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It’s officially the night before Halloween, otherwise known as Mischief Night.  The only mischief I’m getting into tonight is possibly sneaking into the Halloween candy I’ll put out for tomorrow!  It’s been so much fun sharing Halloween recipes and DIY projects, but sadly this is my last Halloween recipe post for the year.  It’s hard to believe that after this comes the holiday rush.  I still don’t want to talk about it!  It’s just too soon!

So I decided to celebrate the end of the Halloween season with an orange and black themed cheese board.  Let’s face it – I’ll pretty much take any opportunity to make a cheese board!  Recently, I was lucky enough to win 14 wedges of cheese from Sartori Cheese and Frugal Foodie Mama.  FOURTEEN!  That was a dream for a cheese lover like me!  We shared a few cheese wedges with our family, ate a few ourselves, and had enough leftover to make this deliciously festive platter.

Most cheese boards are made up of different kinds of cheese (obviously), fruit, nuts, and meats. I decided to keep it simple and just used cheese and fruit on my Halloween board.  It was a lot easier to keep with the orange and black theme that way, but still offered enough variety to satisfy! 

During a recent trip to Trader Joe’s, I picked up a few other ingredients to add to my board.  I love buying cheese board ingredients from Trader Joe’s.  They tend to be a lot cheaper than going to the cheese counter and they have a lot to choose from, too!  For this cheese board, I even broke out my edible markers again to put some spooky touches on my mini brie bites!

So let’s talk about the cheese that I used.

On every cheese board, I think it’s important to use a variety of textures and flavors.  I used three wedges of hard cheese from Sartori including Balsamic, an herbed Asiago, and an interesting Chai flavored cheese.  The cheddar cubes are medium-sharp in flavor and texture.  For a nice, creamy soft cheese, I used the mini brie bites from Trader Joe’s.  Then, I used a black edible marker to turn them into mummies!

What about the fruit?

I used a mixture of fresh and dried fruit for this cheese board.  Dark Thompson grapes and blackberries brought a spooky element to the board.  Dried apricots added a different textural element to the board, as well as a bit of tartness.  

How to pull the board together. 

Instead of crackers, I added cheddar twists for crunch.  I set this platter up on a slate board.  Then, I added mini pumpkins to pull the Halloween look together.  This board was perfect to snack on while enjoying a night of Halloween movies and TV shows!

Leave the sweets to the kids on Halloween night and enjoy this sophisticated orange and black Halloween cheese board instead!  It’s an easy Halloween treat for adults and will disappear faster than a sack of candy!  

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Have a safe and happy Halloween!

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In all of my blogging career, I have only ever posted one single cocktail recipe. One. That’s all. It was a Cherry Cola Cocktail and, if I remember correctly, it was delicious!  Since I’m trying to stretch my Halloween recipes as much as possible (really, I’m not ready to jump into Thanksgiving and holiday posts yet), I thought it would be fun to make a dragon-themed cocktail for Halloween.

Game of Thrones is huge, right?  Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t watch it.  When I thought about making a dragon cocktail, I was thinking more along the lines of Harry Potter.  After all, Halloween in the Great Hall at Hogwarts is nothing short of spectacular!  The candles, the pumpkins, the food – it’s all so magical!  This dragon-themed cocktail is sure to delight wizards and witches 21 and older while eating pumpkin pasties and other magical treats!

I’ll be honest with you.  I might have a cocktail when I go out to dinner.  But creating my own is like giving me a chemistry set and telling me not to blow up the kitchen.  I never really know how much liquor to mix with what ingredients to make a cocktail taste good.  After doing some research and a couple nights of taste-testing, I think I got my dragon cocktail down!  Not too shabby for a girl who can pour a mean glass of wine!

The one thing I knew off the bat was that I wanted a dragonfruit liquor base.  So I bought a bottle of Bacardi Dragon Berry Rum.  If you’re into tropical, fruity drinks, you need a bottle of this rum in your life!  It has a great strawberry and dragonfruit flavor that isn’t too sweet or overpowering.

I’m pretty sure if dragons were real, their blood wouldn’t taste like tropical fruit.  That’s why I mixed the Dragon Berry rum with cranberry juice and lime.  This drink is sweet and tart with a couple of surprises.  First, I used seltzer to cut the tartness a bit.  It also makes this drink fun and fizzy like a magic potion!

Since dragons are fire-breathing beasts, I wanted to make sure you felt a “bite” somewhere in this drink.  So while you sip on this cocktail, you might taste a hint of heat right at the end.  That’s because I rimmed my glass with a sugar and a pinch of cayenne pepper.  It gives this drink a surprisingly perfect balance of flavors!

Dragon Berry Dragon's Blood Cocktail

2017-10-24 16:09:29

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Ingredients

1. 1.5 ounces Bacardi Dragon Berry Rum
2. 1.5 ounces 100% cranberry juice
3. 1.5 ounces seltzer or club soda
4. 1/2 lime, juiced (reserve the other half)
5. Sugar + cayenne pepper, to rim glass

Instructions

1. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice.
2. Pour Bacardi Dragon Berry Rum, cranberry juice, seltzer, and lime juice into the cocktail shaker.
3. Add top to cocktail shaker and gently shake.
4. Using the other lime half, wet the rim of a glass.
5. Rim glass with sugar and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
6. Pour cocktail into glass and enjoy!

By Jessica Holoka

Living La Vida Holoka https://www.livinglavidaholoka.com/

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What’s your favorite Halloween cocktail?

This post may contain affiliate links. Making a purchase through one of these links helps support this blog. Check out Where I Party every week!

I have to admit something to you.  I have been binge watching the Twilight movies lately like a teenage fangirl.  Like every time they’re on TV, I turn them on.  Funny since the books didn’t hold my interest!  At all!  To be honest, I couldn’t get passed the second chapter of the first book.  It was just so bad! 

Then, the movies came out.  I rolled my eyes at them at first.  I mean, sparkly vampires?  Edward Cullen was definitely no Lestat!  But after giving them a chance, I quickly became hooked.  I even managed to see Breaking Dawn in the theater.

My love of vampire TV and movies probably started with Interview with the Vampire and continued with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I tuned into Buffy every week and watched the Angel spin-off.  There are so many other great vampire shows out there and I definitely need to catch up!

If there’s one thing I love as much as vampire TV and movies, it’s Mexican food!  You might remember the Halloween Boo-rito Bake I made a couple years ago.  It was a delicious and easy dish to make for Halloween night!  So I decided to make a vampire-themed burrito for Halloween this year.

We always seem to have London broil in our house.  One London broil can be split to make two meals for us.  It’s a pretty cheap cut of beef that works well in a variety of dishes.  Like steak burritos!  Cut into thin slices, London broil made a perfect base for this recipe!

I made London broil for dinner the other night and used the leftovers to make these burritos.  The London broil was lightly seasoned.  I added minced garlic and lime juice to brighten up the flavor.  Then, I topped my burritos with homemade pico de gallo and shredded Asiago cheese.

The burrito was folded up in a tortilla with edges cut to resemble bat wings.  These vampire burritos weren’t complete without black olive eyes and Asiago fangs dripping with blood – or, in this case, hot sauce!

Vampire Steak Burritos

2017-10-19 21:35:32

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For the pico de gallo

1. 2 small tomatoes, chopped
2. 1/4 cup red onion, chopped
3. 1 jalapeño (or 1/2, if preferred), seeds removed and chopped
4. 2 tbsp. cilantro, chopped
5. 1 small lime, juiced
6. Salt, to taste

For the burritos

1. Flour tortillas
2. Approx. 1/2 lb. boneless steak, like London broil
3. Juice of 1/2 small lime
4. 1 clove garlic, minced
5. Shredded Asiago cheese
6. Pico de gallo
7. Sour cream
8. Black olives, sliced
9. Hot sauce
10. Guacamole
11. Olive oil

To make the pico de gallo

1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl.
2. Cover and set aside.

To make the burritos

1. Spray a large skillet with non-stick cooking spray and heat over medium.
2. Add steak slices to the pan and cook until medium-medium well.
3. Before removing from pan, add lime juice and minced garlic.
4. Set steak aside and begin assembling burritos.
5. With a paring knife, carefully cut the edges of the tortilla to resemble bat wings.
6. In the center of the tortilla, add several slices of steak.
7. Top with pico de gallo and shredded Asiago cheese.
8. Fold the bottom of the tortilla upwards. Then, wrap each side into the center of the tortilla.
9. Wipe out the skillet and drizzle a little olive oil into it.
10. Carefully place the burrito back into the pan and heat over low-medium. Cook until golden brown.
11. Remove burrito from pan and plate seam-side up.
12. Add two small dollops of sour cream onto the burrito and place a slice of olive on top.
13. To make fangs, cut small triangles out of Asiago cheese.
14. Drip a little hot sauce onto the bottom of each fang.
15. Serve burritos with guacamole, hot sauce, and pico de gallo.

By Jessica Holoka

Living La Vida Holoka https://www.livinglavidaholoka.com/

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What’s your favorite vampire TV show or movie?