Happy Halloween!

[heirloomgal]

Did anybody else ever get popcorn balls? I always thought that those houses put effort into their candy giving, instead of grabbing a bag of candy.
Starting this year I will no longer give out candy. Our street is short, child population has dropped.
I bought 6 packs of whole Hershey bars, like I have for the last 5 years, and the only kids who came to my door were from 3 familys that I know. I have been sitting on the porch playing spooky music on my laptop for 2 hours--wasting my time!
If the kid population changes, I will re think.
This year I hand delivered the 6 packs early, and shut my lights off on Saturday (our day this year for trick or treating.)
Yesterday, Halloween, I went to DD's church. They had Trunk or Treat, fed chili, hot dogs and soup in their very nice basement fellowship hall, gave out candy.
DD's performed a really cute skit about getting to know someone you don't like, called "The Princess and the Pirate."
They have convention costumes and pulled from their stock. It was a ten minute play with 4 songs with re written lyics, like:
"I am a Pirate Queen," pulled from Gilbert and Sullivans "The Pirates of Penzance."
Skit, to wit,the Princess (Zelda) didn't invite the Pirate Queen (and crew) to the palace party bc the pirates trashed the palace last time, and they conclude that they misunderstood each other, and each life has it's own challenges.
Good simple message that doesn't hit you over the head with the Bible.
I'd post it, BUT youngest DD (atty) doesn't want performances floating around on FB or other places, so you will have to imagine, but pretty slick script.

Btw, ALDI sold 6 packs of hershey bars for $3.50/pkg last August, $6.50 last Week.
BOO!!!!

Sounds like you raised some pretty wonderful human beings @ducks4you. You must be such a proud mama.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Want the cure for Reese's cups temptation? Read the ingredients! Lol I had a weakness for those at one time. They are SUPER easy to make homemade @Pulsegleaner! If you ever want my mini cup recipe let me know.

I might think about it, but they'd have to be REALLY close. I've tried a ton of alternate brand peanut butter cups, and none of them taste right (they just aren't salty enough). I don't even like Reese's Pieces, since they use a different peanut butter as well.

Fortunately, most of the other things I like are self limiting by virtue of being hard to track down or requiring special trips. If I have a hankering for a Fry's Turkish Delight bar or a pack of Parma Violets, I know I need to go to Mt. Kisco to the Hamlet to get them. Horehound drops mean finding a Michael's (I'm one of those people who eats them for pleasure, not to cure my cough and sore throat.) Herman the German Bavarian Herbal assortment means a trip onto Amazon AND paying a small fortune (it drives me crazy that most of the other Herman the German candies and candy mixes show up regularly at Home Goods, but I only ever found the Herbal there once (when I first discovered it). Neuhaus violet truffles have to wait until either I or my mother can start going to Manhattan again (probably her, as I rarely have the extra money in the Wednesday City budget for those.) A lot of others are gone forever, like Hagensborg's Caramel Truffle Pigs (the company and the pig still exist, but they stopped making the caramel), or those cocktail flavored gummi bears (Jelly Belly Cocktail flavored jelly beans aren't the same, their gin and tonic jellybean is TERRIBLE).

Actually, the first candy I need to learn to make is my own Turkish Delight. Not to save money, but because every version of it is dropping any form I like. I actually LIKE the mint flavor, but despite being one of the traditional triad (rose, lemon, mint) so few modern people care for it that nearly all manufacturers (well, all of those that ship to the U.S. I don't know what the situation is in Turkey itself.) stopped and now pack the rose and lemon on their own. And I like neither of those (the Fry's bar is rose, but it's also about triple the rose strength of any conventional one.) And there's all those niche flavors they tried and then discontinued that tempted me, like the lavender and Ginger People's ginger one (which, unlike most of their products, was pretty mild and non-burny.)

 

[Pulsegleaner]

How about donating extra candy bars to a local nursing home.
Can't tell ME that they don't eat it!

It's different here than it must be near you. This is suburban bordering on urban (remember, I'm only about 30 miles from Manhattan). People here aren't nearly as trusting of others as they probably are in smaller towns. No senior center would accept ANY food that wasn't in it's original packaging (and in this case, "original packaging wouldn't mean the individual wrappers around the candy, it'd mean the original bag the candy was packed in in the factory; whole and unopened.) and without full documentation of where it was gotten from (down to the store and producing the original receipt), and who to contact if something went wrong and someone wanted to sue. It's the same reason I don't try and donate all of the leftover beans after I do a search to one of the local food kitchens, once they were opened, no one could take them for liability reasons.

Unfortunately they would probably also ban them because they don't WANT the residents to be happy. Geriatric care suffers from the same scamming that mental care does, the more people you get into the hospital the more money your facility makes from the state. So it is in their best interest to either get the elderly to die of natural causes as soon as possible (so as to free up more room) or to get them to a state where they actually DO need very profitable for them 24/7 monitoring and care. So they want them as co-dependent and non independent as possible, and so anything that might make them happier or more active is discouraged.

 

[heirloomgal]

I might think about it, but they'd have to be REALLY close. I've tried a ton of alternate brand peanut butter cups, and none of them taste right (they just aren't salty enough). I don't even like Reese's Pieces, since they use a different peanut butter as well.

Fortunately, most of the other things I like are self limiting by virtue of being hard to track down or requiring special trips. If I have a hankering for a Fry's Turkish Delight bar or a pack of Parma Violets, I know I need to go to Mt. Kisco to the Hamlet to get them. Horehound drops mean finding a Michael's (I'm one of those people who eats them for pleasure, not to cure my cough and sore throat.) Herman the German Bavarian Herbal assortment means a trip onto Amazon AND paying a small fortune (it drives me crazy that most of the other Herman the German candies and candy mixes show up regularly at Home Goods, but I only ever found the Herbal there once (when I first discovered it). Neuhaus violet truffles have to wait until either I or my mother can start going to Manhattan again (probably her, as I rarely have the extra money in the Wednesday City budget for those.) A lot of others are gone forever, like Hagensborg's Caramel Truffle Pigs (the company and the pig still exist, but they stopped making the caramel), or those cocktail flavored gummi bears (Jelly Belly Cocktail flavored jelly beans aren't the same, their gin and tonic jellybean is TERRIBLE).

Actually, the first candy I need to learn to make is my own Turkish Delight. Not to save money, but because every version of it is dropping any form I like. I actually LIKE the mint flavor, but despite being one of the traditional triad (rose, lemon, mint) so few modern people care for it that nearly all manufacturers (well, all of those that ship to the U.S. I don't know what the situation is in Turkey itself.) stopped and now pack the rose and lemon on their own. And I like neither of those (the Fry's bar is rose, but it's also about triple the rose strength of any conventional one.) And there's all those niche flavors they tried and then discontinued that tempted me, like the lavender and Ginger People's ginger one (which, unlike most of their products, was pretty mild and non-burny.)

I always learn from your posts @Pulsegleaner! And not just stuff about plants!

So, here's the thing with homemade Reese's cups - there is lots of room for play, so, that means you could perfect the recipe to your exact preferences. My original recipe actually used almond butter in the cups, but that just doesn't do it for me, I use natural PB. And because this is a 'healthier' version the nut butters are unsalted, unsweetened. You add according to your preference for both salt and sweet. But you could use whatever peanut butter you like. And Reese's chocolate is very poor quality (tastes like sugar disguised as chocolate) so you can use the chocolate of your choice, which for you is probably MUCH more gourmet. It's actually fast & easy, you just require some forms for the cups and a brush to brush the form bottoms with the melted chocolate.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I always learn from your posts @Pulsegleaner! And not just stuff about plants!

So, here's the thing with homemade Reese's cups - there is lots of room for play, so, that means you could perfect the recipe to your exact preferences. My original recipe actually used almond butter in the cups, but that just doesn't do it for me, I use natural PB. And because this is a 'healthier' version the nut butters are unsalted, unsweetened. You add according to your preference for both salt and sweet. But you could use whatever peanut butter you like. And Reese's chocolate is very poor quality (tastes like sugar disguised as chocolate) so you can use the chocolate of your choice, which for you is probably MUCH more gourmand. It's actually fast & easy, you just require some forms for the cups and a brush to brush the form bottoms with the melted chocolate.

I think you meant "gourmet". A gourmand is simply someone who eats a lot (I'm that too, unfortunately, but I doubt that that was what you were getting at.) And yes, I probably would, maybe Cote D' Or Noir de Noir (or more likely Cote D' Or Milk, since the double dark one now gives me heartburn*.)

But yeah, with it under my control I could do a lot. I could even swap in stevia for the sugar (I know how to bake with stevia now) so as to make them technically sugar free and a little less guilt inducing (well, I'd still probably feel just as guilty as I considered the fat content, sodium content, psychosomatic sugar spikes from eating anything that even TASTED sweet (or even THINKING about eating such a thing) and my persistent belief that I need to eliminate all forms of pleasure and all desires for pleasure from my life in order to "live correctly", but anyone ELSE in my place would feel less guilty.)

If you're using actual peanut butter, they'd probably also be a lot creamier and gooier (they may call it peanut butter, but the stuff in a Reese's cup is a dry, crumbly, much more solid thing than any peanut butter I know.)

*Cote D' Or (owned by Kraft but made in Belgium to European chocolate standards) has it's own hierarchy. You go from Blanc (white) to Lait (milk) and them you start piling up Noir's (darks). The next standard is Noir de Noir (the double dark) (there IS a single noir dark, and it's my favorite of all of them, but it is very scarce, and, as far as I know, only available in the mignonettes (tiny bars, like what hotels leave on your pillow.) Then it's Noir de Noir Intense (triple) Noir de Noir Brut (quadruple) and Noir de Noir Infiniti (quintuple dark, by now you are at 99% cocoa solids much more than baking chocolate.) And, of course, the flavored ones, like hazelnut, almond and orange peel.

 

[flowerbug]

I always learn from your posts @Pulsegleaner! And not just stuff about plants!

So, here's the thing with homemade Reese's cups - there is lots of room for play, so, that means you could perfect the recipe to your exact preferences. My original recipe actually used almond butter in the cups, but that just doesn't do it for me, I use natural PB. And because this is a 'healthier' version the nut butters are unsalted, unsweetened. You add according to your preference for both salt and sweet. But you could use whatever peanut butter you like. And Reese's chocolate is very poor quality (tastes like sugar disguised as chocolate) so you can use the chocolate of your choice, which for you is probably MUCH more gourmand. It's actually fast & easy, you just require some forms for the cups and a brush to brush the form bottoms with the melted chocolate.

i make a peanut butter, chocolate and cracker combination that i like much better than a Reeses cup or a Twix, just take a simple butter cracker, plain, put some peanut butter on it and then start chewing on a chunk of chocolate until it is mostly melted in your mouth and then put the cracker with peanut butter on it in there too and munch away. easy, quick and not pretty, but it gets the job done. what i like the best about this is that i get to use really good chocolate and the regular peanut butter that i like. you don't really taste the crackers much so they can be saltines or other types, but the plain butter ones are what we have for now.

 

[flowerbug]

at times in the distant past we did make caramel popcorn balls for giving away. too much work really. Mom makes caramel corn now and it's usually got way more caramel than anyone expects, it's often like a slab of caramel with popcorn in it. she just made 12 cookie sheets full of it for sending to some people as a thanks for things that they did for her so it's all gone. thank goodness, it can be a bit addictive for someone with a sweet tooth...

 

[Pulsegleaner]

i make a peanut butter, chocolate and cracker combination that i like much better than a Reeses cup or a Twix, just take a simple butter cracker, plain, put some peanut butter on it and then start chewing on a chunk of chocolate until it is mostly melted in your mouth and then put the cracker with peanut butter on it in there too and munch away. easy, quick and not pretty, but it gets the job done. what i like the best about this is that i get to use really good chocolate and the regular peanut butter that i like. you don't really taste the crackers much so they can be saltines or other types, but the plain butter ones are what we have for now.

Well, I'm the one who used to like to mix Jello Chocolate pudding cups with Chavrie (that soft white goat cheese that comes in the pyramid shaped box.) so I'm in no position to quibble.

 

[heirloomgal]

I think you meant "gourmet". A gourmand is simply someone who eats a lot (I'm that too, unfortunately, but I doubt that that was what you were getting at.) And yes, I probably would, maybe Cote D' Or Noir de Noir (or more likely Cote D' Or Milk, since the double dark one now gives me heartburn*.)

But yeah, with it under my control I could do a lot. I could even swap in stevia for the sugar (I know how to bake with stevia now) so as to make them technically sugar free and a little less guilt inducing (well, I'd still probably feel just as guilty as I considered the fat content, sodium content, psychosomatic sugar spikes from eating anything that even TASTED sweet (or even THINKING about eating such a thing) and my persistent belief that I need to eliminate all forms of pleasure and all desires for pleasure from my life in order to "live correctly", but anyone ELSE in my place would feel less guilty.)

If you're using actual peanut butter, they'd probably also be a lot creamier and gooier (they may call it peanut butter, but the stuff in a Reese's cup is a dry, crumbly, much more solid thing than any peanut butter I know.)

*Cote D' Or (owned by Kraft but made in Belgium to European chocolate standards) has it's own hierarchy. You go from Blanc (white) to Lait (milk) and them you start piling up Noir's (darks). The next standard is Noir de Noir (the double dark) (there IS a single noir dark, and it's my favorite of all of them, but it is very scarce, and, as far as I know, only available in the mignonettes (tiny bars, like what hotels leave on your pillow.) Then it's Noir de Noir Intense (triple) Noir de Noir Brut (quadruple) and Noir de Noir Infiniti (quintuple dark, by now you are at 99% cocoa solids much more than baking chocolate.) And, of course, the flavored ones, like hazelnut, almond and orange peel.

Oh! I thought, for some reason that it meant basically the same thing as gourmet, like a person specializing in refined flavours not just cooking techniques!

Yes, MUCH creamier! I hesitate to say it because it's hard to believe, but the diy version is SO much more delicious.