I love all things Halloween, especially Creepy Halloween Food. Beet Rat Tails are one of my favorite wince inducing Halloween delicacies. This fun, simple, and grotesque Halloween treat is sure to gross out all of your ghouls and goblins this year whether they are big or small.
1. Start with a bunch of whole beets (with greens and roots still attached) like this:
2. Cut off the greens. Save the greens! They are delicious, and very nutritious, stems and all. I LOVE beet greens in salad, and they are also good sauteed like any other green. DO NOT cut into the beet, meaning leave the root and some little spiky stems on your beets, like this:
3. Put your beets in the pressure cooker and cover with just enough water to cover the beets, and cook on high pressure for 15 minutes*.
4. Allow your beets to cool enough to handle (I, being impatient, often rinse them in cold water).
5. Slice off the roots, and BAM, you have your rat tails.
These are great served over a thin bed of white rice to really contrast up the bloody look of the thing. Be sure to have your tail-less rubber rat nearby!
(For the actual beets you have left over, slice off the tops and peel them. They are incredibly easy to peel, the skin will just slide off with a little rubbing. I squeeze them, and the beets pop right out of their skins. Dice them up with a couple tablespoons of balsamic or apple cider vinegar and a tablespoon or two of dill. Sooooo Yummmy. If you’re not a fan of beets, try my amazingly nutritious pink pancakes. You can also use the red beet water to make broth, or substitute it for water in any recipe for a little extra nutrition and some pink color.)
*This recipe calls for an electric pressure cooker. Cooking times may vary; refer to your pressure cooker’s directions. Instructions for a stove top pressure cooker can be found here. You can probably make these without a pressure cooker, but I don’t know how. I always cook beets in my pressure cooker. It is amazing.
More Halloween Fun
Halloween is my favorite. I’m Jack, the Pumpkin King in my own mind. In that vein, I was discussing my favorite Halloween movies with a co-worker today and realized that, not shockingly, my two favorite Halloween movies also happen to be two of my overall favorite movies of all time:
The Nightmare Before Christmas
and
Hocus Pocus
Imagine my shock on discovering this morning that Hocus Pocus is 20 years old this season! Whaaat??!! It’s not that that fact makes me suddenly feel old (I already know I’m old, ha); it’s that the MOVIE doesn’t feel old to me. I suppose it’s what they call timeless (though not really in the same style as, say, Gone With the Wind*). I’ve already watched it with the kids twice this week, and have high hopes of watching it one more time before it gets packed away with the Halloween stuff (to keep it special) and Thankfulness (not Yuletides) abound. The article about Hocus Pocus turning 20 is pretty entertaining. It includes and interview with Jason Marsdon (the voice of Binx the cat) – fast becoming an icon among “nostalgic millenials” – a generation I seem to fit into all too perfectly.
* Humorously, the first movies I thought of to put instead of Gone With the Wind were: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, and Marry Poppins.
Costumes are Sooooooo Fun!
I’m struggling a little this year because we have had next to no time to work on our costumes, which saddens me. I think they’ll still be good enough and fun, but not as great as they could be. I already have an amazing idea for next year, though. In recent years we’ve gone as:
The Addams Family – Flintsone, featured here as Pubert from Addams Family Values (another one of my favorite Halloween movies!) is about 6 weeks old. Punky really got into her Wednesday role and took possibly too much pleasure in tearing the head off a barbie doll to prepare. MacGyver was as charming and amorous as Gomez any day; and I was a particularly shapely Morticia 6 weeks post-baby. I am zombied up because we spent this Halloween at a Surprise Zombie Wedding for a good friend, and instead of matching dresses, all the bridesmaids got zombiefied. (The wedding was a surprise because all the guests, and even the parents of the bride and groom though this was just an engagement party – super fun!).
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Batman Villains – (I had a lot of metal in my face at this point for my jaw surgery, hence that beautiful face). Flintstone = the Riddler; Punky = Catwoman; me = Poison Ivy; and MacGyver in his incredible Joker outfit.
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Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog, Monty Python – Flintsone being the killer rabbit himself with me as is unfortunate victim, Bors, and MacGyver the gallant King Arthur. Punky opted to part from the family theme and went Vampire. This year, she is back in the fold. If you have never seen this part of Monty Python and the Holy Grail before, it is below. You’re Welcome.
Samhain
Samhain is the pagan holiday associated with this time of year. If you are at all interested, please read this excellent history from the lovely Stephanie over at The Coexist Cafe. I would love to go into it hear, but I have costumes to finish!
Samhain is a time for spiritual reflection and mediation on, and appreciation of, loved one’s we have lost. This is especially important to me since losing my brother, Boo – as well as several other wonderful people in the last few years. While the magic and fun of Halloween stems from the history of Samhain, we celebrate them separately as a family to preserve the meaning behind Samhain.
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I could go on and on and ON about Halloween (and Samhain), but as I’ve alluded to already, I still have a lot of work to do, and I’m ready to get out and enjoy these holidays!!!
What is your favorite Halloween movie? And What are you going as this year?
I wouldn’t have thought to eat the roots of the beets. They look so realistic!