HALLOWEEN SANDWICHES
For the filling, mix softened cream cheese with black or orange food coloring until smooth. Place the filling between two slices of any dark or white bread. Cut out different Halloween shapes with cookie cutters, such as bats, ghosts, Jack-O-Lanterns, witches, or RIP tombstones. You can add any flavoring to the mixture to give it a better taste. Serve them to your guests on a festive black or orange platter.
BATS
Use the largest colossal black olives you can purchase. Drain them well. Paint some blue tortilla chips black with food coloring paste and use two chips per one whole black olive. Insert the chips into the sides of the olive to make wings. For the head and legs insert a strip of red bell pepper about 1 inch longer than the olive into the hollow part of the front of the black olive centering it. Place on a platter and serve.
TROLL CHEESE BALL
Mix 2 large packages softened cream cheese with 4 Tbsp. milk. Add 1 large pkg. any grated cheese you like, 1 tsp. garlic powder, and 1 tsp. onion powder. Mix well. Mix in a few drops of green food coloring or any color you think a troll might be. Shape the mixture into a ball and chill until firm. Once it is chilled make sure it is in a round ball shape, then begin to decorate your monster head. Paint two tortilla chips with green food coloring and insert on sides for his ears. Use two large green or black olives stuffed with pimentoes for his eyes. Use red bell pepper strips for his eyebrows. Use a long yellow banana pepper for his nose. Use candy corn for his teeth. Place giant black olives at the front and back of the cheese ball for his feet. Stuff each olive with a pointed strip of red bell pepper for his long nails. Keep chilled until one hour before time to serve. Then place assorted crackers around the cheese ball and serve.
EYEBALLS
Boil 6 eggs until hard boiled in water. Peel and slice them in half lengthwise. Add a sliced olive, either black or green stuffed with a pimento, to the middle area to make the pupil of the eye, and place them on a platter to serve.
Use bought cupcakes frosted with white vanilla frosting, then place one of those bloodshot-looking candy jawbreakers in the center of each one to look like a big eyeball. Kids love these!
You can peel some red and green grapes, and stick one sliced almond in the middle with a toothpick and serve them chilled.
FINGERS
Use a package of breadsticks. Cut each piece into finger-sized pieces. Brush each finger with a beaten egg, sprinkle on some garlic powder, and on the tip place a sliced almond for a fingernail. You could also use candy corn or half of a black olive for the fingernails. Bake at 400 degrees until golden.
Buy a package of lady fingers and use them as fingers. You can dab a bit of frosting on one end and stick a sliced almond on it to make a fingernail.
BLOODY TOES
Buy a package of Schwan's mini corn dogs and microwave them. Place them on a black platter. Remove the top end of each mini corn dog to make the area look like a toenail. Put ketchup all around the toenail area to make it look like a bloody toenail.
CONGEALED CRYSTAL BALL
Use a clear round bowl and fill it up with lemon jello or white grape jello mixed according to directions on the box. When beginning to chill and set, add a can of cosmic pineapple, drained, to the jello and let chill until firm. Unmold it onto a platter of green lettuce leaves. Have someone dress up to be the Fortune Teller, and use this to tell people's fortunes until it's time to eat it. Don't tell anyone anything bad, just make up nice things to tell them.
BABY SPINACH, TOMATO HEARTS, AND MOZZARELLA WORMS SALAD
Tear off the stems of the pre-washed baby spinach leaves and lay some of them on a salad plate for each guest. Add a few cherry tomatoes then top with long strands of grated mozzarella cheese. Serve.
BREAD BONES
Use a can of breadsticks from the dairy case. Make each one in whatever lengths you choose or you can make them in various lengths. They can be rolled into long ropes of dough just by rolling them between your hands. Tie each end in a knot before baking them. Bake on a cookie sheet at 400 degrees until golden. Serve warm with soft garlic butter. You can easily make garlic butter by adding some garlic powder or minced garlic to a stick of soft butter and mixing well. How much garlic you use is up to your own taste.
MERINGUE BONES
3 large eggwhites
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1/8 tsp. salt
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. In a glass bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the eggwhites with the cream of tartar and salt until stiff. Add sugar and vanilla and mix well. Place mixture in a plastic bag. With kitchen scissors, snip off a tiny spot on one corner. Pipe mixture out in the shape of bones onto the parchment paper. Bake for one hour at 200 degrees. Turn off the oven, and let them remain in there for another hour. Makes about 3 dozen bones.
INTESTINES
In a pot of hot water, boil enough spaghetti or linguine to feed your guests. Drain. Pour on a jar of heated spaghetti sauce and mix well. Top with some grated parmesan cheese. Pour in a deep bowl and serve warm.
MAGGOTS AND FLIES
Cook some Orzo mixed with some dark raisins and serve as a Halloweeen side dish.
VAMPIRE'S BLOOD
Pour two 46 oz. cans V-8 juice or tomato juice into a large punch bowl. Add worcestershire sauce and hot sauce to suit your own taste, if desired. Add a ladle and some cups and serve. This will be thick like blood, so the kids love it!
Or just serve chilled red grape juice, Pomegranate juice, Hawaiian Punch, Cherry Kool-Aid, or Cranberry Juice in disposable goblets. Any red drink will do.
GREEN BILE
Juice 4 whole cucumbers in a juicer. Pour the juice into a large clear glass pitcher. Add 1 tsp. lime Kool-Aid powder, and 1/2 cup sugar. Fill the pitcher with pure water. Add ice cubes, and stir well to mix everything. Serve. This is a very cool drink that goes well with hot and spicy recipes, like Chicken Wings, which you could easily make by marinating chicken wings in equal parts Tabasco sauce and melted butter, then baking them in the same mixture at 400 degrees until done.
BIG SPIDERS
Melt some chocolate candy melts, stirring until smooth. Add some chopped nuts and chow mein noodles. Drop onto waxed paper by Tablespoonsful. Add 8 more chow mein noodles to each spider for its legs (4 on each side), then let harden and serve. You can also use these to top some frosted cupcakes. Use mini red or yellow colored chocolate chips for the spider's eyes.
GHOSTS GRAVEYARD
In a 13 X 9 clear glass baking dish, make one 2-inch deep layer of prepared vanilla pudding tinted green, orange, or black with food paste or just use chocolate pudding instead. Bury some gummy worms in the pudding. Sprinkle Oreo cookie crumbs over this. Add some Nutter Butter Cookies that have been frosted with vanilla frosting to make ghosts and stick them down into the mixture. Add 2 red hots or 2 mini chocolate chips for the eyes on each ghost rising up. Stick some Milano cookies into the area with R.I.P. printed on them with decorating gel for tombstones.
PUMPKIN CAKE
Bake two identical bundt cakes and frost them with orange frosting, (you can use vanilla frosting colored with red and yellow food coloring to make orange,) laying the two flat sides together and putting frosting in between each to hold them together. Use candy corn to decorate the face. Add a large green gum drop to the top for the stem, or use some ready-made green fondant to create the stem and leaves.
PUMPKIN CUPCAKES
Bake cupcakes, then frost them with orange frosting. You can use canned white frosting with red and yellow food coloring mixed into it. Decorate the tops with candy corn to represent the eyes, nose, and mouth as desired.
WITCHES HAT CAKE
Bake one round cake layer for the brim of the hat. Bake another layer to cut out graduated sized circles to make the hat appear cone-shaped in the center. Frost with chocolate frosting. For the top point of the hat, use a cone-shaped ice cream cone that is frosted with chocolate frosting. Smooth out any rough areas with more frosting. For the hat band, use fruit roll ups cut into the necessary sized strip to go all the way around your hat in a bold color. Place candy corn around the edge to decorate it.
MASHED POTATO GHOSTS
Make mashed potatoes as you would normally, but put them in a sturdy plastic bag. Snip off one corner, and pipe the ghosts out onto a black platter, letting each one stand upright on its own. The base will be larger than the top of each ghost. Use small bits of black olives for the eyes on each ghost. Runny mashed potatoes will not work for this recipe.
GREEN SLIME MOUSSE
In a blender place one large can drained pineapple slices. Liquify on high. Add to one large container Cool Whip. Mix in 1 can Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk and 3 Tbsp. lemon or lime juice. Add a few drops of green food coloring. Mix until smooth and blended. Pour into individual ramikens. Chill and serve.
SPIDER WEBS
1-1/2 cups self-rising flour
1/2 cup sugar or Splenda
1 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 cup milk
1 large egg, beaten
1 Tbsp. vanilla
black or orange food coloring
This is a Halloween version of funnel cakes.
Mix all the ingredients well. Put mixture into a sturdy plastic bag, pushing out all the air. Snip off one tiny corner of the bag. To a skillet, pour about two inches of vegetable oil in it, and let it get hot over medium heat. Squirt out small strands of the dough mixture into the hot oil going around in circles then make an X through it like it's a connected spider web. Fry until golden brown on both sides, then drain on white paper towels. You can either dust these with powdered sugar or cinnamon-sugar, then serve. Cinnamon-sugar can be made by mixing 3 parts sugar to one part cinnamon.
HALLOWEEN FACE PAINT
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
1-1/2 tsp. water
1-1/2 tsp. cold cream
6 drops any food coloring
In a small mixing bowl, combine all ingredients, mix well. Use to create as many different colors as you want to paint faces for Halloween.
