Boo at the Zoo

We did not do any door-to-door trick-or-treating this year, but we did go to Boo at the Zoo at the Santa Fe Community College Teaching Zoo.



Everybody else in town seemed to be there too.




The path through the zoo was decorated from beginning to end, with various themed areas. The first area, once inside the zoo, was based on the Brothers Grimm.

































One of the things that I saw throughout the zoo, that I thought was very clever, were these lanterns, which are simply made by painting black paint on Gatorade bottles.





This should last awhile:

With so many Halloween activities this past week, we didn't need to do neighborhood trick-or-treating for Blaze to end up with a mountain of sweets. He's been very generous with his candy, though, letting DH and I choose a piece, every time he gets to have one.

Spaghetti and Eyeballs

I honor of the fact that we went to see the movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs last night (which I highly recommend), our pre-trick-or-treating meal today is Spaghetti and Eyeballs.





Eyeballs


Meatballs:

1 pound of ground beef

1/2 cup of Italian seasoned breadcrumbs

1/4 cup milk

1 small onion finely chopped

1 egg

1 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Combine all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl, first using a spoon to stir and then kneeing by hand until everything is well mixed. Roll the meat mixture into balls and pan fry in 2 or 3 Tablespoons of vegetable oil until they are uniformly brown.


Cheese Sauce for the "whites of the eyes"

2 Tablespoons of butter

3 Tablespoons of unbleached all-purpose flour

1 Cup milk

1 Cup grated Mozzarella cheese

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon salt


In a small sauce pan, melt the butter. Add the flour and stir until a paste is formed. Add milk and stir over medium heat until it thickens. Stir in cheese, garlic powder, and salt. Stir until cheese is completely melted. Remove from heat



Place the cooked meatballs on a plate and pour cheese sauce over each one (do not dip the meatballs into the cheese sauce because it will "dirty"the white sauce). Use an olive slice for the pupil of each eye. A tooth pick dipped into the spaghetti sauce can be used to make the eyes look bloodshot.

Let the meatballs rest on the plate while you prepare the spaghetti.
Use a pancake-turner to move the finished meatballs.

Halloween Happenings

There is no school tomorrow, so today was the day when kids wore their Halloween costumes to school. Here are a few of the better ones from the Middle School and High School:

The King of Florida


The stilts were great. You should have seen him playing ping pong in that costume!







This evening the Sororities hosted Ghouls, Goblins, and Greeks, which is their Halloween event for children. They do a fantastic job every year! Each house chooses a theme and decorate their lawn, set up game stations, and dress to go with that theme.

They were holding this even tonight instead of on Halloween because there is a big football game in Jacksonville on Saturday ( U.F. plays Georgia).













This is probably the closest we'll get to seeing snow this year.








The sorority girls are always very generous with the candy they pass out as prizes. There was also free pizza and several places handing out cups of water. This was the first year that I've seen water given out,but today was extremely hot. At lunch time today it was 93 degrees. Blaze's hat is made of two layers of wool felt, so by the time we sat down under a tree to eat pizza, I think he was melting.

Bread of the Dead

Making Pan de Muerto, "bread of the dead", has been a Halloween tradition for my family for 4 or 5 years now.

Ingredients


1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup butter

5-6 cups flour

2 Tablespoons dry yeast

1 Tablespoon whole anise seeds

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sugar

4 eggs


In a saucepan over medium heat or in a 2 cup glass measuring cup in the microwave, heat milk, water, and butter until the butter is completely melted, but don't boil.

In a large mixing bowl, combine 1-1/2 cups of the flour, yeast, anise seeds, salt, and sugar. Pour in the warm milk mixture, beating as you pour.



Add eggs and beat until well blended. Start adding more flour, a little at a time until a soft, but not sticky, dough forms. Hand knead, adding flour as needed, for about 10 minutes.

Form the dough into a ball and lightly oil the ball all the way around with vegetable oil. Place the dough ball back in the mixing bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Set the bowl in a warm place for about an hour or until the dough has doubled in size.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Punch down the dough and shape it into rolls that look like skulls or bones. Place the rolls on a greased cookie sheet and let them rise about one hour.


Bake for 20 minutes. As soon as the rolls are removed from the oven, brush with glaze.


Glaze

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup undiluted frozen orange juice concentrate

Bring to a boil, stirring constantly for 2-3 minutes.



This is a traditional Mexican recipe used to celebrate The Day of the Dead, which is Nov.2 ( also known as All Souls Day).

Corner View: Water

As I have mentioned before, even thought we have visited St. Augustine many times, every time we go there we discover something new.



Just after sunset, on our last trip to St. Augustine, we discovered a fountain that we had never noticed before. It sits back from the street, where it can't be seen by passing cars, between the Visitor's Center and the Huguenot Cemetery.





The sign next to the fountain explains, "The set of masks that decorate this fountain was a gift to the city of St. Augustine by its sister city in Spain, the city of Aviles, birthplace of Pedro Menendez, founder of St. Augustine in 1565.





Oh, on the topic of water, I have some nice new baby alligator pictures taken at Lake Alice. We've realized that the best time for photographing the alligators is on game days. All the noise from the tailgate parties and cars before the football games, seem to bring the alligators out of hiding.






The list of other Corner View participants all around the world can be found on the sidebar of Spain Daily.

Halloween Carnival

Here are some highlights of tonight's University Family Housing Halloween Carnival:





Mostly Blaze won candy for playing the games, but he won a tooth brush from this bean bag toss tic-tac-toe game.



Besides the games there was a haunted house, a man making balloon animals and hats, free pizza and popcorn, and a costume contest.





Oh, there was also this guy, playing with a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach:


There were lots of great costumes,too!










The Children's Costume Contest:



This adorable little flower fairy won first place.



Blaze won "Most Original".