Witchy Kitchen

Tag: spooky

  • Zubat Blackberry BBQ Wings

    Zubat Blackberry BBQ Wings

    While I just missed the Pokemon craze when I was younger (#old, although the kids I babysat were into it), I’ve definitely gotten caught up in the cultural phenomena that is Pokemon Go. It’s been so fun to play with my kids – even though their aim sucks and they waste all my pokeballs! – and I fight my army of Vaporeons at the public library gym. Mostly I’ve enjoyed going on peaceful walks at night, catching dem Pidgeys and listening to Last Podcast on the Left or my The 1975 Spotify station. I had kind of a rough early part to the year, but somehow this weird little routine really contributed to clearing my mind and lifting my mood.

    zubat

    Zubat inspired this recipe; I love that creepy flappy fangy little guy! Catherine at The Gluttonous Geek joked that she was the only one so far twisted enough to make a play on actually cooking the little creatures. I laughed to myself because oh yeah, I’m going there too! These BBQ wings have the wing and drumette intact to look battier, and the Asian-inspired blackberry BBQ sauce is both sweet and spicy and zubat-tinged purple. With a garlicky buttermilk dipping sauce, they turned into a dish we could really sink our teeth into.

    🎵 I wanna be the spookiest
    Flap around, drink some blood and train,
    Sunlight is my real test
    But at night, feel my Poison Fang! 🎵

    Zubat Wings

    • 3 pounds chicken wings (wings and drumettes intact (you could of course do them split apart, just slightly lessen the cooking time)<br />)
    • salt & pepper
    • 2 cups blackberries
    • 1 cup chicken broth
    • 2 inches ginger (grated)
    • 1 cup ketchup
    • 1/4 cup honey
    • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
    • 2 cloves garlic (grated)
    • fresh ground black pepper (about a teaspoon)
    • 1-2 tablespoons srirach ((I left this out until I had dipped half the wings in order to make not-spicy wings for the kids))

    1. Preheat oven to 400°. Position a rack over a baking sheet and spray or rub with oil. Wash, dry, and season the wings liberally with salt and pepper, and arrange in a single layer on the baking sheet. Bake for 40 minutes or so, flipping once, until cooked through and golden.

    2. Meanwhile, prepare the bbq sauce. In a saucepan, bring chicken broth, blackberries, ginger and a sprinkle of salt to a boil, and simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring/smashing occasionally, until blackberries are completely broken down.

    3. While the blackberries are simmering, in a mixing bowl whisk together ketchup, honey, soy sauce, garlic, pepper, and sriracha (if you are doing a split batch like I did, wait until after you dip half the wings to add the sriracha). Strain the blackberry mixture through a mesh strainer into the ketchup mixture, pressing to get most of the liquid out, whisk everything together and return to the sauce pan. Simmer another 15-20 minutes until thick.

    4. When the wings are cooked, dip each in the bbq sauce and return to the rack, brushing a little more over the top. You can reserve the leftover sauce for another purpose. Bake another 5 minutes or so, then let cool slightly, garnish with green onions, and serve with garlicky buttermilk dipping sauce (below).

    Garlicky Buttermilk Dipping Sauce

    • 1/2 cup buttermilk
    • 1/2 cup sour cream
    • 1 clove garlic (grated)
    • coarse salt to taste (about 1/2 a teaspoon)

    1. Whisk together all ingredients and serve!

    More batty BBQ recipes:

    Originally posted for #PokeNOM month! Catherine at The Gluttonous Geek hosted this theme for Fandom Foodies. Her awesome pick sparked so many creative and delicious-looking recipes! Head over to the linkup, or look for #PokeNOM on social media to check them out – gotta eat ’em all!

    Update, June 2019 The Cupcakedex is hosting #PokeNoms to celebrate Detective Pikachu!

  • Upside Down Eggos

    Upside Down Eggos

    Like most everyone else, I got completely swept up in Netflix’s Stranger Things – spooky shit painted with a layer of nostalgia? Yes please. I love the look and feel of the show, and on the homage vs. ripping-off debate, I am firmly in the former camp. The show stands on its own without all the references, but picking out the elements taken and remixed from all the 80s movies we loved is super fun! (Especially ET, one of my favorites as a kid, and The Thing which I saw for the first time just a few weeks ago). And yesssss, hit me with that sweet synth soundtrack.

    (Don’t worry, this will be spoiler free, either just general thoughts on the show, or just plot points from the first episode.)

    Winona Ryder as the frazzled single mother desperately trying to find her kid is fantastic, but my favorite performance is little Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven. Child actors are usually not great, but she beautifully conveys the fragile fear of a child, the strength of having strange powers, and the sweetness of making a new friend, all with limited dialog. She also loves Eggo waffles, which is both funny and sad as this mundane pleasure means so much to her after a life of being hooked up to wires and floating in isolation tanks.

    alb-eleven

    I love this beautiful watercolor by ALB

    Another thing I love about the show is the look of the Upside Down – the world that is a shadow of ours – darker, colder, scarier. The design is simple, but effective; it’s very dark, with these spooky snowflake particles swimming through the air, and everything is coated with this seaweedy, fungal slimy mesh.

    When brainstorming something to make, I thought about how Eleven’s beloved Eggos would appear in the Upside Down. Darker of course (these waffles are chocolate maple), and layered with my amateur attempt at maple spun sugar – it’s not the beautiful wisps of a professional, I purposely let it get lumpy and veiny and more Demagorgony!

    Upside Down Eggos

    For the waffles
    Adapted from Maple Chocolate Cake on Epicurious

    • 3/4 cup cake flour (all purpose flour is fine)
    • 5 tablespoons cocoa powder
    • 3/4 teaspoons baking soda
    • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
    • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
    • 1/2 pure maple syrup
    • 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
    • 1 egg
    • 1/2 cup canola oil
    • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    • 2 tablespoons melted butter
    • upside down spun sugar mesh (see below)
    • sweetened coconut flakes for garnish

    Heat waffle iron (if you don’t have a waffle iron, you can easily make these as pancakes).

    In one mixing bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and sea salt. In another, whisk together maple syrup, Greek yogurt, egg, canola oil, and vanilla extract. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until combined.

    Cook according to waffle iron instructions, and brush the tops with melted butter.

    For the gnarly spun sugar mesh
    Adapted from Food Network

    • 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
    • 1/4 cup maple syrup
    • 1/4 cup water

    Spread a sheet of baking parchment on the counter, and have a mixing bowl half filled with water and a fork handy.

    In a saucepan on medium high heat, heat the mixture, swirling only and not stirring (mine did get a little grainy as you can see in the picture, although it started off nice and clear), until it is 300° on a candy thermometer.

    Cool the saucepan by dipping it in the water bath until the mixture is 275° Dip the fork tines in the mixture, and quickly wave it back and forth (both vertically and horizontally) over the wax paper. Let it get a little lumpy to look more Upside Down-like. When it cools, gently lift from the paper (I used a metal spatula) and gently place pieces over your waffles.

    You can sprinkle a few coconut flakes for that artifact effect.

  • Frankenweenies

    Frankenweenies

    Frankenweenie is one of those spooky Tim Burton stop motion animation features that I adore. The story is simple and sweet, a young Victor Frankenstein who uses Science! to bring his beloved dog Sparky back from an untimely end. It’s stylishly black and white, and draws heavily from vintage monster movies.

    It takes place in the charming town of New Holland, where each of the school children are hilariously creepy in their own way – my favorite is the weird blond girl who has a pretty Victorian bedroom and makes divinations from her cat’s litter box (“you’ll dream of me one day, won’t you kitty??”)

    There’s a good bit of food in the movie, including Mr. Frankenstein using fondue to make a point about compromise – aka no one getting what they want – and Mrs. Frankenstein has a classic housewife thing going and spends a lot of time in the kitchen making waffles and cookies and other homey foods. There’s even an actual recipe from a cookbook for Double Dutch Cherry Cupcakes (the town’s Dutch Day Festival is a fall carnival) which of course I’ll try at some point. There’s some good carnival food too that proves useful – salty popcorn is surprisingly effective for defeating reanimated sea monkeys.

    What made me really fall in love with it was the ending. (Beware, spoilers for Frankenweenie). Whereas I thought it was going to be a bland story of dealing with loss, instead the message is about using all your power to hold on to what you love. Maybe not the healthier of the two messages? But definitely the more interesting.

    For this recipe I cobbled together a few ingredients, electrified it with some savory seasonings, and served it up hotdog style – it’s aliiiive!

    Frankenweenies

    • 1 pound ground beef
    • 1 pound ground chicken
    • 2 slices bread
    • 2 tablespoons melted butter
    • 4 cloves garlic, grated
    • 1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and finely chopped
    • good palmful sage, finely chopped
    • 2 teaspoons salt (and an extra pinch)
    • fresh cracked pepper
    • oil for frying

    Blitz the bread into soft crumbs in a food processor. In a large bowl, combine breadcrumbs, melted butter, garlic, apple, sage, salt and pepper. Add beef and chicken and mix well.

    In a frying pan, heat a small amount of oil. Shape the meat mixture into long sausage shapes and fry in batches, rolling to brown on all sides, adding more oil as necessary. Drain on a paper towel.

    Serve on potato hotdog buns with lots of dijon mustard!

    I’ve been listening to a lot of Bloody Good Horror podcasts lately; they did NOT like this movie. It’s worth a listen though, because what they say about it is not wrong – they dislike the super dry humor, the too dark imagery, and the muddied end message. I liked it for all the reasons they didn’t; at one point they ask, “who is this movie for??” to which I answer “for me!” It’s not going to be everyone’s dog biscuit, but it hits all the quadrants (spooky, stylish, quirky and sweet) of the things I love.