Ahhh… the power of suggestion!! That’s what I love most about Halloween. Merely suggesting that something may be something else can have a powerful impact on how your guests perceive the food that you are serving. Ketchup becomes blood, guacamole becomes puke, hotdogs wrapped in breadsticks become mummies. I can go on and on!
Well, these scorpion eggs are no exception. Simply taking a few powdered donut holes, arranging them on a plate and adding either gummy or plastic scorpions to them immediately transforms them from cute little powdered pastries to scary scorpion eggs! The irony is that I have no idea what a scorpion egg actually looks like, and I will assume that neither do many of my guests, especially if they are kids. But I guarantee, that no one will shy away from partaking in this unique delicacy! In fact, this was one of the most popular items at my recent Halloween taste test kitchen! Enjoy!
There is nothing like serving something really pretty at a dinner party, especially when it’s healthy and delicious! This salad is beautiful and easy… a great combination for any party or even a simple dinner for two!
Ingredients
Watermelon slices
Romaine lettuce
Feta cheese
Black olives
Sunflower seeds
Raspberry vinaigrette dressing (mix
Preparation
It doesn’t get any simpler than this. Arrange the Romaine lettuce on a large plate. Cut watermelon slices into triangle pieces and arrange in the center of the lettuce. Sprinkle feta cheese as desired. Add black olives and sunflower seeds last. Leave the salad undressed until you are just about to eat, then lightly cover the salad with the raspberry vinaigrette.
I found a great idea for “Monster Eyes” on the web. My favorite part about this appetizer plate? This recipe is pretty much “guilt-free”! The original recipe included a basil leaf, mozzarella cheese, a slice of a grape tomato, and a slice of olive. To add a little zing, you can drizzle a bit of balsamic vinegar on top.
Of course, I had to experiment a bit more and maybe shave off just a few extra calories. I added my own twist by using spinach leaves (I have both spinach and basil leaves in the below photo) and substituting mozzarella cheese with a flavored SKINNY COW cheese slice. You can eat this whole plate and not even think about the calorie content!! DONE!!
Looking for the perfect dessert for Halloween? This is it!! Out of all my taste test kitchens, these EYEBALL CUPCAKES were simple to make and disappeared within minutes. I purchased the gummy eyeballs from Michael’s but if you are looking to make a lot of cupcakes, your best bet is to order them online. Oriental Trading Company has a a good selection of gummy eyeballs at a fair price.
If you are feeling super crafty, you can create your own gummy eyeballs. I found a great video which goes through the process step by step. Visit Cooking With Karma, she makes it look so easy!
Last but not least, I tried to simplify this recipe as much as possible. If you follow my version, you should be done with this recipe in 5-10 minutes. The biggest time saver is that I purchased ready-made cupcakes from Sam’s. I purchased 30 cupcakes for $15 which comes to $.50 per cupcake. But if you LOVE to bake, making your own cupcakes and icing is just fine. I also tried this idea on cupcakes with yellow frosting, it looked even MORE creepy! No Halloween party is complete without these easy cupcakes, so go for it and make your own!
INGREDIENTS:
12-24 Ready-made Cupcakes
12-24 Gummy candy eyes
1 tube of ready-made icing (purchased at Micheal’s or Jo-Ann’s)
PREPARATION
Remove the gummy eyeballs from their packaging and place them on top of each iced cupcake. Take your tube of icing and create a bloodshot look. Get creative, it’s hard to mess up on this project. You are done!
This delicious Russian Salad is absolutely heavenly. If the sound of beets does not excite you, trust me when I say this, it WILL when you try this salad!
Ingredients
3 beets
4 carrots
3 medium potatoes
10 oz sauerkraut drained
6 small pickles or 3 medium ones
1 cup boiled beans of your choice (or you can substitute peas or omit completely)
3-4 tbsp sunflower oil or olive oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
salt to taste
Preparation
Boil carrots and potatoes until they are soft in the middle. Boil beets separately until soft in the middle. Let cool and come to room temperature and then peel the carrots, potatoes, and beets.
Dice beets in a separate bowl and drizzle with 1 tbsp of oil and mix well. Dice all other ingredients and put in a separate bowl. Add sauerkraut and beans. Combine the beets with all other ingredients and add the rest of the oil. Salt to taste.
This salad is great when it’s left overnight for all the ingredients to intermingle. Serve with fresh parsley or dill as garnish.
During a recent Halloween Taste Test Kitchen I had the exciting idea of making Mummy Twinkies. If you have seen this project on Pinterest, you may know that you cover a Hostess Twinkie or Little Debbie’s Cloud Cakes in white candy coating, add some googley eyes, and voila, you’ve created a mummy! It seemed so easy on Pinterest.
Well, it wasn’t so easy for me, in fact, it was a disaster! I’m sure it was my fault and I probably didn’t follow directions, but the candy coating just didn’t want to work with me that day. If I ever have a Pintastrophe page, I will add that project to it.
So, here I am, 15 minutes before my taste test group is scheduled to arrive and I’m staring at these Cloud Cakes thinking… what do I do now?
Whipping out my trusty googley eyes, popsicle sticks, and red icing, I quickly created some scary faces on my Cloud Cakes and displayed them on a Halloween plate. The kids LOVED them! So, I will consider them a success.
If you have little time or your kids want to try a fun and easy project during Halloween! Try this… there’s nothing to cook, bake, or melt!
If you are looking for a salad that will turn some heads, these beautiful Zucchini Salad Rolls are just what you are looking for.
1 Zucchini (you can also use squash)
5-6 thin slices of Pork (you can also use chicken or steak or prosciutto)
4oz Goat cheese
4-5 Asparagus
1 Cucumber
1/2 cup mixed greens
1 Green Onion
Salt and Pepper
Take the goat cheese out of the refrigerator and leave out to soften for 15-30 minutes. Wash, dry, and thinly slice the zucchini into strips (use a potato / vegetable peeler). Salt and set aside.
Julienne slice the cucumber, wash and clean the asparagus (if you like your asparagus blanched, you can do that as well but make sure they stay crisp and green), Cut long strips of green onion. Place all these items around the cutting board where you will assembling your zucchini salad rolls.
When you are ready to assemble, place a strip of zucchini on the cutting board and spread a layer of goat cheese from one end to the other. Lay the vegetables, one next to the other, on one end of the zucchini. The tops of the vegetables can stick out of the zucchini, but the bottoms should stay tucked in. Once you have added all the vegetables, start rolling until you have created your roll. If you have spread enough goat cheese, it should secure the roll. If the roll is coming apart, add more cheese to the end of the zucchini. Arrange on a plate (you can also have salad dressing on the plate and arrange the rolls directly on top of the salad dressing). Salt and pepper to taste.
Are you ready for an easy (and healthy) Halloween treat?! These wonderful fruit cups are made with oranges and… as you can guess… various fruit. I made these two jack-o-lantern fruit cups this evening for dinner and served them to my boys. Surprise! Surprise! I was officially the”Coolest Mom Ever”! Needless to say, after such a positive reaction, I made sure to add this to my recipe collection.
Making the Jack-O-Lanter was incredibly easy. I cut the top off each orange and scooped out the insides into a separate bowl. I washed the oranges, made sure they were completely dry, and drew jack-o-lantern faces on each with a permanent marker. I put the discarded oranges in a blender and blended until the entire orange was nothing but juice. In a separate bowl, I cut up apples, grapes, pears, mandarin oranges, and bananas. I poured some of the orange juice over the salad (use as much as you like) and refrigerated the salad for about an hour. Once the salad is chilled, I spooned it into the oranges and served.
If you are having a party and planning on serving many kids, you can place the jack-o-lanterns on a bed of kale to make it look like they are sitting in a “pumpkin patch”. It’s a beautiful presentation!
Sometimes, you just have one of those days. You need a Halloween themed snack but you just don’t have the time to prepare it… well, you know what? That’s OK! Because I have the perfect addition to your Halloween table and all you need is a sharpie… you’re welcome!!
Purchase a round container of cheese puffs, they are nice and orange, perfect for a Jack-O-Lantern. Next, find a Jack-O-Lantern face that you like and want to paint on your plastic cheese puffs container. You can find something on the web or magazines. Something that has eyes, a nose, and a mouth. They can be “evil” or “happy”, whatever you like.
If you are feeling confident about your art skills, you can just draw the face with a black permanent marker or a sharpie directly on the cheese puffs container. If you are feeling less confident and want to be able to erase any mistakes, use a black “dry erase” marker first. Draw your face, get it the way that you like it and then go over it with a permanent marker.
This project is easy and will make a great statement on your Halloween table!
Yep, you read it right… two ingredients! Just goes to show that you don’t have to have a ton of ingredients to make a fabulous salad. Plus, no matter what time of the year it is, cucumbers seem to always be available!!
Ingredients
2 Cucumbers
1 large bunch Dill
Salt
Preparation
Slice the cucumber into thin slices and arrange on a plate. Add a generous amount of salt and set aside for 15-20 minutes! This will allow the salt to work its magic on the cucumbers so they become moist and delicious, to the point that you won’t need any dressing.Once the cucumbers are ready, chop the dill and sprinkle generously over the cucumbers. You can use as much or as little as you like. Serve immediately.
