Halloween Spectacular

Opting for the low-key All Hallows Eve, we gathered together for a simple dinner.. my part: spaghetti and meatballs. I was going to use bottled sauce, but on Amanda's suggestion, opted for a homemade version with canned tomatoes, garlic and basil. The recipe was inspired from: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Spaghetti-Sauce-III/Detail.aspx but was modified with meatballs instead of just cooked ground beef. I also added caramelized onions, sauteed zucchini, summer squash, and mushrooms instead of the canned mushrooms called for in the recipe.

I generally don't like my homemade sauce because it tastes very acidic-like.. like raw tomato. But this recipe calls for simmering the sauce for 1 hour (I actually simmered it for A LOT longer while waiting for everyone to show up)..which made that raw canned tomato taste disappear. The resulting sauce was.. well.. saucy, which is an excellent outcome in my book!

Add to this meal some glorious shrimp and cheese bread, garlic bread, and Gorgonzola and nut squash, we had a spectacular Halloween feast! To top it off, Tad brought pumpkin pie and Suee brought cupcakes-- spooky Howl-O-Ween Cupcakes (pictured above). The werewolf cupcakes were delicious!

And of course, to accompany, what better way to celebrate the fall season than pumpkin beer! I decided to find a bunch of varieties so that we could do a side-by-side comparison...

Alas we drank to much to tell! Bwahahahaha, Happy Halloween Indeed!