Arachnophobia

for our fall backyard movie night I chose Arachnophobia.  I hadn't seen this movie since I was a kid!  I remember being a little scared when I first saw it, and it still has its creepy feeling when all the real spiders are running around, but it was pretty corny, so that was fun!

I did a big no-no and tried stuff I hadn't done for a crowd before.  I never have good luck when I just throw together an idea for a recipe, especially for a party.  I will test a recipe out until we're sick of it so I know how to do it, but this time I just threw caution to the wind and hoped for the best, and if it didn't work out I had Matt's corn dogs to fall back on, but it all came together great :)

while I have made beer pretzels before, I only did 8.  I made 24 this time, and set out a bunch of dipping sauces - a variety of mustards, "cheese" sauce, caramel, and chocolate - they doubled as a savory and a sweet treat.  it's a nice little versatile "snack" :)

I made Rolo pretzel spiders which is not quite a first time "recipe" either, but I took a chance that they would turn out in a nice spider configuration, and they did :)  I tried melting the Rolo and sticking the pretzels in, but that didn't work so I used candy melts to glue the legs to the candy.  chocolate and pretzels seem to be a hit combination at movie night so I'm glad I did them.

a new thing I did that I hadn't tested out before was kettle corn.  I used coconut oil and bacon drippings, stirred in some sugar and salt with the popcorn kernels and shook it all together on the stove in a big pot until it was done.  this one didn't come out as awesome as I thought it would, but it was okay.  some people really liked it so I'm happy I tried it.

Harlan & Hailey                                                  Judy and Kathy

Reagan, David, and Dad                              Larry, Marie & Joel

Kim, Amanda & Michael                                           Matt & me

Hailey, Kim, Amanda and me                 Matt making corn dogs

Marie and me                         Dad with a spider on his shoulder

Marie and Jack                                   Pawpaw making Leo "fly"

Leo waiting to have a pretzel                                Mom and Jack

the weather was nice, the food turn out great, the new speakers sounded wonderful and everyone enjoyed themselves :)  another success!

soft beer pretzels!

on Hilah's Texas Kitchen she shows how to make soft beer pretzels.  I wasn't sure they'd be all that great because I've never had luck with homemade stuff like this in the past, but I was surprised!

I used Honey Brown Lager in mine.  I don't know how much the brand impacts the flavor because I couldn't taste it after they were baked, but I'd like to think it made them extra awesome.  Leo and Jack liked them as well.

they're best when they're fresh out of the oven, so we ate them smothered in caramel and nuts and powdered sugar the next day when they lost a little something while sitting all night and had that pruned look to them.  the salt absorbed up the moisture from the bread and they were a little soggy, but when they had sugary goodness all over them ya didn't notice!

these will be added to our backyard movie night recurring menu for sure - yay!