$2 Halloween Project
Posted on 2008-10-09 [direct link] Tags: Cashmoney Halloween.
Halloween can be a lot of fun, especially if you have kids around, but in the last few years it has spiraled into a spending frenzy... and spending frenzies are nothing like as much fun as a homemade project. So this year all my Halloween props are going to be kid friendly family projects and largely homemade.
My first experiment is a ghastly treat bowl to ward off any neighborhood marauders on the night.
The basic ingredients are food dye (15p / 26¢) and half a pack of cheap spaghetti (50p / 85¢). Yippee, we're already so far under budget that I can (almost) do two colours for my $2... I picked green and red as the most horrific options available.
Step 1 is to boil a large pan of water and add the food dye. I poured in the whole bottle becuase I'm reckless and wanted to get into the mad scientist vibe more fully. I suggest using metal utencils if you want to avoid staining, stirring with the family heirloom wooden spool is probably an error.
Once you've over-cooked the pasta then Step 2 is to drain it. I'd normally bang on about pasta needing to be cooked for exactly the right amount of time and how its supposed to retain a firmness (al dente) but in this case boiling the hell out of it works better.
Red looks great too. A mixture of green and red (prepared separately) could get you the honor of being known to all the local kids as the weirdo who took Halloween too far and frightened little jimmy to death. Which would be a good thing to be known for. Step 3 is to coat the strands in a strong detergent and water mixture. I used about 10% household washing-up liquid. This makes the spaghetti very slippery and also slightly seals it so it doesn't dry out quite as fast.
Step 4 is to sling it in a bowl and hide lots of (wrapped!) treats at the bottom. Then pour the rest of your goo mix over it and maybe a few glow sticks if (like me) you happen to be the kind of guy that has tubes of them lying around going off.
I think that a big bucket full of this would really give the trick-or-treaters a kick, especially if you've buried some decent goodies at the bottom. The texture is really gross and nothing like you'd expect from pasta. Get them to close their eyes and tell them that the treats are buried in cats' guts for extra squeals. I did the trial run mainly to check that it didn't stain your hands, and indeed it didn't on my mix. For Halloween parties you'd want to make bigger volumes, but at roughly $1 a pound you can't go too far wrong.
More $2 experiments in the next 3 weeks ...
Posted on 2008-10-09 [direct link] Tags: Cashmoney Halloween.
Halloween can be a lot of fun, especially if you have kids around, but in the last few years it has spiraled into a spending frenzy... and spending frenzies are nothing like as much fun as a homemade project. So this year all my Halloween props are going to be kid friendly family projects and largely homemade.
My first experiment is a ghastly treat bowl to ward off any neighborhood marauders on the night.
The basic ingredients are food dye (15p / 26¢) and half a pack of cheap spaghetti (50p / 85¢). Yippee, we're already so far under budget that I can (almost) do two colours for my $2... I picked green and red as the most horrific options available.
Step 1 is to boil a large pan of water and add the food dye. I poured in the whole bottle becuase I'm reckless and wanted to get into the mad scientist vibe more fully. I suggest using metal utencils if you want to avoid staining, stirring with the family heirloom wooden spool is probably an error.
Once you've over-cooked the pasta then Step 2 is to drain it. I'd normally bang on about pasta needing to be cooked for exactly the right amount of time and how its supposed to retain a firmness (al dente) but in this case boiling the hell out of it works better.
Red looks great too. A mixture of green and red (prepared separately) could get you the honor of being known to all the local kids as the weirdo who took Halloween too far and frightened little jimmy to death. Which would be a good thing to be known for. Step 3 is to coat the strands in a strong detergent and water mixture. I used about 10% household washing-up liquid. This makes the spaghetti very slippery and also slightly seals it so it doesn't dry out quite as fast.
Step 4 is to sling it in a bowl and hide lots of (wrapped!) treats at the bottom. Then pour the rest of your goo mix over it and maybe a few glow sticks if (like me) you happen to be the kind of guy that has tubes of them lying around going off.
I think that a big bucket full of this would really give the trick-or-treaters a kick, especially if you've buried some decent goodies at the bottom. The texture is really gross and nothing like you'd expect from pasta. Get them to close their eyes and tell them that the treats are buried in cats' guts for extra squeals. I did the trial run mainly to check that it didn't stain your hands, and indeed it didn't on my mix. For Halloween parties you'd want to make bigger volumes, but at roughly $1 a pound you can't go too far wrong.
More $2 experiments in the next 3 weeks ...
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[2008-10-09 at 18:10 (updated 3 times)]
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