The Highs and Lows of Halloween

I would rather start on the high points of this Halloween weekend just gone, but unfortunately the most significant event was also the most sombre. 😦 Do you recall Burt, the rat I introduced in my last post? Well.. he is no longer with us. He had a really long seizure on the night of Halloween and didn’t wake up.

Burton, nomming on some food he probably stole! (on the left)

He was such a little character, the more affectionate and snuggly of the two boys.. I loved him dearly. We wrapped his body in cloth and sealed in a box and let him off into the river – we don’t have a spade and there are foxes around here that will dig up anything if it’s not buried deep enough. I am so grateful for the time I had with him (he was only 8 months old – their lifespan is usually 2-3 years) and for the support of my housemates who were also pretty attached to him. His brother, Bailey, is left behind and already pining for him… as an only child rat he’ll be featured on my blog a fair bit now.

Now onto the happy…

Friday afternoon I made some festive raw gingerbread fudge babies! (Recipe by Katie) Yes, I finally got around to it. And they were SO worth the wait! I nearly destroyed our little handheld mixer along the way; it made a valiant effort but took about half an hour to blend the dates and almonds, nearly overheating and exploding in the process! My Christmas Wish List definitely includes a Magic Bullet Mixer.

I topped the finished product with a little twist of my own – vanilla almond omega crunch! EDIT: Since I’ve used this recipe over and over I’ve given it a post all of it’s own, here.

In the evening some friends came over and we hung out – this involved some spooky Halloween cocktails… most of which tasted as bad as they looked! But that was beside the point, we had loads of fun trying to create the most Halloween-y looking one.

I also made the boys sample my fudge babies without telling them what they were:

“They taste like they should’ve been cooked a bit longer” — The verdict of Ant, Allin and James… But once I informed them they are supposed to be raw they changed their tune and declared them “unusual but quite good!” 😆

Ant tries a gingerbread fudge baby..

Harry, on the other hand, is a true foodie and LOVED them from the start. He said he could imagine putting little balls of the mix into ice-cream with some dark chocolate coated stem ginger chunks. I love that we’re on the same wavelength there, it sounds like heaven to me!!

We all went out for dinner at a Chinese buffet, chosen because they claim to avoid MSG. What they lack in MSG, they made up for in grease, so it was a little disappointing. Then onto the cinema to get our scary movie on – SAW 3D. It was gruesome alright… I won’t go into detail in case anyone plans to watch it, but it was the perfect Halloween choice.

Saturday involved eating out again – this time with the lovely ladies and gents of my school’s Mixed Hockey club. Dressing up was optional, but I’m always up for it and went as a black cat! Did you dress up for Halloween? What did you go as?

Well spotted, I’m the one in the middle!

The food was very good but I didn’t make the healthiest of choices – I have a philosophy of never ordering stuff I can easily make at home, so I went with deep fried brie with cranberry sauce (I refuse to deep fry anything at home) and pizza capricciosa (artichoke and egg rarely feature on my own pizzas). No-one batted an eyelid at me taking photos of my food 🙂 Does anyone get funny looks/questions when taking pictures in public?

The amount of alcohol I consumed over the course of the evening became clear when I woke up the next morning with a stinking hangover. 😦 My problem is stopping after a ‘reasonable’ amount; by the time I’m tipsy, I just want to keep drinking. So I have decided to stop drinking until 10th January 2011.

One of Allin’s friends was visiting and wanted to go buy an iPhone so we walked to Canary Wharf. While they played with electrical gadgets, I stocked up on treats from Waitrose – Crunchy Peanut Butter Clif Bars and Bounce ‘Defense Boost’ Balls, and indulged in a Krispy Kreme doughnut.

The evening was pretty much dominated by Burt’s passing and we gave him a send off by the river Thames at about 10pm. Rest in Peace little rattie…