FOODIE FRIDAY: HALLOWEEN FAVOURITES

TGIF friends!

Well, it’s actually Saturday!! I’ve had a very busy Halloween weekend which started on Thursday with my first Halloween Party at the Homeless Shelter. I call out the Bingo there and supply prizes of candy bars, pop, and chips. For special occasions such as Halloween I bring along treat bags filled with treats which they love, Halloween cup cakes,  juice, etc. and we party hard!! It went very well and I was happy to get the first batch of treat bags safely out of the house before I got at them!! Everybody went home happy!

Friday, I had two more Halloween Parties, one at TOPS, (my Taking Off Pounds Sensibly) friendship group. We were to dress up as items of food. Katherine went as a pickle, Roz a banana, Sherry was a watermelon and later handed out some delicious chopped watermelon to everybody. Sheilah went as a strawberry and gave everybody 2 strawberry flavoured tea bags and I went as a beyond meat veggie burger! Fun!

Friday evening I invited some friends to my house for my annual Hallowen get-together. I must admit if something doesn’t look visually appealing, I can’t eat it!! So many of the Halloween treats look ghastly! I had a few vegetarian friends coming so I made vegetarian lasagne and lentil and chick pea curry. My friend Anita cooked a ham and sliced it all up and decorated it with miniature pumpkins and flowers. It looked lovely! The sweet aroma of mulled wine coming from the kitchen, combined with the fragrance of apple cider scented candles made for a very cosy Halloween ambience.

For parties I tend to serve a meat dish, a fish/seafood dish, and a vegetarian dish. Rice, Cous Cous, and 2-3 salads, which always feature a kale salad and a Greek salad. Firm favourites! For appies, olives, cheese, prawns, stuffed olive leaves, and bowls of nuts and chips around. As well as sliced veggies and dips for those watching the figures!

All my guests left with little pumpkin treat bag and smiles on their faces!

This year I served the puking pumpkin! It is so easy to do and was a real crowd pleaser!

Puking Pumpkin:

Simply clean out pumpkin and make a face. Cut a large space for the mouth. Place pumpkin on a tray and arrange guacomole to look like it is coming from its mouth! Surround with chips. EnJOY! This one disappeared very quickly!

Witch Fingers:

Get ready made cheese pizza, slice in half and then slice into finger shaped pieces. From a red pepper make some small diamond shape pieces to resemble a nail. Apply to the end of pizza pieces. Serve with dip of your choice. Easy peasy! It looks something like above with red pepper for nails. I find the ready made cheese pizza so easy to do.

Hot Dragon’s Blood!

I make warm mulled wine which I call Dragon’s Blood! It is very popular with the grown ups! Of course, you taste as you go! I used 3 bottles of red wine, 8 glasses of apple cider juice, 3 oranges sliced for visual and flavour, brown sugar (taste as you go!) about a third cup of sugar or honey, depending on how sweet you like it! a couple of cinnamon sticks, 6 cloves, some star anise to decorate. Some people like to add a slurp of brandy to the pot but I don’t. Depends on how potent you like it! Don’t boil the wine, just warm it gently on medium heat for about 30 mins. Serve in glasses with handles. I added some Halloween charms to the glasses.

Happy Halloween wherever you may be. If you live in a condo and don’t have little trick ‘n treaters visiting, take a trip to your local shopping mall early in the evening from 4 p.m. on. You will likely see lots of cute children with their parents going from shop to shop for treats! All the shops have little baskets of treats ready for the children. Many of the parents dress up too, so you do get the Halloween atmosphere!

Cheers and Happy Halloween!

Patricia