Ready for an edible spider ?

Today is my 50th post..time just flew…it was just 4 months back that I wrote my first post!A big thanks to all the readers who visit me, are kind enough to spent few minutes here amid hundreds of blogs and express themselves.Its both overwhelming and encouraging to see all the appreciation of my work,no matter how ugly the pictures look and how lame the post is at times :)Thank you so much !! Not to forget, since the time I have started this blog I feel like a kid in a candy store in the super markets,wanting to buy everything they sell.Its kinda funny

Halloween has arrived ! I love going to the stores these days…beautiful orangey things around me,so much to buy, everything painted in fall colors and holiday colors not too far away..I have started seeing cute Santa Clause,decadent roosters, decorative wreaths, meaty turkeys and reindeers replacing the maple shaped cutlery, pumpkin baskets and the witch brooms.I walk out of the house and see my neighbour’s house decked up with scary looking spiders,creepy webs, black bats,and ghostly murals.Come evening and a bigggg really biggg orange pumpkin glows outside their house..and to top it all its again cool & pleasant weather in Vegas,which makes me super energetic,an absolutely necessity with Diwali just around the corner and lots of cleaning to be done at home.

I am one big time pusillanimous female.As a teenager, I used to sleep in my room with the most bright night bulb on.Still I cannot sleep if the room is totally dark.These witches, ghosts stories, castles, howling winds,soul games,dimly lit rooms,raging rains scare me to death.So much so that I hate going even to those cranky looking stores which black and maroon lightning even if they sell the prettiest of the dresses.So as such Halloween parties are a big no-no for me…even though I know that it’s all for fun but I can’t muster the courage to attend one and very sheepishly I broke my neighbour’s heart the other day she invited me.

With so much happening around me,the pumpkin carving bug bit me too.I dun know how or why I decided to carve a pumpkin in spur of a moment while walking the grocery store aisles the other day.Here too, very cleverly, I chose the most bright and happy side associated with Halloween aka pumpkins and carved a funny face instead of a scary one:)With ultra low confidence, I picked the smallest pumpkin of the lot, thinking in my mind that if it doesnt work out, I will make some curry out of it…however only after tasting it, I found out that it’s utterly sweet and curry would have been not a very good idea.So it was good that the carving thing didn’t go for in a toss with good ol friend you tube coming to rescue thanks to some nice videos available for instructions.

Now that I have carved one, I feel little more confident and I am actually regretting that I didn’t buy a bigger one…can u see the normal human tendency!I drew my own stencil coz my pumpkin was so small , none of the printable stencils could fit.And you guys wont believe, I didn’t use any of those fancy kits available in the market, I used my ice cream scooper, vegetable peeler and kitchen knife to do it…maybe the quality of pumpkin or because it was smaller in size, I didn’t feel the need of any special tool…whatever!

Then to match the Halloween fervour, I tried making some spiders out of a cookie dough.I made 2 spiders with chocolate and cookie dough for my neighbour’s  little boy,Hunter who couldn’t wait till I photographed them and he hurriedly gobbled up one and kept on pestering me while I was taking the shots of the second

How I did it :Roll out cookie dough into about 3-4 mm thick circles. Prick the dough using fork all over Invert your muffin/cupcake and line the cups with this cookie dough.I inverted the muffin pan coz placing the dough was easier and neater as compared to the actual side.Bake the cups till golden brown. To make spider legs, roll out the cookie dough into thin pipes, shape them with a “V” at both ends and bake these too.Once baked let the cups cool.

Meanhwhile, melt some chocolate and dip the baked cups and legs into it. Now arrange the legs on the sides of the cup while the chocolate is still warm.Freeze the spider till the legs stick to the cups.

I mixed up 2 tbsp whipped cream and 4 tbsp vanilla  flavored yogurt and filled the stomach of the spider.Use raisins to make the eye. Your edible spider is ready ! Devour it!

Happy Halloween Everybody!

E.N.J.O.Y!