Supper Club Potluck: Halloween Edition

Have you been to one of my Supper Clubs?  If you haven't - or if you haven't read about them on here - I explain them in my FAQ section.  Basically, it's a dinner party with friends, which I plan and create... and I always keep the entire meal below 600 calories per serving.

So far, the fare at Supper Club 600 has been a product of my own test kitchen (with or sans Tom, depending on how busy his job is during planning phase.)  It's been great for me because I don't do well when I'm bored, and a regularly-scheduled bimonthly Supper Club keeps me in forward motion, learning new skills in the kitchen, and always trying new things.

But due to some unusual scheduling, I did four consecutive months of SC600, and it exhausted me to the point that I knew if I didn't take a break, I would get burned out on a fun project that has challenged me and fulfilled me in such important ways.

When friends requested a Halloween-themed SC600, I was sad to turn them down.  Halloween is perhaps my favorite holiday of the year!  But I couldn't shake the idea that I really wanted to see my usual SC crew, all costumed to the nines.  So when my usual SC photographer, Rochelle, offered her home up, I didn't turn her down... exactly.  I turned it into a Supper Club Potluck!  That way I would get to enjoy the day with everyone, but I wouldn't have to do all of the usual legwork it takes me to test and create recipes, plan a menu, do all of the graphic design, organize the decor, buy all the groceries, and spend a couple of days cooking for a big group.

So we sent out our invitations, and on Saturday night, we gathered at Rochelle's home to eat, drink and be spooky.  I had such a blast!

I went as Medusa, thanks to a dress by Kische that I found on crazy sale at Nordstrom Rack.   I wasn't able to find a wig or headdress I liked, so I found a Medusa Crown tutorial online.  Using Sculpy clay and nail polish, I built my own crown.  I also used a Medusa makeup tutorial... you can't make it out in the photos, but I made a sparkly snakeskin pattern by using fishnet leggings!

Look, I'm turning you to stone!

Tom went as a meta/deconstructed duck-billed platypus.
This is the most excited I've seen him about a Halloween costume.
Yes, that is a velour track suit.  He ordered it for the occasion.

With my co-hostess, Rochelle the Black Swan.

For our contribution to the potluck, I brought the low-cal pumpkin dip I blogged about last week, and Tom made our signature Barbecue Jackfruit sandwiches.  I also made punch, and I really liked the recipe I came up with -- it will appear on Finishing the Hat sometime soon.

Our guests also brought some scrumptious dishes to share.

Some of which included baked enchiladas, corn bread, roasted root veggies, bruschetta, and queso.
There were also some dessert treats, not pictured.

My favorite contribution was from Lindsay - her peanut butter/apple/marshmallow mouths. SO CUTE!

Rochelle and I had a blast decorating.  We pooled our respective Halloween notions, and put together a couple of fun displays.

Probably my favorite corner - Spanish moss with pumpkins, pumpkin vines,
and the raven that once sat on my father's shoulder for his Edgar Allan Poe costume.

  

My "Black Hat Society" tin sign at the spiderwebby entrance.

  

Spiders and a spiderweb runner

  

Last but not least, my complete Simpsons Treehouse of Horror collection.
I was down in the dumps the year Burger King released these toys,
and my parents cheered me up by helping me collect of of them. 
I'm lucky they didn't release them this year... because I haven't eaten fast food in 10 MONTHS!

  
Our guests had such awesome costumes!

Swine Flu, Pig-in-a-Blanket, Beer Frau, Megan from Bridesmaids,
Medusa & Black Swan.

  
Patty's costume may have been my favorite from that night - every last detail from her Melissa McCarthy/Bridesmaids costume was spot-on.

Do you want a piece of this?

David wrote about his Jared from Subway costume on his blog, Keep It Up David.

Our gloved duo, Steampunk Big Bad Wolf, and Edward Scissorhands

Steampunk Big Bad Wolf was a part of a costume quartet of steampunk fairy tale characters, which was definitely my favorite group costume of the night.  We didn't get a great picture of all four of them together, so I'm sharing one they took.

Steampunk Red Riding Hood, Big Bad Wolf, Mad Hatter and Goldilocks.
Their little costume details were AMAZING.

Sonic the Hedgehog, Wario and Chum-Chum (which is especially cute because
her boyfriend was a storyboard artist for Fanboy and Chum-Chum!)

Our friends above are holding our trick-or-treat goodie bags, which Rochelle and I put together for our guests - including some Skinny Cow candy, some sugar-free Extra Dessert Delights gum, and a bunch of Halloween toys and trinkets to help everybody embrace their inner kiddo.

It was a wonderful night shared with terrific friends - and I'm so glad I took Rochelle up on her offer to co-host!  A big thanks to her, and to all of our guests, for such a fun night.

Now we're already into Thanksgiving season.  Does everybody have somewhere to be on Thanksgiving?  Anybody need a loving home?  I'm not doing an official Supper Club for the holiday, but I'm definitely cooking.  :)

In the Kitchen... with low-calorie pumpkin dip!

Halloween is the opening bell of holiday eating season.  Mini candy bars and gooey caramel apples make way for a tryptophan-laced monster Thanksgiving buffet, which in turn leads to stockings full of chocolate and peppermint and a neverending spiral of ham (and possibly shame, if that's your game.)

In our house growing up, the one constant between these holidays was the pumpkin, starting with the ghoulishly carved fellows (and the peanut butter/chocolate ones), and finishing with the pie to end all pies, the pumpkin.

We've arrived, people.  Pumpkin-flavored goodies are going to be available around every corner from now until next year.  These days, you can even get hot pumpkin-spiked coffee at every single coffee retailer.  It's inescapable.

Since I'm concentrating on my moderation, and on eating nutritious foods, I figure... why beat those pumpkins when you can join 'em?  Pumpkin, in moderation and with the right ingredients, can be good for you!

Today I have a recipe for you that I have totally fallen for: a low-calorie pumpkin dip that in no way tastes low-calorie, and that will stand up to all of those other calorie-dense, less nutritious recipes.  Everyone who has tried it so far has loved it.  Even friends of mine who are anti-health-food dug in and enjoyed.

 

On top of all that, it's a super-simple recipe, and it doesn't take very long.

Five ingredients - that's all.

  
In your mixer (or in a bowl with a whisk) - combine 1 cup of skim milk with two small boxes of sugar-free vanilla pudding.
 

I used Jell-O brand, but next time I'm going to purchase some Splenda instant pudding
so Tom can enjoy it - and also because Splenda is the lesser of two artificially sweet evils.

Mix it until it's smooth, and about the consistency of cookie dough.

  
Then add the 30-ounce can of pumpkin, and mix for quite awhile.

After a few minutes, it'll still look lumpy with globs of pudding. Eventually it will smooth out. 
Be sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl to fully integrate the pudding into the pumpkin.

 

Once it's smooth, add 1 tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice.

And now, for the fun part!

Spray the entire can of fat-free Reddi Wip into the bowl.  Every last bit.

 

It may be hard to combine the heavy pumpkin with the whipped cream,
so it may be helpful to stop periodically and fold it together.

  

When it's all together, it'll look like a smooth, whippy version of pumpkin pie.
It'll smell like it, too!

  

It's especially delicious with sliced apples.  Also good with graham crackers or sticks - but I've proven time and time again that I cannot keep graham crackers in my house without the floodgates of food addiction opening.  In fact, when I tested this recipe in Palm Springs, I sent the graham crackers home with my friends for their toddler to enjoy.  

Creamy, pumpkiny, yum.

This would be a great, easy dish to bring to, say, a Halloween Potluck.  (Don't do it if you come to ours, though, because I'm already bringing it!)

I'm thinking it might make a great filling for a low-cal pumpkin cream pie for Thanksgiving, or even as filling for pumpkin "ice cream" sandwiches - which my friend Teresa challenged me to perfect.  Or... dare I say... frozen pumpkin cream pie?  Maybe I'll have that recipe for you, soon!

And the best part of all?  Not counting the apples or graham crackers, 1/8 of the very substantial recipe is only 46 CALORIES.

Serves 8.  Serving size looks to be a little bit over a cup.

Of course, eating pumpkin is not the only way to go with my favorite autumnal fruit.  Tonight, I'm attending a pumpkin-carving party!  It's being hosted (and attended) by some phenomenal artists, so I'm a little intimidated, but, hey, I'm sure it'll help those creative juices keep flowing, right?

For inspiration, here's my favorite pumpkin I've ever carved, two years ago alongside Tom, his mom Jean, and my dad.

I call it "Sometimes They Eat Their Young."

All right!  Hope you're all having fun getting ready for Halloween.  I'll be back tomorrow with some great news for active plus-sized ladies in search of great workout gear.  'Til then, take care of you!

Adventure Wednesday... Texts From (Last) Horror Night

This Adventure Wednesday post is rated H, for fans of Halloween, Horror, and Heidi's writing.

So... here's the thing.  We haven't really told many people, but Tom and I have slowly been developing a screenplay for a horror film.  Horror scripts can be a good toe-in-the-door for screenwriters writing on spec (or, for free/as writing samples) like ourselves.  We also needed a little break from the TV spec writing, and I'm close-but-not-quite-ready to finish my Yoga For Fat Girls spec screenplay.  Plus, both of us dig a really clever horror flick.  So horror it is.

Tom and I first thought about collaborating on a horror script four years ago this Monday - Halloween 2007.  I'd gotten out of work on time (for a change) and Tom came to pick me up for a date.  We had planned to head down to Disneyland to see what festivities were happening, but this was before Disney realized what a goldmine Halloween can be... and the park was closing at 8 PM.  One of us suggested we check out Universal Studios.  We'd both heard they did something called "Halloween Horror Nights," but we didn't know much about it.

When we arrived, the crowds were thick at the gate, so we sprang for a "Front-of-the-Line" ticket, like a Disney Fastpass, but for purchase (and without waiting.)  We walked through the gates... and our lives were never the same.

No, really.  We had so much fun during that first trip that we've gone back to Universal's Halloween Horror nights every year since.  And it inspired Tom - who, in turn, inspired me - to write a horror script.  Tom describes the experience as feeling like you're actually in a horror movie.  The mazes are so well-designed and executed (much like the characters, heh) that you end up feeling like a scream queen, heart pounding, eyes darting from this dark corner to that door ajar, nerves crackling with the fear of knowing that any second, something is going to burst through and scare the living dead daylights out of you.

Plus, I had a photo opportunity with Norman Bates, in front of the really-for-real Psycho house.
What could be more life-changing? He told me I looked like someone he could "bring home to mother."

This year, since we're working on the horror script, we decided to focus on our annual trip to Horror Nights for inspiration and discussion.  We had so many ideas and observations from the mazes that we started to forget some of them, so halfway through the evening, we sat down to text each other our shorthand thoughts.  Here are our Texts from (Last) Horror Night, in bold - with a bit of explanation for each.

**

Things that are inherently creepy: photos, children, churches, dolls, illness.
One of the new mazes this year, La Llorona, is based on a Mexican legend about a woman who drowns her children.  It includes so many inherently creepy visuals and concepts that I bet I'd even be spooked by it without any scare-acters.   It might be my favorite maze ever.  (It might even beat the Halloween maze from 2009, a lovingly faithful tribute to my favorite horror film.)

Misdirection.  
It's the key to surprise.  The Alice Cooper maze made great use of it, placing one gruesome duo at the end of the hallway.  I couldn't help but stare at them - after all, they were gross, and they were going to turn and scream at me or something, right?  But partway down the hall, two other scares popped out at me from either side.  All the scarier because my attention was focused elsewhere.

Big and small spaces.
Opposite use of space can be scary. Very big spaces have all kinds of nooks and crannies from which spooks can emerge... and you can't focus on all of them at once.  On the other hand, in very small spaces... if something comes at you, you have nowhere else to go.  And you're very, very aware of this.

Variation - keep 'em off balance.
For a long-form scare, there must be lots of different kinds of surprises.  For instance, silence or darkness punctuated by noise or light is most effective.  If you repeat the same kind of gag - say, guy jumps out from a door - people will start to suspect the scare and disengage.  You want to keep them engaged - and to do so, you gotta keep them on their toes.

Know your audience.
You need to calculate their fears... what they will be thinking, and how they will be reacting.  Some people might be scared by someone jumping out at them.  Some people might not... so how do you scare them?  One brilliant scare-acter realized that Tom and I were smiling at him, not scared by him.  So instead of moving on to someone else, he changed his tactic.  He walked straight up to us and stopped inches away from our noses.  We stepped to the right, and he mirrored us.  We stepped to the left, and he mirrored us without stopping.  This was actually far more unsettling than any jack-in-the-box startling.  And a good horror film should have as much "unsettling" as "startling."

A single, iconic villain.
One very creepy main antagonist will always be scarier than a variety of less-compelling ones.  The "torture porn" mazes are hardly scary at all.  Sure, bloody bodies and crazy trap-like contraptions aren't exactly Hello Kitty, but those depictions can verge on comical, and aren't scary, just gross.  Gore has its place, but it will be most effective when it follows deep emotional connection, tension, and terror.

A safe place.
The characters and the audience are always looking for a "safe place."   A spot where they know that nothing is coming to get them.  Denying them that is deeply unsettling.  Movie characters, like maze-goers, would try to move quickly from one safe space to the next, rather than at one pace.

The first scene.
What we see at the beginning of a maze (or a movie) shapes how we see the scenes that follow it.  For the very effective La Llorona maze, this starts before you even enter.  Three signs are placed within the maze line, which tell the story of La Llorona.  Then, when you step into the maze, you're in a Mexican church - a funeral, all flickering votives and memorial photos.  You're immediately drawn into the maze - and surrounded with several of the "inherently creepy" items listed above.

Emotional connection is what drives everything.
For effective horror, there needs to be some sort of emotional connection - fear of the antagonist, identification with a protagonist, witnessing things with inherent emotional content, etc - for it to really work.  In a film, it makes people a part of what's happening, not just an audience member.

**

Our night at Univeral was very well-filling, so to speak.  We've since been flush with ideas, and meeting for daily writing sessions before Tom leaves for work.  I'm having a lot of fun.  I really need to remember that I'm at my happiest - and the days that follow are most productive - when I start the day writing.

One other fun thing I noticed that night is that... I'm stronger!  I suppose it should have been obvious to me, since I work out so regularly (and so hard!) but I was still surprised when I hiked up the hill next to the Psycho house, and, for the first time ever, I made it up without stopping, and reached the top without panting.  I guess that's what comes of taking care of me!  And I hope you'll take care of you today.

If you're local, and a horror fan, definitely check out Universal Horror Nights, which runs through Halloween night.