ISO Halloween appetizers

Anyone have a favorite Halloween appetizer? I'm going to a Halloween party as part of my MOM's group on Friday and am taking witches wands (chocolate covered prezel sticks with sprinkles) and thought I'd take an appetizer too. :)

ISO: Thanksgiving sides in the crock pot

Calling out into the great unknown that is the interwebz: My inlaws are hosting Thanksgiving this year instead of me, because we are all going to IN to gather one more time as a family before a cousin moves to Europe with his family. My mother in law wants to do most of the cooking and I said I'd help, but she only has one oven and the bird will be taking over that most of the day. So, if anyone has any tried/true tasty crock pot recipes for the traditional thanksgiving fixings, please let me know.

My mother in law already has a green bean casserole one, it's similar to the traditional one just like 3x the amount of beans and less liquid:beans ratio. I already have a mashed potatoes one that is pretty good, just have to dig it up.

So we need:
Sweet potatoes
corn pudding (my thanksgiving favorite)
any others you may have that are worthy :)

My father in law will cook the bird and usually stuffs it, I can probably do some stove top stuffing on the stove for just regular stuffing, but if anyone has a good crock stuffing recipe please share.

An apple dessert may be good too, an aunt plans to bring pumpkin pie I believe, another a veggie tray, and another a fruit salad, and I plan to do appetizers.

more apple adventures

I found an apple butter recipe in my favorite Betty Crocker cookbook today so I gave that a whirl. Was pretty easy and smells nice and seasoned.

Now that I have almost 4 cups of apple butter, I'd better keep cooking with that ;) lol. May try this sometime in the next 3 weeks (its shelf life in the fridge). Grilled Turkey with honey apple glaze.

Let me know if you have a good recipe that calls for apple butter now ;) I may be set for regular apple recipes, as after tonight's pork roast I'll only have a few left.

Apple Butter (from memory, if its not 100% I'll come back and tweak it)

4lbs of apples, peeled, quartered and core removed
1 1/4 cup apple juice (I used cider)
1 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cloves

Put everything in a large dutch oven. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer and cover, stirring occasionally. Simmer one hour. Mash up apples with masher or fork. Return to stove and simmer uncovered for one hour, or until nice and thick. Remove from heat, cool 2 hours, then place in containers and can be kept in in fridge for up to 3 weeks.

Kathleen's 2nd Birthday

I am entertaining the idea of making cupcakes for Kathleen's 2nd birthday instead of buying a cake from Sweet & Savory (though their cakes are soooo good). Tricia sent me this cookie monster cupcake recipe awhile ago, I may have to try them. The only thing that concerns me is the blue frosting all over two 2 year olds (her and Joey) ;) so I'm going to still poke around and see what inspires me ;) I've seen cute monkey ones before where you use round pretzels for ears on the cupcakes... so who knows. Or the lure of the mousse filling in the sweet and savory cake may lure me into their bakery. That and they have bumpy cake cupcakes. If you're not from Michigan, this is a bumpy cake. Evil. Imagine a cupcake like that ;)