is an extended dance sequence at the beginning which is nothing short of exuberant, and is heartbreaking to reflect upon considering the events that happen afterwards. The actors are for the most part dancers with little film experience, so their performances have a natural feel that is sometimes lost in seasoned actors. While the film is minimally scripted, the dance is well planned and there is a good bit of foreshadowing in it, I noticed. I mean, while the movie is difficult to watch, the dance is delightful and I’ve revisited countless times; I watch it whenever I’m having a bad day.

    So of course it goes without saying, the recipe for this film was definitely going to be a sangria. But like the dancers, sangria comes in countless versions and flavors and feels, from delicate and sparkling to dark and deep. So I took inspiration from Selva, the troupe’s choreographer. While it is definitely an ensemble film, she emerges quickly as the protagonist, in her yellow dress (everyone else is dressed in blacks and reds), and it’s her tumultuous journey we are mostly along for over the course of the night.

    The actress who plays her, Sofia Boutella, is one of the few actors with prior acting experience, and she is particularly mesmerizing in this role. She comes from an Algerian background, so that’s what I chose as this sangria’s flavor profile. I use pomegranate juice whenever I get the chance, but there’s also apricot and orange and some delicate cinnamon and cardamom.

    The whole thing is lightened up with a sparkling orange drink. I wanted to find Orangina, the French-Algerian classic, which we sold at the upscale deli where I had my first job. It’s harder to find nowadays, at least where I live – you can order it on Amazon but apparently in March they started to distribute it more widely here North America so maybe it will be popping up soon. But this isn’t fussy, sangria is really more of an art than a science, so you can use any brand (I used San Pellegrino blood orange flavor).

    Sparkling Orange and Pomegranate Sangria

    • 8 ounces pomegranate juice
    • 1 cinnamon stick
    • 2 cardamom pods
    • 3 tablespoons sugar
    • 1 bottle mid-bodied inexpensive red wine
    • 1/2 cup apricot brandy
    • 1 orange, sliced
    • 1/2 a pomegranate’s seeds
    • Sparkling orange juice to top

    Ideally start this the day before you plan to serve so the flavors have a chance to marry.

    In a small sauce pan, bring pomegranate juice, cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, and sugar to a simmer. Simmer until pomegranate juice is reduced by about half. Remove from heat and cool completely.

    Strain into a pitcher, and mix with red wine, apricot brandy, orange slices and pomegranate seeds. Chill thoroughly, ideally overnight. Serve over ice, topped with sparkling orange juice and garnished with more orange slices and pomegranate seeds.

    First published on Nightmare on Film Street.

  • Amity Island Shrimp Boats

    Amity Island Shrimp Boats

    This year marks the 45th anniversary of Jaws, the sharky summer blockbuster that terrified would-be beachgoers in theaters in 1975. Based on the novel by Peter Benchley and directed by Stephen Spielberg (who was only 27 at the time!), the film with its iconic soundtrack and clever editing became an instant classic.

    There’s been some biting comparisons drawn between the plot of Jaws and this particular Pandemic Summer. Much like police chief Martin Brody does of mayor Larry Vaughn, we question the wisdom of opening the beach. However, if you’re avoiding the beach from either fear of sickness or shark attack, you can still eat like you’re there! Here’s a summery seafood dish, the type you’d be served at a beachfront cafe, ready to be devoured.

    While Jaws takes place in the fictional town of Amity Island, New York, the movie was filmed in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The summer colony provided just the atmosphere they were looking for – a charming vacation town whose tourist industry could be believably destroyed by a shark.

    Martha’s Vineyard is also known for its food, including fresh seafood dishes and even a signature salad. Shrimp and lobster rolls are popular in New England so were the inspiration for this recipe. While those are served on hot dog style buns, this is tweaked for the movie and served, of course, in a bread boat. The bread boats are filled with a lovely shrimp salad. It’s a classic New England style shrimp salad but the seasoning combination of sherry, lemon and tarragon make it extra elegant.

    The recipe serves 4, but can easily be doubled. After all, if you’re really hungry, you’re going to need a bigger boat.

    Amity Island Shrimp Boats

    • 1 pound shrimp, peeled
    • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
    • 1 tablespoon sherry
    • ½ cup celery, finely diced
    • 2 tablespoons shallot, finely diced
    • Zest of one lemon
    • 1 teaspoon dried tarragon
    • 2 heaping tablespoons mayonnaise
    • Olive oil
    • Two baby baguettes hollowed out (you could also do a French loaf. Save the bread scraps for bread crumbs)
    • Melted butter for brushing
    • Spinach leaves

    Marinate the shrimp in lemon juice and sherry. Let sit in the fridge for at least half an hour. In a large bowl, combine celery, shallot, tarragon, lemon zest and mayonnaise. Set aside. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan on medium and cook shrimp with marinade, stirring and flipping, until pink, about 2-3 minutes. Cook thoroughly but be careful not to overcook, shrimp easily gets rubbery! Remove to a clean bowl and allow to cool. With a slotted spoon, fold shrimp into to the mayonnaise mixture. Add a teaspoon or two of the leftover cooked marinade liquid for flavor, and to thin the mayonnaise mixture a little so that it lightly coats the shrimp.

    Heat oven to 400°. Brush baguette boats with melted butter and toast in the oven until golden. Allow to cool slightly. Line the inside with spinach leaves and scoop full of the shrimp salad. Slice in halves or thirds to serve.


  • Swedish Smorgasbord

    Swedish Smorgasbord

    Midsommar, director Ari Aster’s sophomore film, is a sun-washed nightmare. Dani (with a beautiful and raw performance by Florence Pugh), travels with her boyfriend and friends to an idyllic village in Sweden for their midsummer festival. What follows is a smorgasbord of pagan ritual, grief and repressed emotion topped with a flower crown.

    I was delighted with the multiple food scenes, starting with a trippy mushroom tea that as you can imagine flavors the experience. Later, the women of the village prepare meat pies with some…let’s say special ingredients. A giant flopping herring is offered to Dani the newly crowned May Queen as part of a village ritual. In fact, all the dining scenes are themselves a ritual, with traditions and spells and an eerie cascade of cutlery.

    To celebrate Midsommar, I put together a typical Swedish smorgasbord, with fish, including pickled herring of course, and pastry-wrapped sausage rolls inspired by the meat pies. There are pickled onions and cucumbers, and dilled mustard sauce that goes well with both the fish and the sausage rolls.

    For the sausage rolls
    1 pound sausage (I used Tofurkey kielbasa because we have vegetarians in our house, but this is pretty basic so any will do)
    2 sheets (1 package) puff pastry, thawed
    1 egg

    Heat oven to 400. Pan fry the sausage until done. Cut each puff pastry sheet in half and wrap a sausage in each, sealing with water and placing on a baking sheet seam side down. Beat egg with a tablespoon water and brush over the rolls. Bake for 20 minutes, cool slightly and slice.

    For the mustard sauce
    1/4 cup dijon mustard
    2 teaspoons salt
    2 tablespoons sugar
    2 tablespoons chopped dill
    2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
    2 tablespoon oil

    Whisk together.

    For the pickles
    1 cup apple cider vinegar
    1 tablespoon salt
    1 tablespoon sugar
    1 small red onion, thinly sliced
    1 small cucumber, thinly sliced

    Whisk together apple cider vinegar, salt and sugar. In separate bowls, pour half over onion and half over cucumber. Toss well and let sit at least an hour, ideally overnight in the fridge.

    To serve
    smoked salmon
    pickled herring
    capers
    cream cheese
    sliced pumpernickel

    Arrange on a board and enjoy a festive snacky meal with friends, family, or your favorite pagan cult.

    First published on Nightmare on Film Street.

  • Pozole Verde

    Pozole Verde

    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)
    • 1 pound shrimp
    • 2 tablespoons oil
    • 1 onion, diced
    • 3 cloves garlic, grated
    • 1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
    • 1/2 teaspoon coriander powder
    • 1 teaspoon salt
    • 1 25 ounce can hominy, rinsed
    • 10 ounces chopped spinach
      3 strands fresh oregano, roughly chopped

    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.

    First published on Nightmare on Film Street.

  • Celebrate Edgar Allan Poe’s Birthday with a New England Clam Chowder Adapted from Vincent Price

    Celebrate Edgar Allan Poe’s Birthday with a New England Clam Chowder Adapted from Vincent Price

    This post originally appeared on Nightmare on Film Street.

    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.

    Check out previous horror confections from Witchy Kitchen here on Nightmare on Film Street, like Michael Myer’s Pumpkin Pie, Slender Man Creepypasta, and more!

  • A Horror Cocktail Menu for the Creepiest Christmas Party

    A Horror Cocktail Menu for the Creepiest Christmas Party

    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.

    Merry Christmas!

    First published on Nightmare on Film Street.

  • Walnut Brownie Altar Cakes

    Walnut Brownie Altar Cakes

    2018 supernatural horror film Hereditary, directed by Ari Aster and featuring Toni Collette, Milly Shapiro and Alex Wolfe, began by lulling me into the typical horror formula (I’ve seen a few ghost movies, ok?) and then took a gut-wrenching turn that shocked me to tears and left my body a twisted lump of tension for the rest of the film. The haunting performances, droning soundscape, unsettling dollhouse motif, and masterful building of absolute dread, all wrapped up in an uncomfortable family drama, is far and away the most horrific thing I’ve seen this year.

    Very light spoilers ahead…this recipe is tied into the plot of course but I won’t say too much…

    For most of this ghastly torture of a movie I was thinking there was no way I could do something as frivolous as a recipe, but then the third act turns so wacky and has an such an interesting thread of mythology that I was back in. The 13-year-old daughter Charlie, has a love of chocolate and a well-established nut allergy, so of course I wanted to include those in my recipe. It was the demon king Paimon though that inspired me to make these as altar cakes, smeared with ganache, a dark offering to his hellish excellency. His intricate sigil appears over and over in the film, so these are so marked with walnut buttercream. Hail Paimon! (Please accept these and stay away).

    Walnut Brownie Altar Cakes

    For the brownie cakes:
    Adapted from Taste of Home

    • 12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
    • 1 cup butter (2 sticks)
    • 1 1/3 cups sugar
    • 4 eggs
    • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
    • 1 cup flour
    • 1 cup chopped walnuts

    Heat oven to 350°

    Melt the chocolate chips and butter together in the microwave, stir until smooth and allow to cool. Meanwhile, beat together sugar and eggs and stir in vanilla and the chocolate mixture. Mix in flour until just combined and stir in walnuts.

    Pour into lined muffin cups and bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool, remove from liners, trim the tops flat if necessary and flip upside down to decorate.

    For the ganache

    • 1/2 cup heavy cream
    • 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

    Bring heavy cream to a boil and pour over chocolate chips, stir until smooth. Cool to room temp. Smear over tops of the cakes.

    For the walnut buttercream

    • 1 cup powdered sugar
    • 1/2 stick softened butter
    • 1 ounce walnuts
    • 1+ teaspoon milk

    Combine well all ingredients in a food processor. Transfer to a piping bag and scribble hell king sigils on your altar cakes. Offer and wait.

    Recipe for Fiction Kitchen Episode 60: VOLTRON & HEREDITARY in which Diana and Carrie discuss discuss robots in space and terrifying family dramas! Food goo, garlic knots, cake roll pops, Checkov’s walnut allergy and uncomfortable family dinners.

  • Eclipse Pizza

    Eclipse Pizza

    Who should I summon with my pizza?

    It’s finally here!! It’s #Witchtober, hosted by Fiction Food Café. THAT’S RIGHT WITCHES!! Check out the tag for Witchy recipes from fiction all month long.

    The House of the Devil (2009), written and directed by Ti West, is a bit of a haunted house movie, a bit of a slasher, and a bit of witchy movie rolled in to one. What’s otherwise a basic tropey horror movie gets elevated by it’s full 80s style. From the titles to the soundtrack to the camerawork to the feathered hair and Satanic Panic, this movie feels like the cover of a VC Andrews novel and I loved it.

    An eclipse features heavily in the film, being both the occasion for the final ritual as well as inspiration for the special of the day in the pizza parlor that our final girl Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) and her friend Megan (Greta Gerwig) have lunch. “Eclipse Pie” is detailed on the chalkboard: white sauce, garlic, tomato, olives and feta. I put together such a pie using a few techniques I’ve collected over the years: those for New York pizza dough, white sauce, and deliciously slow-roasted romas that I make all the time and use for everything (you know, salads, pastas, drawing pentagrams). And voila: pizza fit for a demon.

    Eclipse Pizza

    For the white sauce
    From Serious Eats

    • 2 tablespoons olive oil
    • 1 small onion
    • 2 cloves garlic
    • 1/4 cup heavy cream
    • 2 sprigs thyme, chopped
    • salt & pepper

    Heat olive oil. In a food processor, blitz together onion and garlic (alternately you can finely chop both), and cook until softened and most of the moisture has evaporated, being careful not to brown. Add heavy cream and thyme and a pinch of salt & pepper, and cook for a few minutes until reduced and thick. Remove from heat.

    For the tomatoes (slices or sauce)

    • 2 pounds roma tomatoes, trimmed and medium sliced lengthwise
    • 4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
    • olive oil
    • salt & pepper

    Heat oven to 300°. Toss tomatoes and garlic with generous olive oil, salt and pepper, and spread in a single layer in a couple roasting pans or a couple baking sheets. Cook for 1 1/2 hours. They can be used as is, OR if you want to make a sauce for drawing symbols and such, transfer to a food processor and blend with just enough water to get a thick but squirtable consistency. Transfer to a squirt bottle.

    For the pie

    • One New York-style pizza dough (recipe from Serious Eats)
    • white sauce & tomatoes (above)
    • 4 ounces ricotta
    • 4 ounces mozzarella
    • salt & pepper
    • palmful kalamata olives, sliced
    • palmful basil, small chop
    • palmful feta

    Heat oven to 500°

    Grease a pizza peel, stone, or baking sheet, and gently stretch the dough to a 14 inch round. Top with white sauce.

    Mix ricotta and mozzarella, season with salt and pepper, and spread over the pizza. Add olives, basil, feta, and either the whole tomatoes or draw a pentagram (or heart or happy face, whatever).

    Cook for about 15 minutes (start checking at 12) until golden and bubbly. Allow to cool slightly, slice and serve.

    Bonus: Samantha bopping around the spooky house like an 80s music video!