DEAD MAN'S DINER THEMED PARTY FOOD.
I had so much fun creating the "oh so disgusting looking" foods for my Dead Man's Diner Party. To be honest, I am very squeemish and hate the sight of real blood. If I cut myself, I get sick to my stomach and have to have someone else clean and dress my wound. My husband was a medic in the army and is my hero whenever I am hurt. So, you might ask yourself, how is it I can create gross looking food? I know it is
just food and I find it challenging to create yummy tasting food that looks gross.
When I sat down to create body part recipes for my party I actually came up with an idea for almost every single body part as well as bodily fluid. Not all the ideas made it onto my party buffet, nor did they all make it into my book. These lungs were one such recipe. I first made them as traditional cheese calzones, which you may choose to do. However, I wanted to share this recipe for Madeira Mushroom filled pasties with you and this filling worked great in these lung calzones. This is a great recipe in any shape!
Ingredients:
8 ounces Cremini mushrooms
8 ounces Shiitaki mushrooms
Olive Oil (2-3 tblsp.)
2 ounces Pancetta
4 tablespoons butter, divided
1 shallot, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 roasted red peppers, diced
3/4 cup Madeira Wine
1/4 cup beef broth
1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
2 tubes Pillsbury (R) Recipe Creations (R) Crescent Seamless Dough Sheet
dusting of flour
1 egg
Instructions:
Clean mushrooms with a damp paper towel. Remove stems from Shiitaki mushrooms. Slice and set aside.
Heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a 12" skillet over medium high heat. Chop Pancetta into small pieces and spinkle in hot pan. Cook, stirring often, until crisp. Note: Make sure your exhaust fan is on as Pancetta will create a lot of smoke as it cooks.
Use a slotted spoon to remove crispy Pancetta from skillet. Drain it on a piece of paper towel. Set aside. In the same hot skillet add 1 tablespoon butter to the pan. As soon as it melts add 4 ounces sliced mushrooms (1/4 of your total.)
Don't crowd the pan and you will get beautifully caramelized mushrooms. Once mushrooms are brown, remove from pan. Add 1-3 tsps. olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter to pan. Add 4 ounces mushrooms. Brown. Repeat until all mushrooms are browned.
Heat one tablespoons olive oil in pan. Add shallot and saute until transluscent. Add garlic and heat for 30 seconds. Add roasted red peppers and browned mushrooms. Stir, then add Madeira wine, beef broth, and balsamic vinegar.
Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer until all of the liquid evaporates. Remove from pan and let cool slightly.
Unroll Pillsbury (R) Recipe Creations (R) Crescent Seamless Dough Sheet onto a lightly floured work surface. Spread 1/2 of the mushroom mixture onto the dough in the shape of a lung. (I cut out a piece of parchment paper in the shape of a lung to use as a guide.)
Fold dough up and over the filling and press to seal edges, removing any excess dough. Lightly beat egg with about a teaspoon of water. Use a pastry brush to brush egg wash over seams. Let egg wash dry.
Now repeat the process making sure you reverse the shape, so you have a left and right lung. (This is where the parchment paper lung shape really helps to make sure you have similar sized lungs.)
Turn a baking sheet upside down and place a piece of parchment paper on top. Use the excess dough to create a long tube. Lay lungs on pan leaving room in between for dough to expand. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Place a baking sheet turned upside down in your oven. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. You can also use a baking stone. The hot pan will create a nice crisp crust on the underside of your calzones.
Use the parchment paper to help you carefully slide your lungs off of one baking sheet onto the one in the oven. Bake for 6-8 minutes until golden brown.
Once baked, carefully slide parchment paper from the hot baking sheet in the oven to a cool one. I use the R.S.V.P. oven spatula to remove my lungs from the parchment lined baking sheet. You can use two large spatulas to lift the lungs to transfer them to a serving platter. I highly recommend buying one of these oven spatulas, as it is my absolute favorite kitchen gadget. I use if to get pizzas out of the oven and I use it to pick up cake layers while I'm frosting a cake. To purchase one of these amazing gadgets, click on this link to go to Amazon.com to make your purchase.
R.S.V.P Endurance Oven and Pizza Spatula
My husband, Jim, and I work for months planning and decorating for our Halloween parties. Last year for our Movie Monster Munchies themed party, we turned our basement into a movie theater complete with walls covered in curtains, a large movie screen, and a ticket booth with zombie ticket takers. In order to hang the curtains, we built a huge frame of PVC pipes and hung black sheets from floor to ceiling. 
A large white sheet became our movie screen and we built a shelf to house a movie projector. We ran classic monster movies during the parties. Store bought Halloween props were added throughout the theater to enhance the creepy ambiance. We really wanted to add a ticket booth and ticket takers and knew we would have to create them ourselves.
We found great instructions for building a human figure out of PVC pipe at Spooky House Productions website. We used their instructions and built our frame. To find these instructions, click on the link below. PVC Frame LINK
We added some extra PVC pipe pieces to the base to create "feet" then we added some volume around the chest by wrapping it in bubble wrap. Pool noodles were used to pad the arms to give them some shape. We cut a hole in the bottom of a store bought zombie head and fit it over the "neck" pipe and did the same with some store bought hands.
The ticket takers needed uniforms but actual uniforms were too expensive, so we bought these Mr. VIP Valet costumes. A few changes was all it took to make these costumes the perfect fit. We removed the name badge and reworked the hat by cutting off the rim so it looked like a pill box hat. Black pants were attached by suspenders (ribbon and pins) and black shoes purchased from a thrift store made the outfit complete. If you would like to purchase these costumes for your ticket takers, click this link. Men's Mr. VIP Valet Costume
posters were hung on the walls of the stairway leading down into the Catacomb Cinemas. Our theater entrance was marked by this 5' long sign. I designed it and printed it on copy paper and had it enlarged at my local 
copy shop. It was mounted on cardboard and hung at the bottom of our basement stairs. I wanted the sign to look like it was lit up so I painted it with glow in the dark paint and illuminated it with a black light. 
All of our guests enjoyed hanging out in the theater. We showed classic monster movies to the adults, classic Halloween cartoons to the kids and horror movies to the teens. We were so happy with how our theater turned out and were so glad our guests loved it too! 
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