Nerdy Nibbles

It’s finally October!! One of my favorite months with one of my favorite holidays: Halloween! This month’s blogs will be dedicated to Halloween themed recipes and what better way to kick it off than with the classic, Nightmare Before Christmas?!  And instead of just nibbles this month, I’ve made a whole meal inspired by the film. We had so much fun with it!

To start us off, I made a simple appetizer (re: bought a tub of hummus!) and used red cabbage leaves to recreate the iconic Pumpkin Hill seen in the movie with the hummus being the full moon backdrop. It turned out so cute! Just spread your dip (french onion would work great too!) into a shallow bowl or pie pan and use kitchen shears to shape your mountain. It took a little finagling, but once I studied the shape (thank you, Google!) I was able to cut it out.

I served the dip with chips and pita bread wedges. Ever since we had pita bread a few weeks ago, the kids have been going nuts for it! (You can check out that recipe here: Greek Quinoa Salad.)

I used a ready to bake pizza crust to cut out my breadstick bones! I was able to cut out 8 breadsticks and then loosely tied the ends into knots. I melted 3 TB of butter with some Italian seasonings to brush on the breadstick bones. Bake according to the package directions and serve with Sally’s Worm Wart’s soup!

Instead of deadly nightshade, frog’s breath, and worm’s wart in my soup, I used a creamy potato base. I think any smooth vegetable soup would work in this case. Next time, I think I’ll try butternut squash soup! To get the green effect, I blended a bag of fresh spinach leaves with a little bit of water and stirred it in the soup. It’s not as neon green as in the movie, but it’s just funky enough for the kids and by the way, does NOT taste like spinach. The boys were worried about that, but rest assured, could not taste any spinach! 😉 You can absolutely use homemade or store bought soup to make it a quick meal!

Now, I couldn’t whip up a Nightmare Before Christmas meal without the star of the show, Jack Skellington! I kept the dessert really easy, but they turned out REALLY cute! All you need is some store bought sandwich cookies, melted white chocolate chips, and a black gel icing tube (though I think the edible black marker would have been a tad easier!) Just dip each cookie into the melted chocolate and set on wax paper to harden. Jack’s face was simple to add, the gel was a little thick so I had to use a toothpick to finish the mouth. I stuck them in the freezer to harden up.

Not too shabby, right? It was super simple, festive, and the kids loved it! I’m having such a great time each month with Nerdy Nibbles and I hope you’re enjoying it as well! If you have any questions or theme ideas, please let me know in the comments below! Now everyone sing along, “This is Halloween, this is Halloween!” 🙂