The end of October is Halloween and for many children around the world, it's a time to put on their scariest costume, celebrate with loved ones and go around the neighborhood ringing doorbells to collect as many treats as possible to the tune of the now famous Trick or Treat! The party wouldn't be complete without a good snack and meal with family and friends. So the weekend of October 30 and 31, 2021 is the perfect time to spend some time in the kitchen with the kids and whip up some scary sweet and savory dishes. Are you short of ideas for creating recipes that would make anyone swoon? Here are some suggestions to make your Halloween party a success.
Some savoury recipe ideas to make you shudder
After ringing the doorbells to collect candy and other chocolate bars, children will certainly want to share an aperitif with friends and parents. To do this, you can start by making real witches' brooms to chew on! Simply buy some Emmental cheese sticks and slice off a small part of them to make a broom. Then stick a pretzel stick in it. The effect is guaranteed! Another very amusing recipe is that of bloody hot dogs. To make them, nothing could be easier. All you need are hot dog buns, the famous orange sausages that kids love, and ketchup. After cooking the sausages, you slash one end to make the shape of a torn nail. Then a few light stabs are made here and there to evoke the lines on the fingers. After incorporating the finger sausages into the buns, ketchup is added to evoke the blood flowing from a severed finger! Everyone raves about the mini pizzas. If you get pizza dough, tomato sauce, grated Emmental cheese and black olives, you can create some great ones for Halloween. After cutting the dough into small rounds, spread the tomato sauce on top, then add the pieces of gruyere cheese in a spider's web pattern. Finally, place half a black olive in the middle for the body of the spider. The other half is cut into thin strips to make the legs.
To accompany all this, there's nothing like a bloody cocktail without alcohol. In a cocktail glass, pour 40 ml of blood orange juice and 70 ml of lemon soda. Add a teaspoon of red fruit coulis, another of grenadine, a few drops of lemon juice and a drop of red dye. Mix it all together, place a few spider, skull and crossbones or pumpkin candies on the rim and the special Halloween drink is ready to be enjoyed.
Once at the table, we keep the theme going by serving the stuffed Jack'o'Lantern peppers that we liked best during the day. The recipe is simple and the result is incredible. For 5 people, you get 5 peppers (a mix of red, yellow and green peppers), 200 g of minced meat, 100 g of bacon, 1 onion, tomato sauce, 3 packets of instant mashed potatoes, a little paprika and pepper. Wash the peppers, cut off a hat for the stuffing and cut a Jack o'Lantern pattern on one side of the peppers, as you would do with pumpkins. In a saucepan, fry the onions with the bacon, then add the minced meat, diced peppers, paprika and pepper. Then prepare the purée. Place the meat mixture in the bottom of the peppers and add a layer of purée on top. Once the cap is on, put it in the oven for 30 minutes at 180 degrees. This is a delicious recipe to get your teeth into.
If you've decided to grill a few chops to awaken your inner carnivorous zombie, don't hesitate to accompany them with slices of sweet potatoes disguised as pumpkins. Cut the sweet potatoes into thin slices, so that there are two or three per person, and place them on the baking sheet. Using a knife, cut out the eyes and mouth as you would for a pumpkin. Brush the potato slices with olive oil and season with paprika. Finally, put them in the oven for 20-25 minutes at 180°C. Once cooked and at the time of pairing them on the table, one hesitates to arrange pieces of thyme here and there to add color.
Some sweet recipes for greedy vampires and witches
Everyone loves chocolate cake. And then, it's hard to imagine Halloween day without a break for a snack between two costume fitting sessions. Except that this chocolate cake will be revisited, giving it a cemetery look! For 8 people, you will need 2 eggs, 15 cl of whole milk, 5 cl of oil, 10 cl of water, 240 g of flour, 6 g of baking powder, 130 g of sugar, 140 g of butter and 4 tablespoons of cocoa. We follow the usual recipe to realize the cake. For the decoration, this time we will need 150 g of dark chocolate, 2 boxes of chocolate biscuits, 2 chocolate cookies and 5 cat tongues. Once the cake is ready and shaped into a rectangle, add the chocolate topping. The cat's tongues are then laid out to symbolize the tombstones, and a bit of chocolate cookie is crushed in front to symbolize the earth. You can then arrange various commercially available items: skull and crossbones candies, pumpkins, spiders, etc. You should also let your imagination run wild.
Now let's make a Halloween fruit salad, for which we'll need oranges, kiwis, grapes, lemon, sugar and vanilla extract. After washing the oranges, a serrated cap is cut off with a knife and the fruit is scooped out. Put the orange flesh in a bowl. On the orange peel, we make a nose, eyes and mouth, as we do for a pumpkin. In the bowl, we add to the orange flesh that we cut into pieces, pieces of kiwis, grapes, we squeeze the lemon and we finish by adding the sugar and vanilla. The fruit mixture is incorporated into the orange peels and then placed in the refrigerator to be served fresh.
When serving the fruit salads, it is advisable to add lychees in the shape of bloody eyes to each small plate. It couldn't be simpler, peel the lychees and fold in a black grape and raspberry jelly. It doesn't take long and the effect is 100% stunning!
