Or  for the adults, Blackened Chicken with Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce

The Halloween fun continues.  This one is actually an original, because I completely screwed up trying to make something completely different.  Still I have to say that I can’t complain at all.  Tell a bunch of kids that they’re eating Burned Monster Meat with Goblin Goo and you’ll probably wish it were true.  I went through a  pound of these between one two year old and my wife in less than 20 minutes, so imagine what a room full of kids could do to them!  (Portion control, people!)

The unique texture and burned look of these is due to a heavy egg wash, which splits the breading when it expands in hot oil and heavy amounts of paprika in the breading. (The American kind, you know, flavorless, spiceless, mass produced and very cheap?) The paprika will blacken almost immediately, making for a very “straight from the burning building” look.  And with nearly neon green sauce, it’s definitely one of the less appetizing looking things I’ve ever made.

The kids should love it!

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halloween is just around the corner, and I’ve got a slew of recipes coming for that over the next few days, but that leaves us dead in the middle of the Holiday season, a topic I covered pretty thoroughly last year.  What’s a blogger to do?

“Why,” I said to myself, “I’ll ask my readers if there are things that they would like to see!”

And it sounded like a grand idea.

so, dear readers and fellow food bloggers, are there any particular recipes you’d like to see tackled?  Any recipes that feel a bit tired to you that you would like to see spiced up or given a new twist?  That’s what cooking by the seat of your pants is all about anyway, taking what you know and making something new and incredible.  It’s about the inspiration, and I could use a little of that at the moment, because just re-hashing last years posts seems a bit redundant to me at this point.

Drop a comment here and let me know what you would like to see for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I’ll be happy to dive in and give you my take on a few things!

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It’s that time of year again.  Very soon things will be bumping and thumping in the night. To welcome these ghastly (or movie franchised) visitors, this year we’ve done a little bit to set the mood around the Cooking… by the seat of my Pants household.

My wife and I aren’t big into fancy electronic displays.  To be honest, I think the scariest things you’ll ever encounter have nothing to do with the technical abilities of a bunch of engineers somewhere.  It’s all about the mood, and that’s what I was going for here.

The basic setup is simple.  make the freshly relaid planter bed look as much like a spooky old graveyard as possible.  Up until three days ago, it wasn’t really looking very spooky.  when the tree trimmers came through and cut down a good portion of the tree out in front of the house, they gave me the perfect tool to finish the job, and I think it came out pretty well in the end.

The funky umbrella base in the center there (with the bouquet of black roses in it) is actually there to hold either a flagpole or a Christmas tree.  Since I didn’t have enough mulch to fill in the space it takes up, I just added some $1.00 each Halloween props and called it an urn. The tiny green shoots are weeds that should not be able to grow through two layers of plastic weed barrier. But they’re doing a pretty good job, don’t you think?

all-in-all, I think all this needs is a coupla jack O’ Lanterns and a few electric candles to finish off a pretty good spooky scene.  Especially if it’s pitch black outside.

did you decorate for Halloween?  If so, leave a link to your pictures in the comments.

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“What am I going to make with all these leftovers?“

It’s a pretty common phrase used during the holidays, especially after Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. The refrigerator is overflowing with half-full serving dishes or packed storage containers of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and half-a-dozen desserts still grace trays on the counter tops.

Rather than going for the “same-old-same-old” reheated plates and turkey sandwiches, I prefer to use the leftovers as creatively as possibly. This dish has been one of my favorites over the years and I still go back to it on a regular basis.

The concept is simple. Take all the flavors that were at the table for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, mix them all together and add a little of this or that to freshen them up a bit. It’s a truly comforting meal that you wouldn’t peg for a leftover dish if you didn’t know that it was.

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