halloween - enter if you dare. Mwaaaahhhhh

Anybody do anything or have any plans.

Last year, we had our first halloween party for the children and nieces ans nephews.  We decorated the house and played some games.  I bought some cheapo loo roll so the children could dress up ad mummies, but it turned into a loo roll fight and was the highlight of the evening.

We also bought some fireworks, which they enjoyed.

We are doing the sane again this year.

Dom's taking Sophie trick or treating, although they are only going to people we know and have arranged to see in advance. He's hoping that his mum will let his little brother go too.

Sophie is dressing up as Cinderella, not exactly scary but Dom spent a fortune on the outfit at Disney and she's got to wear it some time!

Soph will go to bed afterwards, and I might arrange to have a little Dom and Nikki (plus our friend who lives with us) time with a couple of drinks, but we won't be doing anything special.

Sounds like fun nix.

Dom's mum won't allow us to take him trick ir treating, so we're going to have him over during the day to carve a pumpkin, make some scary face pizzas and just do some halloweeny things with him

My mum has always been anti trick or treat, so I was never allowed to go. 

 My sister is anti halloween as she says it's 'devil worshiping' but she's still coming to my Halloween party 

Anyone got any cheap ideas for food/drink that is Halloween themed? We really want him to have fun since he's pretty much not allowed to have fun at home (no tv, no squash, no paints, no crayons, no room to play in the garden as they filled it with plants, no playdoh)

I seen offers in Poundland and Asda for halloween goodies. Quite fancy a toffee apple, not keen on apples but think im craving the coating since im back on the diet

do the jelly in the straws thing fill straws with jelly big mac donalds ones are best then get out of the straws and you have worms.

Create tasty, edible worms. This recipe is simple and great for Halloween, if you can make jelly, then you can make these cool looking worms.

Ingredients

◾2 packs (3 oz) Raspberry jelly

◾1 packet unflavoured gelatine (for extra firmness)

◾3/4 cup whipping cream

◾3 cups boiling water

◾15 drops green food colouring

◾100 flexible straws (or enough to fill your container)

◾Tall container to hold the straws in
How to make Jelly Worms
1.Combine gelatine in bowl and add boiling water.
2.Let it cool to lukewarm and then add the whipping cream and 15 drops green food colouring.
3.Gather your straws (don't forget to flex them out) and put them in the container. It's important that the straws have a tight fit so the jelly stays in the straws. For this reason, a 1 litre carton may be better; you will probably get longer worms since there is a tighter fit. If you have a bigger container, a rubber band around the straws is helpful. Or you could just add more straws to fill the container.
4.Add the gelatine mixture to the straw-filled container and let it set until firm.
5.There are multiple ways you can remove the worms from the straws. You can roll a rolling pin over the straws and squeeze them out or you can hold the straws over warm water. The worms will slip right out.

Marinated Mozzarella Eyeballs Halloween Party Idea

This great idea for Halloween eyeballs (and the photo!) comes from Dot at Dabbled.org, who adapted the idea for this from the Mad Scientist website, where he also does a cute and funny eyeball ensalata caprese. This is something similar, but results in a simple Halloween finger food, no fork required. Thanks, Dot!
This recipe can be assembled ahead of time for your Halloween party, and makes about 20 appetizers (depending on the number of mozzarella balls in your packages). Serve on a  black Halloween spiderweb platter for a very cool and spooky effect.



Ingredients:

Marinated Mozzarella Eyes:
2 (8 oz. each) packages mini mozzarella di bufala balls, drained
1/3 C. extra virgin olive oil
6 sundried tomatoes, chopped
1 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
2 tsp. dried oregano
2 tsp. dried basil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
Crushed red pepper, to taste
Sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste


Irises and Pupils:
Unpitted green olives, as needed (about 20)
Black olives, as needed (about 10)
1 disposable plastic straw


Instructions: 1. To make the marinated mozzarella balls, combine the drained mozzarella, oil, sundried tomatoes, herbs, garlic, red pepper, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Stir gently to mix. Marinate a few hours, up to 24.

2. To create the "iris" of your eyeball, cut the top away from one green olive with a sharp knife. You should end up with a nice round little dome.

3. Using the end of a straw, poke a hole through the middle of your iris and remove the bit of olive. This is where you will place your pupil.

4. To create "pupils," stick the end of a straw into a black olive and pull out a straw-hole-shaped piece. This little round piece of olive is your pupil.

5. Place a "pupil" in the middle of each "iris." Repeat process until you have enough pupils and irises for all of your mozzarella balls.

6. To assemble your eyeballs, drain the marinade away (I re-use mine for pasta or salads) and place your mozzarella balls on a serving platter. I sometimes line my trays with lettuce or cabbage for effect, and to keep the eyeballs from sliding around too much.

7. Place one set of iris and pupil on top of each eyeball. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Be gentle to avoid knocking the irises off of your mozzarella balls! If they don't want to stay, use a sharp knife to cut a small flat area on the mozzarella balls for your olive irises.

Coagulated Blood Dip Recipe

This creepy Halloween dip is bound to make an impression. Made with beets, it's a deep, dark red in color, it's thick and strange-looking... and it tastes really good. If you're health-conscious, it's also pretty darned healthy. Maybe not a dip that kids will go nuts over, but the adults I serve it to always love this dip with toasted pita wedges and crudites. It always surprises everybody --including people who think they don't like beets-- with how great it tastes.



This disgusting Halloween recipe is also an easy one. I simply buy pre-roasted, peeled beets and use those. The hard (and messy) part is done.

To make this dip look even more gory, garnish it with radish eyeballs or  severed fingers and serve it in a creepy dish.

Ingredients:
6-8 medium beets, cooked, peeled, and coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/3 C. extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp. tahini
3 tbsp. fresh mint leaves, minced (or to taste)
2 tsp. red wine vinegar
1/2 medium lemon, juice of
sea salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions:

1. In a large food processor, combine the chopped beets, garlic, olive oil, and tahini. Process until mostly smooth.

2. Transfer to a serving bowl.

3. Stir in the chopped mint, vinegar, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.

4. Cover and refrigerate at least an hour before serving, and up to 24 hours.

Severed Fingers Halloween Recipe

This fun but disgusting Halloween food looks totally realistic, tastes great, and cooks up in about 5 minutes. It amazes me that something this easy can make such a gross Halloween food! Really fun.

You can also try a small piece of onion for the nail, if you like, but I think the yellow bell pepper gives the best impression of thick, gross-looking yellow nails. Recipe below is for one serving-- just multiply to make as many as you need.



Ingredients:
3 cocktail sausages
3 triangles of yellow bell pepper
Ketchup or BBQ sauce, as needed


Method:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil.

2. To make each serving of three fingers, create 3 shallow horizontal slices about halfway up each cocktail sausage for "knuckles."

3. Boil sausages until cooked, about 2-3 minutes. Let cool slightly.

4. With a sharp knife, cut a small flat space at the tip of the sausage for a "nail." Using a bit of ketchup, mayonnaise, or bbq sauce, press a nail into each finger.

5. Fill a cup (in the photo it's a plastic muffin cup, but you can use a ramekin, a little clear glass, or whatever) with a couple tablespoons of ketchup, bbq sauce (these recipes are great!), or any other red-colored sauce. Place assembled fingers in the cup, burying the ends slightly in the sauce. Serve hot.

Tip: Heating the sauce helps keep this disgusting Halloween food from cooling down too fast.

Horrible Halloween Recipes

Just like Christmas and Thanksgiving, Halloween is a time for making lots of yummy things to eat. But the recipes are a bit different from those other two traditional holidays. Here are a couple that trick-or-treaters will appreciate.

Bake with Reckless Abandon this Halloween

Make a whole array of Halloween holiday treats and your little devils will all turn into angels.

Get everyone in the Halloween mood by serving cobweb brownies -yes, exactly brownies covered in cobwebs- and add some gore with icky eyeballs.

If you have kids to entertain on a rainy afternoon, close to Halloween, enlist their help to prepare black cat cupcakes or fudgy bat cookies, both treats are time consuming but easy to make. Children can take them to school to share with friend. They are also a great edible decoration for boot to boot trick or treating.

Busy mothers can buy cookies and pre-made marzipan decorations and icing. Having fun with the kids decorating cakes, cookies and brownies is more important than the actual baking. Find some ideas below.

Halloween Cookies
•1 batch of home baked cookies
•Writing icing and ordinary icing in several colors
•Miniature sweets
•Sugar paste
•Food cologing



Procedure
1.Paint Halloween motives on the surface using the icing. Use the miniatur sweets to make faces and sticking them on with the icing.
2.Use the food coloring to paint pieces of sugar paste in several colors. Cut out shapes -a black oblog piece could be a spider's body- and stick onto the cookies using icing.



Tips

Gingerbread is great for this. You can even shape the cookies when baking them and do gingerbread witches instead of gingerbread men.

Use a packet of plain cookies if you don't have time to bake your own.

Marzipan Bats
•1 packet marzipan
•Black and red food coloring coloring


1.Mix most of the marzipan with black food coloring until it is very dark. Make a smaller amount of red colored marzipan -and grey, if you with to give more detail to your bats..
2.Shape the dark marzipan into a bat. give it red eyes. Use grey marzipan for the lines on the wings, for instance.



Tips

Make mini-bats and use them to decorate orange-iced cupcakes. Or turn the black marzipan into miniature witches hats.

Coconut Ghosts

One of the easiest recipes to prepare, just shape the coconut mix into cones, bake, give each cone a pair of eyes, and they are ready.

Ingredients
•2 egg whites
•5 Tbs sugar
•5 Tbs dessicated coconut
•rice paper
•mini chocolate chips
•icing to stick the chips



Procedure
1.Preheat oven to 200°F (150°C).
2.Whisk the egg whites until stiff. Add coconut and sugar, mxing carefully.
3.Lay teh rice paper on the baking sheet. Take a large spoonful of coconut mix and place on top of the rice paper, shaping it into a cone.
4.Bake for 40 minutes on the center rack. The cakes should be tender inside, crisp outside and not browned at all.
5.With the icing, stick two mini chocolate chips on each cake to make the eyes of the ghosts.