What a fun time we had for our second Halloween in Indonesia – decorating, pumpkin carving, and trick or treating!
Halloween Decorations
Restraining myself, I waited until mid-October to pull out the Halloween decorations! I reused many of the items from our Harry Potter birthday party, taped paper bats to the windows, hung a black feather wreath on the front door, and pulled out my spider web door mat and skeleton dishes that I picked up at Kirklands last year, while I was in the U.S. (squeezing everything into my suitcases!)
We made a special trip to the fancy grocery store in search of a pumpkin for carving – and we felt so lucky when we found one! We took it home and carved it the very next day. My Indonesian colleague was so intrigued with this real pumpkin that looked just like my fake Halloween pumpkins!! I showed her how we scooped out the insides…this one was definitely real!
I even used an actual recipe to roast the pumpkin seeds. I’ve never added more than just oil and salt, but this time I added garlic powder, pepper, and some chili powder (I was out of the paprika that the recipe called for). They turned out quite nice.
Pumpkin Carving
Trick or Treating
The neighbors stopped in after the kids were done trick or treating and I whipped up a pitcher of my ‘go to’ red wine sangria – it really fit the Halloween theme, a Texas Sheet cake – enough chocolate cake for a crowd – with purple and orange confetti sprinkles on top! I love this butter toffee popcorn recipe. I made two batches. The first batch was crispy, buttery, and delicious. Unfortunately, it was late when I made the second batch. I took the tray out of the oven to cool, and went to bed. When I got up the next morning, the popcorn went soft – the humidity here was just too much. I did put the popcorn in a ziplock bag with a slice of bread, to see if that would help…but it didn’t.
Well, we couldn’t have ALL sweets, so we also had the Pioneer Woman’s Nachos. I made these for my dad for dinner last summer (I told him it was taco salad!) and he could not get enough of them! I had the same reaction here on Halloween. My neighbors gobbled them up! This recipe is definitely a keeper!
We also had the roasted pumpkin seeds, fresh watermelon slices, and ice-cold lemonade for the thirsty trick or treaters.
Our second Halloween in Indonesia will be hard to top next year!!