When else can you serve “bloody fingers” or “wormy” apples and get away with it? From a Cheesenstein appetizer to ideas for mountains of leftover candy, we’ve got an all-star lineup of spooky, slimy and scary recipes for Halloween.
Frankenstein Monster Toe Cookies
Healthy Halloween alternatives
Halloween, which is steadily catching up to Christmas as themajor American holiday, is around the corner, which means theHalloween recipes have come out of hiding. Gnarled witches’fingers. Edible eyeballs. Cat litter for dessert. No doubt aboutit, Halloween recipes are fun. When else can you serve “bloodyfingers” or “wormy” apples and get by with it?
One problem with so many of these recipes is that they’re sweet.That’s not a big deal if you’re hosting a Halloween party andserving desserts instead of candy, but if your kids are luggingaround pounds of candy from another party or a trick-or-treatingjaunt, the last things you need to serve them are cookies and gooeytreats.
Children have good imaginations, so making savory, “spooky”treats is easy, especially for younger kids. Here are some ideas toget you started.
- Drained pear halves are naturally skull-shaped. Add raisins foreyes and teeth (actually, the spaces between the teeth) and acouple of thin crossed celery stalks (the pale inside stalks workbest) for “crossbones.”
- Anything round and topped with orange Cheddar cheese-an Englishmuffin, a cracker, a hamburger patty-can portray a jack-o-lantern.Use a bit of green pepper for the stem and red peppers and olivesfor the face.
- Fold about four feet of foil lengthwise into thirds. Shape thefolded foil into a ghost shape, crimping the ends together. Placeon a cookie sheet and pour popped popcorn into the foil “pan” tomake a ghost. For the eyes and mouth, use black olives, drained andpatted dry, pieces of chocolate cookie, or unwrapped chocolatekisses (upside down).
- Pimiento-stuffed olives cut in half make natural “eyeballs.”Put them in deviled eggs (the yolk part is the “iris”), or insertthem into turkey or lean beef meatballs, then bake the meatballs,”eyes” sides up.
- Ants on a log? Make spiders instead. Fill celery sticks withcream cheese or peanut butter. Place two or three dark raisins onthe filling in each piece of celery and make legs with skinny blacklicorice cut into short bits, or with black icing gel if you can’tabide the idea of licorice and peanut butter in such closeproximity.
