Spooky Halloween Dinner

We celebrated Halloween this year by having a spooky dinner. I set up a place for my husband and I at the table and gave him this menu.

I brought out the food in courses.

Witches Brew:

I found these plastic cups at Winco and filled them with bright green soda. I hung a gummy worm over the side.

 Cobweb Dip with Ghost Bites:

I combined dry french onion soup mix with sour cream and green food coloring to make up the base of the dip. Then, I piped circles of sour cream and used a toothpick to form the spiderweb.

The ghost chips were cutouts from a tortilla that I baked. I used an edible ink pen to highlight the faces I carved out.

Salad:

The leaves from the "dark forest" were romaine lettuce leaves. I used apples for the "poisoned apples" and tented poppy seed dressing with green food coloring to make up the "green goblin dressing."

Cat Croutons:

The cat croutons were a little trickier to make. I traced a cat image onto paper from an image on my computer screen, then I cut the cat image out, placed it on top of a piece of rye bread and cut around it with a knife. I baked the bread until it was toasted. My inspiration for the cat croutons came from this site.

 Stuffed Jack O'Lantern

My Mom has a wonderful recipe for stuffed acorn squash that I decided to modify and bake in a pumpkin. I've included the recipe I used below...

Filling:

I baked the pumpkins for 30 min at 350 degrees. Then stuffed them with the filling recipe below and cooked them for an additional 10 minutes.

Filling
1 cup dry wild rice
1 beef  bouillon cube
3 stalks celery
1/2 cup onion
1 cup cream of mushroom soup
1/4 pound turkey sausage
1/4 pound turkey burger
s/p to taste

Bring 3 cups of water to a boil, add bouillon cube and rice. Turn the heat down to low and it let simmer for 45-60 minutes. Cook meat and set aside. Stir fry chopped celery and onion in oil until semi tender. Combine all ingredients and heat through. Stuff in pumpkin. I used an edible ink pen to make the jack o'lantern face on the outside.

Monster Bones:

I served garlic bread in the shape of bones for the "monster bones." The bread recipe I used came from this site. I omitted the bacon.

 Graveyard Pudding:

For dessert, I served chocolate pudding with crushed oreos and a vanilla waffer "gravestone" in a parfait cup. I added a few Halloween candies that I got in the bulk at Winco.

 Chocolate Bat:
I used a lindt chocolate truffle to make up the bat base and attached chocolate wings (that I piped onto a silpat and let harden in the freezer) with chocolate.  The eyes were made of white chocolate.

Mummy:

I served the dessert with a mummy spoon. I got the idea for the spoon from this site.

Here is a close up. I used white chocolate to make the mummy and semi sweet chocolate for the eyes.

I had my husband read off each course from the menu before I brought it out. It was fun to hear and see his reaction to the dinner, throughout our date.  If I were to do it again, I would set the table up to be a little spookier and I would have played Halloween music.

Happy Halloween everyone!