Cooking With The Boys Again

I have been teaching cooking lessons with Noah every Friday and with his younger brothers, Micah and Asher, every other Friday for the month of October. So far, we have all been having a lot of fun, learning all kinds of new recipes.

Because it is Halloween season, I thought we would do some fun Halloween recipes. Micah and Asher each made a “Creepy Cookie Pie”. Micah made a muddy pie and Asher called his a tombstone pie. They also made some pumpkin spice white chocolate pretzels that they dubbed ghosts and spiders. Their little cousin Cayden joined in to help as well.

Pumpkin Spiced Dipped Pretzels

8 oz your choice of pretzel shapes

24 oz white chocolate

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

2 drops orange food coloring

fun colored sprinkles

Melt the chocolate either in the microwave r on the stove top until it is liquid and creamy. Add the pumpkin spice seasoning and food coloring if using and combine together thoroughly. We did not use any food coloring this time.

Dip 3/4 of the pretzels into the chocolate mixture and shake off all the excess chocolate. Place the pretzels on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Let set for about 30 seconds to a minute before drizzling more of the chocolate over the pretzels. Then sprinkle with your favorite fun colored sprinkles. You can do the same with either milk or dark chocolate as well, or better yet, mix and match your chocolates.

Creepy Cookie Pies

1 1/2 cups any flavor of Oreos or sandwich cookies you like + plus more for decorating

1 8-oz package of either cream cheese or Mascarpone cheese

1/2 cup sugar

1 8-oz container of Cool Whip or whipped cream equivalent

1 tsp vanilla

1 9 inch pre-made pie crust, chocolate if you can find it

cocoa powder

Cook the pie crust according to the package directions. Let cool completely before filling.

Combine the Cool Whip, vanilla, sugar, and cream cheese and beat with a mixer until creamy.

Crush the cookies, leaving some bigger chunks, then fold into the Cool Whip mixture. Spoon the mixture into the cooked pie shells and spread evenly.

Cover the top of the pie with the cocoa powder by shaking it through a sifter.

Stand the whole cookies into the “mud” and refrigerate the pie for at least 4-5 hours before serving. You want everything to set.

We were to busy making up some fun Halloween treats, so I did not get a lot of pictures, though I did take a few. Here are the boys with their pies. The boys loved making these. Not only was I working on their reading and math skills by having them read the directions and learning how to measure things, but they got to be boys and “destroy” the cookies by smashing them into pieces. I think they liked that part a lot. What they were not so happy about though was that they had to wait for about 4-5 hours before they could sample their creations.

Once Micah and Asher were done, I went to work with Noah. Again, it was Halloween, so he got to make some fun things too. He made dipped pretzels like his younger brothers did, but he made them with melted chocolate and peanut butter.

Noah also made some chocolate peanut butter apple nachos.

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Apple Nachos

4 apples, sliced thin

1 cup peanut butter, melted

1 cup chocolate chips melted

1 cup mini peanut butter cups cut into pieces

1 cup M&M’s or Reese’s pieces

Arrange the apple slices on a platter and drizzle 1/2 of both the melted chocolate and peanut butter over the apples.

Add the peanut butter cup pieces and the Reese’s pieces and distribute over the apples.

Drizzle the remaining chocolate and peanut butter over the top.

These have apples, so they at least have SOME nutritional value, but I would not say they were healthy by any means of the imagination. They are fun and tasty though. Noah said these are now his new favorite Halloween dessert.

You can also use pears as well as or instead of apples too.

the boys are busy taste testing. I think these recipes all got their stamps of approval. :

Happy Halloween Everyone. Don’t let the ghosts or goblins get you. ‘Til next time.