Last night, Wyatt and I had the blessing of having my best friend and her fiance over for dinner. It was our first time cooking for others in our little apartment (other than breakfast or dessert of something small like that) and I admit I was a little nervous because we don’t really have an open kitchen so it’s hard to talk to people while we’re cooking. Still, it was super fun to have them over for good conversation and good food.

(Is it wrong for me to call my own food good like that? I don’t think so…)

We had burgers topped with blue cheese butter (that I made), bacon, lettuce, and tomatoes, twice baked potatoes, and baked zucchini fries. (You’ve seen several of these recipes before, so I’m not going to worry about pictures and recipes, except for this one.)

I used the last of my fresh pumpkin I roasted (read about that adventure here) instead of the canned puree that the recipe calls for. And I didn’t use toffee bits to top them, I used a little pumpkin cookie mix I had leftover from the crust of the four layer pumpkin dessert I made and some pumpkin pie spice. I also substituted the ginger and nutmeg with pumpkin pie spice.

And I admit I used canned cream cheese frosting and added, real maple syrup (more than it called for), vanilla, and a pinch of salt to make my frosting. I wanted to make the real stuff, but I already had the cream cheese frosting and I wanted to get it out of my cabinet. Don’t judge me.

Also, I used my little mini cupcake maker I got last year from Christmas.

It makes the cupcakes a bit more dense, but still pretty good.

But they are super yummy when they come out. And hot. Watch out, they’ll burn you.

And I got to use my pretty serving platter. Liz, my best friend, said they looked like something from Martha Stewart. I don’t know about that, but it made me feel good, none the less.

Needless to say, I’ll be making these again. Maybe for my family for thanksgiving, if they’re lucky.

Oh, and in case you haven’t had enough of Halloween yet, I wanted to show you some more pictures of our Halloween parties.

Here’s my friend Liz and her fiance. At Halloween party number 1.

They’re Jack and Sally from Nightmare before Christmas.

At party number 2, Drew Woolery, our host, had a photo booth set up. So there were tons of crazy awesome pictures. Here’s some to share with you guys. (Thanks, Drew, for letting me post your photos!)

It was a fun time.

Perhaps a bit too much fun for the little one…

There was lots of creative costumes.

And of course, your newlyweds…

Anyway, I have more stuff to share with you guys, so be on the lookout for more posts to come soon!

Don’t forget about the opportunity to ask us questions (Yes, US, Wyatt said he would answer questions, too!) so we can all get to know each other better!