A Devilish Halloween
Every season brings with it a different atmosphere, a distinct aroma, specific moments and impressions. Remember the smell of new school books in September, the excitement of the first snow flakes in December? This sense of expectation is exactly what we send you every month. Created and organized along monthly themes, we provide you with culinary tips, recipes and articles that will inspire you each and every time!
Ghoulish Garnishes for Halloween Horror
Several days before the All Hallows Eve buffet banquet, Hedwige the head witch hopped her broom and flew down to the dungeon to see how preparations were coming along. In the dark, sooty, cavernous kitchen, three old crones cackled over their cauldrons, concocting creations fit for the dead and the undead. Working day and night, the hags were cheerfully putting the final touches on a frightening feast of dread-named dishes, fiendishly finished with ghoulish garnishes, while discussing how to set a suitably macabre mood for a party that's sure to be a SCREAM! The menu of devilish delights guarantees a good scare and good eats!
Fiendish Feast Menu
Dread-named Dishes
Give your guests a fearful foretaste of the fate that awaits them — put the menu, written in blood-red ink on parchment and crawling with black plastic spiders, in full view on an easel or the wall. Having named your dishes with care, watch your guests shiver with foreboding as they try to figure out what hellish ingredients went into them.
Drinks
- Cocktails with eye of newt (your favourite potables poured over ice cubes with blueberry or pitted cherry eyeballs)
- Witch's brew (put gummi worms in the punch bowl)
- Dracula's draught (cranberry juice and lemon-lime pop
Hors d'oeuvres and Appetizers
Main dishes
- Mummy-tas (various fajitas) and bloody tortillas (tortillas with salsa)
- Dripping monster fingers (squirt some ketchup in a hole in a roll, insert half a wiener and top with a sliced radish nail)
- Gremlin ears (spinach tortellini with sauce)
- Frankenstein salad (green aspic with stuffed olives for eyes, a halved radish for the nose, a piped mayonnaise mouth and alfalfa sprouts for hair)
- Sorcerer's stew (stew served in a pumpkin shell)and eyeball stew (meatball stew)
- Hannibal's hamburgers (draw a pool of ketchup blood around the patties)
- Lice rice (add frozen green peas to steamed rice 5 minutes before end of cooking time) and shrouded veggies (grated Gruyere and breadcrumb shrouded blanched veggies broiled for 5 minutes).
- Spooky spuds (ghost-shaped homemade fries)
Sweets
- Witch's claws (ladyfingers with flaked almond nails)
- Witch's cauldron (pumpkin muffins with chocolate icing and a black licorice handle)
- Haunted hot chocolate (garnished with a marshmallow ghost)
Ghoulish Garnishes for Frightening Food
When used with scare flair, ordinary foods reveal an eerie alter ego. The following list reveals the hellish Mr. Hyde that lurks within humble Dr. Jekyll foods
BODY PARTS | GARNISHES FOR SAVOURIES | GARNISHES FOR SWEETS |
EYES | Stuffed green olives, radishes | Grapes, raisins, chocolate chips, chocolate-covered almonds |
EARS | Whole cashews, cooked tortellini | Dry apricots |
NOSE | Pitted black olives cut in two, gherkins halved lengthways | Candied red cherries |
EYEBROWS | Basil leaves, salami slices cut in two | Mint leaves |
HAIR AND BEARD | Fresh parsley, cooked spaghetti squash, corn silk, canned sauerkraut, alfalfa sprouts | Black or red licorice, whipped cream or white icing |
WARTS | Stuffed green olives | Cashews, chocolate-covered almonds |
TONGUE | Red pepper strips, cold cuts cut into tongues | Red licorice, fruit paste candy (like Fruit-O-Long) cut into tongues |
NAILS | Sliced radish, flaked almonds, dry pumpkin seeds | Flaked almonds, dry pumpkin seeds |
BRAINS | Cooked spaghetti or macaroni, guacamole, canned sauerkraut | Black or red licorice |
SKULL | Pumpkin shell, cored-out round loaf | bread |
HEART | Whole canned tomato | |
BLOOD | Ketchup diluted with a little water | Grenadine |
INSECT LEGS | Pretzel sticks | Black licorice |
GHOSTS | Mashed potatoes shaped like ghosts | Marshmallows, baked meringues |
ÉSNAKE/FISH SCALES | Sunflower seeds | Chocolate drops (like Smarties) |
Scary Apparitions
- Put gummi worms in the punch bowl. Guests who find one in their drink get a prize.
- Decorate the glasses with Halloween stickers or fancy witch, ghost, skeleton or spider straws.
- Decorate canapés and hors d'oeuvres with horrifying swizzle sticks (bats, scarecrows, etc.).
- Garnish desserts with assorted Halloween candies or tiny almond ghosts.
- Slip creepy crawlies made from fruits and vegetables into shriek-inducing spots: the cheese platter, on a cake, in ice cubes.
- Decorate trays of canapés with hard-boiled eggs disguised as toadstools. (Cut a hard-boiled egg in two crossways. Put both halves cut-side down on the tray. Place half a small tomato over the other end to make the cap. Pipe dots of mayonnaise onto to the red caps to complete the illusion.)
- Savoury Witches' Hats: sheets of puff pastry dough cut into triangles. Sprinkle each triangle with dry basil and place 2 crescents at its apex. Roll the bottom up a third of the way to make the brim. Bake at 375°F/180°C until golden brown.
- Sweet Witches' Hats: brush the base of a chocolate-flavoured cone with chocolate icing and place it on top of a chocolate cookie, a muffin or a scoop of pistachio ice cream. Decorate the hat with silvery candy-coated nuts or chocolates (like Smarties).
Finally, with the feast laid out in the banquet hall, all that's left is to wait until darkness falls and your guests arrive. Most will eye the table with approval, some with apprehension but none will dare to question Hedwige's culinary suggestions for fear of being turned into a frog or worse…