It’s Halloween and we’re drinking Witches Brew. But if it wasn’t Halloween we could call it Swamp Juice or Bug Juice or make up your own name. Apple juice is a good base…so is lemonade. Pour in some ginger ale or lemon lime soda to give it a kick and fizz. You can add other juices and/or food coloring to make it look eerie. Toss in some gummy worms, gummy fish, or whatever other gummy crawler you may have. You can even freeze some ice cubes of the stuff to make it more interesting. How about  tapioca pearls?

Serve it up with a gummy worm crawling out. Fun in a punch bowl for parties. Best served in clear plastic cups for better viewing.

If you really want to get creative, fill an unused rubber glove with the brew (as a mold) and freeze it so you will have a spooky hand coming out of the pot.

Start with a box of donut holes. Melt white chocolate and coat them. A plastic fork is a good holder for the donut hole. It works better if you baste the donut with the chocolate instead of dipping the donut into the chocolate.

Allow the white coating to harden by placing the donuts on wax paper. Melt chocolate chips and add a dollop of dark chocolate to each hole for the iris.

Use red cake icing to make a squiggly bloodshot effect.

Enjoy.

This is really simple but it can make school lunch time special for your children.

I simply draw on their lunch bags.

My first grader came home today and said “Dad, your pictures in my lunch bag are really cool – all the other kids in first grade just have their names but I had pumpkins today!”

Once again, little touches like these make your child feel special – loved – unique. It doesn’t hurt your reputation with them relative to other kid’s parents wither.

I have a gaggle of girls so I’m always drawing hearts and stars and butterflies and lady bugs on their bags. I’m sure all sorts of balls work for boys or sports minded girls.

When it is Halloween – draw pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, bats, ghosts, black cats, witches. Thanksgiving is turkeys. You get the idea.

When buying school supplies I keep an extra set of markets with the lunch bags for making lunchtime special for my kids.

The picture tells it all. Great for snacks or seasonal parties. Simply cut apple wedges then cut our a mouth slit. For teeth use sliced almonds (and introduce another healthy snack).

We’ve talked about notes in their lunches. We’ve even made our own personalized labels for their water bottles. Here’s an outside-the-box idea I call Banana Art.

Look at a banana and what do you see? You may see a luscious fruit in season whatever your climate thanks to the invention of the air plane.

I see a canvas again.

I see an elephant’s trunk or a prehistoric mastodon or maybe snuffleupagus from Sesame Street.

Just take a pen or a market and get creative.

If your child isn’t a big eater cut the banana in half and give half to two children in a sandwich bag. Make slits in the top where the fruit was cut for easy pealing.

You can write a note instead of drawing. Anything you do says ‘I care” or “you are loved” and “you are part of a family”.

Enough. Here’s the family secret – less is more.

I’ve been to barbeques where the host purchased the finest…the leanest sirloin steak then had it ground for hamburgers. They were not that good. They were dry and rather hard.

My secret is to use average meat. I prefer frozen hamburger patties from Aldi.

See, the leanest meat doesn’t make the most juicy grilled hamburger. It’s the fat that makes the juice and the fat that makes the flames dance. I’m not trying to be cheap. I’m not trying to be unhealthy. Just giving the customers what they want – a juicy grilled burger.

I keep them frozen because they are easier to handle – like hockey pucks. Thawed burgers tend to stick to the grill and fall apart.

Seasoning? That’s up to you. I use garlic salt because garlic always brings out the best flavor in meat and a little season salt -any brand works.

Be prepared for flames and smoke. Have a long handled flipper. This is no place for faint of heart.

Keep pressing down on the burgers to get the fat out.

Enjoy.

Chicken nuggets can be purchased at the grocery store in a variety of shapes including dinosaurs. Paul buries the dinosaurs in rice then gives his junior archeologists spoons and turns them loose at the dig site (a casserole) dish. They can eat all they find. For more fun try to name the kind of dinosaur you find.

Stick uncooked spaghetti into each end of hot dogs. You may need to cut off the rounded ends of the hot doge to get the spaghetti into the dog. Yo can leave as much sticking out that can fit into your pan. Boil until the spaghetti is cooked.

For a variation stick spaghetti into both sides of hot dogs cut into one inch pieces.