Halloween Themed Gathering

 Always looking for an excuse for a party I had some friends over for a Thirty One party last night. Thirty One is a company who sells, bags, totes and purses. Mostly organizational items, very cute stuff, not too expensive but also not cheap. So the quality is good and value is there as well. You can check them out at:
http://www.mythirtyone.com/kmford/
I am REALLY excited to get my stuff. It was a nice evening and thanks to some help from my mom and mom in law, I was a well organized party hostess. I spent the day before cleaning and picking up and then spent the day of prepping food and re-cleaning what my kids had messed up already :) I was all ready to go as people started arriving. That was a first for me :)

Here was my menu:
Butternut Soup Shots
Italian Stuffed Bread Braids
Pesto Ravioli Salad
ABC Salad - Romaine with apples, onion, blue cheese crumbles and Poppy seed dressing.
Wassail
Hot Mulled Cider
Godiva Chocolate Truffle Coffee
Assorted Halloween Candies

Baked Winter Squash Soup
This recipe is from "The Basics Cookbook" by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins -- authors of "The Silver Palate Cookbook".

The magic of this soup comes from baking all your vegetables first to release a rich depth of flavor.

2 acorn squash (about 2 lbs. each)
2 butternut squash ( about 2 lbs. each)
8 Tbl. ( 1 stick) unsalted butter
8 tsp.  dark brown sugar
3 carrots , peeled and halved
1 large onion , thinly sliced
10 cups chicken stock
3/4 tea. ground mace (I added nutmeg this time because I didn't have mace, you could also use all-spice)
3/4 tea. ground ginger
pinch of cayenne pepper
salt, to taste
sour cream and chives for garnish (optional)

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2.  Cut the four squash in half lengthwise.  Scoop out and discard the seeds.
3.  Place the squash halves, skin side down, in a shallow roasting pan.  Place 1 T. butter and 1 teas. of brown sugar in the cavity of each squash half.  Arrange the carrots and onion slices around the squash.  Pour 2 cups of the stock in the pan, cover it tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 2 hours.
4.  Remove the pan from the oven, and allow the vegetables to cool slightly.  Scoop the squash pulp out of the skins and place it in a soup pot.  Add the carrots, onion, and cooking liquid.
5.  Add the remaining 8 cups of chicken stock and the mace, ginger, cayenne and salt.  Stir well and bring to boil.  Reduce the heat, and simmer, uncovered for 10 min.
6.  Puree the soup, in batches, in a blender or food processor until smooth.  Return it to the pot, adjust the seasonings and heat through.  Serve each portion garnished with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of chives.

12 portions

 These are 2 acorn squash and a butternut squash

 I used my meat clever to cut them in half. Hi-YA! Watch your fingers. Yikes!

 Scoop out the seeds

 

I cubed the butternut and threw it all around the acorn quash halves. I also added two apples, peeled, cored and cubed.

 

When it is done in the oven after a couple hours, let it cool for a little while. It will be TOO HOT to scoop for a little while

 My immersion blender. OH how I love it!

 

If you don't have an immersion blender you need to do it in batches in the blender. This may take a little time and effort. 

 I just keep the soup in the crock pot on warm during the party and put my soup shot bowls in a pile next to it.I didn't get a picture but I had a bowl of sour cream and a bowl of chopped chives sitting next to this for people to add to theirs.

 

 This pasta salad is just cooked cheese ravioli tossed with pesto and pine nuts. You could also use cheese tortellini. SO easy and yummy!

Some fall leaves and some gourds and you are all decorated.

I got this ghost from my mother in law years ago. I smile every year when I plug him in.

I got these cute signs at a party store (Display and Costume) for 2 bucks each. They are so cute, glittery and fun. I love them

We made this chalkboard a few years ago. I had bought this poster frame to use as a poster frame and when I got it home the glass had broken. Sad that I had wasted 40 bucks for this huge frame, I was glancing through my Pottery Barn catalog a few days later I spotted a chalkboard in a dining room being used as a Menu board. It was the low low price of $199.00. No thanks. I showed my ingenious husband who ended up painting a piece of plywood he cut to size with chalkboard paint and voila! My very own menu board. Now I enjoy changing it up for everything from my parties to our family dinners.

I set up a cider station. It is funny how just using a place mat pulled it all together into a neat little beverage area.

That is a flameless candle. The one's now a days look so real. Flicker and all. Check Costco for the best bang for your buck. They have huge sets for cheap!

I pulled this centerpiece together with a fall wreath, some silk Gerber daisies in pots- bought on sale and candles in different sizes. It looks very cute all together.

I got these on sale at SAFEWAY! I loved that they were big enough and reasonably priced enough I could fill the big space that is SO hard to fill on my mantle.

A cute, festive Halloween bucket worked great as a fork holder.

Filling a bowl with something as simple as candy corns is an example of a detail that helps tie your whole party together.

OK. SO these Italian stuffed bread braids are a special product of my family's catering company. I did not make them myself but I DO know how to. They are SO delicious, SO easy and SO popular. Just your basic (thawed:) frozen bread dough rolled then filled with pesto, ricotta, turkey and ham lunch meat, olives, mozzarella and braided closed; the ingredients are not SO fancy that they are hard to find. You can get them at ANY market.

Bake and then slice into easy to hold and eat pieces and you will have some happy guests. If I can get the OK to share the how to I will post it soon, so you can use it for your holiday gatherings.