The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Official Cookbook & Entertaining Guide is one of my favorite cookbooks that I’ve checked out this year. Over 50 recipes and the added four parties of “ghoulish delights” makes this a must-have for any NBC fan.
Recipes
The book starts out with the usual assortment of recipe sections: snacks, starters & sides, entrees, desserts, and drinks. There is also a measurement conversion chart section. What I like about the drinks section is the drinks are all non-alcoholic but the writers did throw in a few tips if you want to booze up your beverage. There are gluten-free, sugar-free, and vegetarian options so you have something to serve all your guests.
Recipes include the Sally Patchwork Layer Cake, Oogie Boogie Lemon Meringue Cupcakes, Homemade Marshmallow Zero Dogs, Man-Eating Wreath Burritos, Worm’s Wort and Frog’s Breath Soup, and so much more.
The recipes are easy to read and with the exception of a couple of recipes, they don’t pack too much into each step. They also include how much each recipe yields and the difficulty level.
One thing I would have liked to see was the prep and cook times on each recipe. In my fantasy, each recipe will also include an estimated “clean up” time. A person can dream though, right?
For this review, my husband picked out three of his favorites that he discovered. Sally Cauldron Potpies, Jack Skellington Apple Hand Pies, and Vampire Brothers Bloody Party Punch.
We did a little substituting for the pot pie. We wanted to have chicken in ours so we added pre-cooked Perdue chicken strips and I’m not a fan of carrots so we kicked those to the curb. The best part of the pot pie though was easily the homemade crust. I could eat that by itself. Yummy.
The Jack Skellington Apple Hand Pies called for making your own apple filling and it worked out ok. It wasn’t as sweet as we would have liked so the second time my husband made them, we used apple pie filling and that gave it a little sweeter flavor. Again, the pastry part was homemade and it was both fun to make as well as delicious.
The last recipe we made was the Vampire Brothers Bloody Party Punch. It looked like a smoothie but definitely tasted like a punch. We had a hard time finding the blood orange soda that it called for (and when we did find it, it was uber expensive) so we used regular orange soda instead.
Did You Say Party?
There are four themed parties to inspire your next shindig. Each party section is divided up by invitations, decor, crafts and favors, activities, and a menu.
The four parties are: “This is Halloween” party, The Nightmare Before Christmas party, birthday party, and Zero the Dog summer bbq party.
I found the parties to be well organized and easy to navigate each section. Nothing was way out in left-field so to speak in terms of difficulty. I think these parties are legit easy to do.
If you are a fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas you need to check out this book for the coming holiday season. You won’t be disappointed in what you will discover. Available wherever books are sold. Retails for $29.99 (currently $19.53 on Amazon).
Disclaimer: GeekMom was given a review copy.
