Caite's Kitchen

Goblins, ghosts, and ghouls, oh my! It's that time of year for dressing up and eating tons of candy and sweet treats. And it just happens to be one of my favorite times of the year! I mean who doesn't love decorating the house all spooky, dressing up, and scaring their children silly?! This weekend was filled with carving pumpkins, getting costumes ready, and making a favorite sweet treat - melted witches. I can't remember where I first saw this years ago, but they are adorable and super yummy! They are so memorable, in fact, that the kiddos remembered this treat despite not having made them for years and were very excited to have them this year! It is our tradition to have chili for Halloween dinner, as it can be warm in the crock pot ready to eat after trick-or-treating, which is much needed as it is always super cold here in Colorado on Halloween. It's kind of an unspoken rule that you make sure your costumes either are a little too big to put layers underneath

So this past week was full of meals I have already shared - did I mention my family loves them? - and this left me racking my brain for something to share with you all. Then I discovered some bananas I had gotten were left uneaten and past the point of no return, so there's only one thing to do with them - make banana bread! This happens to be a family favorite, so there were no complaints about this. Now the recipe I have is not my own, it comes from my great-grandmother, but I've made one little adjustment that everyone agrees makes it that much more yummy - the addition of brown sugar. Whenever I make this bread, I feel connected to my great-grandmother, whom I affectionately nicknamed Great. Because of this, I happened to be her favorite great-grandchild and she let me get away with all sorts of things, like jumping on her bed. My memories of her are very few as she passed when I was only 4, but eating, and now making, this banana bread always brings back such fond memo

Well this past week has been a whirlwind of emotions - celebrated the last birthday of the year, went to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, and then found out a dear family member passed away after a long, hard battle. Needless to say, I'm drained and glad to only have the holidays left in the year. The birthday we celebrated was for our youngest daughter and she just hit double digits, agh how has it been 10 years already?! This was the year of the unicorn, lol, and almost everything she wanted from her cake to presents was unicorn. On top of that, she wanted a cake red velvet with cream cheese frosting, which I have never made, so that was a little daunting. Her dinner menu was fairly simple, broccoli cheddar soup with bread bowls, so with that the birthday menu was complete. The cake came out just as she wanted and was "the best read velvet cake ever", so that was the biggest success. Make this for your unicorn enthusiast and they will be sure to love it! What'