A Traditional Autumn Recipe

Who says that you can’t have a Halloween feast? Here are some delicious Halloween recipes – tricks and treats to serve up on All Hallows’ Eve or even the Day of the Dead, if you’re inclined to extend the festivities to November 1st. Honestly, who wouldn’t want to extend Halloween?

Note: one of these recipes contains gelatin.

Pumpkin Pie

– because everyone has a bit o’ pumpkin in ’em. This is among the most traditional of Halloween recipes.

Ingredients:

1 ready-made pie crust, 9-inch 1 ¼ cup puréed pumpkin 1 cup powdered milk 2 tablespoons of water ¾ cup sugar or appropriate amount of substitute ½ teaspoon vanilla extract ½ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon ginger 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour 2 eggs, lightly beaten (you can remove the yolks if you want, but they improve the flavor)

Tools:

Medium mixing bowl oven

Yields:

One pie

Procedure:

Step 1. In the mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin, salt, sugar, spices, and flour and mix well. Then add the eggs to the mixture. Mix those in as well until the ingredients look homogenous.

Step 2. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Difficult, wasn’t it?

Step 3. Add everything else to the mixture. Mix everything well again.

Step 4. Pour the goop into the pie crust and bake at that temperature for 14 minutes.

Step 5. Reduce the heat to 350°F and bake for another 35 minutes or so, or until the center of the pie is set. You’re done! And there was yummy-ness.

Edible Eyeballs

This is one of the creepiest, most ghoulish of all Halloween recipes. You may have to encourage people and remind them that the eyeballs are, in fact, edible.

Ingredients:

3 ounces lemon gelatin, regular or sugar-free 1 cup hot water 1 cup pineapple juice or lemonade 1/2 cup mini-marshmallows 8 ounces of low-fat cream cheese

Optional: 1 cup of fat-free mayonnaise

Tools:

Double boiler Wilton truffle candy mold OR round ice-cubes tray OR a melon-baller and a deep bowl OR an ice-cream scoop with a metal release bar that pushes out the ice cream in uniform balls and a deep bowl (in order of preference) PAM non-stick spray food coloring or some kind of edible paint paintbrush fridge

Yields:

9 dozen eyeballs, give or take an eyeball

Procedure:

Step 1. Dissolve the lemon gelatin in 1 cup of water in a double boiler (a double boiler being an outer pot of water that heats up on the stove and an inner pot or pan that sits on the outer pan into which you put the food). Add the marshmallows. Stir until melted.

Step 2. Remove from the heat source. Add the juice and cream cheese to the mixture. Beat until the mixture is thoroughly blended.

Step 3. Let the mixture cool slightly. Afterward, if you are so inclined to give the eyeballs the most authentic eyeball ‘look,’ fold in the mayo.

Step 4. Spray PAM on your molds. Pour the mixture into the truffle molds or a deep tray or bowl if you don’t have any round-shaped freezing trays. The point is to arrange the mixture so that if you have to extract eyeballs from a solid shape of goo, your scoop will work and waste as little of the mixture as possible. My personal recommendation? Buy a truffle tray. If you can’t, use a deep dish where a full scoop would be exactly the depth of the mixture. DO NOT refrigerate the excess while you wait to refill the molds. Leave it out at room temperature to keep it from solidifying.

Step 5. Chill until thickened or firm enough to hold a shape. Think Jell-O. Think fun. Think of all of those really gross, jiggling tofu creations in fish-shaped molds from the seventies. You know what I’m talking about. Either gently pop out the eyeballs from their molds and refill the molds, or dig your own custom eyeballs out with your chosen scoop.

Step 6. Decorate! Look at the ball from a bird’s eye view. Remember that you may have to thicken a liquid coloring dye with sugar or sweetener, so don’t use it much. Paint a circle of food coloring about half the size of the circumference of the eyeball, smack in the center, in the color you want your iris to be. Lightly color in the circle so that there’s slightly more coloring around the edge. Drawing unevenly spaced spokes moving inward to the center of the circle. Use black food coloring for the pupil, or mix all of your colors together in a separate dish to approximate black.

Step 6. Serve on a platter and watch your guests squirm. Bwahahahahaaaaa.

Tuna Brain Salad

Here’s a no-brainer *groan!* recipe to make a large serving of tuna salad look creepier. Mix up the tuna, mayo, and whatever else you like to put in such as celery together, using enough tuna water or mayo so that the mixture is on the creamy side rather than the dry side. Spray a bit of PAM, or even better, apply some of your salad dressing to a brain mold (I believe they sell these at seasonal stores with the cookie cutters). Turn upside down and carefully pops out the brain onto a bed of lettuce. Tada! You can also use your sculpting skills to make the tuna look like a brain, but it’s a lot easier to buy the darn mold. This is just one way you can turn standard meals into Halloween recipes without drastically changing your menu or buying a ton of seasonal foods. Edible Eyeballs

This is one of the creepiest, most ghoulish of all Halloween recipes. You may have to encourage people and remind them that the eyeballs are, in fact, edible.

Ingredients: 3 ounces lemon gelatin, regular or sugar-free 1 cup hot water 1 cup pineapple juice or lemonade 1/2 cup mini-marshmallows 8 ounces of low-fat cream cheese

Optional: 1 cup of fat-free mayonnaise

Tools: double boiler Wilton truffle candy mold OR round ice-cubes tray OR a melon-baller and a deep bowl OR an ice-cream scoop with a metal release bar that pushes out the ice cream in uniform balls and a deep bowl (in order of preference) PAM non-stick spray food coloring or some kind of edible paintbrush fridge

Yields: 9 dozen eyeballs, give or take an eyeball

Step 1. Dissolve the lemon gelatin in 1 cup of water in a double boiler (a double boiler being an outer pot of water that heats up on the stove and an inner pot or pan that sits on the outer pan into which you put the food). Add the marshmallows. Stir until melted.

Step 2. Remove from the heat source. Add the juice and cream cheese to the mixture. Beat until the mixture is thoroughly blended.

Step 3. Let the mixture cool slightly. Afterward, if you are so inclined to give the eyeballs the most authentic eyeball ‘look,’ fold in the mayo.

Step 4. Spray PAM on your molds. Pour the mixture into the truffle molds or a deep tray or bowl if you don’t have any round-shaped freezing trays. The point is to arrange the mixture so that if you have to extract eyeballs from a solid shape of goo, your scoop will work and waste as little of the mixture as possible. My personal recommendation? Buy a truffle tray. If you can’t, use a deep dish where a full scoop would be exactly the depth of the mixture. DO NOT refrigerate the excess while you wait to refill the molds. Leave it out at room temperature to keep it from solidifying.

Step 5. Chill until thickened or firm enough to hold a shape. Think Jell-O. Think fun. Think of all of those really gross, jiggling tofu creations in fish-shaped molds from the seventies. You know what I’m talking about. Either gently pop out the eyeballs from their molds and refill the molds, or dig your own custom eyeballs out with your chosen scoop.

Step 6. Decorate! Look at the ball from a bird’s eye view. Remember that you may have to thicken a liquid coloring dye with sugar or sweetener, so don’t use it much. Paint a circle of food coloring about half the size of the circumference of the eyeball, smack in the center, in the color you want your iris to be. Lightly color in the circle so that there’s slightly more coloring around the edge. Drawing unevenly spaced spokes moving inward to the center of the circle. Use black food coloring for the pupil, or mix all of your colors together in a separate dish to approximate black.

Step 6. Serve on a platter and watch your guests squirm. Bwahahahahaaaaa.