Ghostly greetings to you, my fellow Knoxvillian ghouls! It’s been a blood-sucking three years since my last post full of spooky snacks and morbid meals. If you are a Halloween fanatic like me, you may want to dig your fangs into some of my frightful finds. Attempted murder is not in my wheelhouse, but my attempted Pinterest recipes may still leave you gasping for air!
Read on for recipes that will have you screaming for more! Muahahahahahaha!
Mummy Meatloaf
I’ve gotta say: this has been my favorite concoction so far in my seven years of making Halloween meals. It came out way better than expected. To make a good size head, I made a double batch of my favorite meatloaf recipe, which you can find here. Using a large baking sheet or cake pan, mold your meatloaf mixture into the shape of a head. Use the picture below as a reference. It’s basically an oval where the sides come in just a bit for the cheekbones/jawline, a wide forehead, two indents for the eyes and a hole for the mouth. Use large chunk of onion or grape tomatoes to place in the eye sockets. For the teeth, you can use shaped onions or sliced almonds. Last, lay strips of raw bacon across all the meatloaf area in a mummy-like pattern, tucking the ends under or into the meat. Rip into smaller pieces if needed for detailed areas. Bake for 45 minutes or until internal temp is 165F degrees. Since this shape makes the recipe much thicker than normal, you may need to cook it much longer.
Coiled Snake
Buy a can of breadsticks. After they are unraveled and stretched out, roll them with your hands to make them longer and skinnier. Coil them up onto a greased pan and bake according to package instructions, however keep an eye on them as they will cook much faster than suggested since they are thinned out. Use sesame seeds or some kind of dark nut for the eyes. Use your imagination!
Witch Fingers
Peel long carrots and cut in half. Use the skinnier ends for this recipe. Cut little grooves to look like the knuckles on your hands and flatten out the tips on one end. Cut red, green or yellow bell peppers into little triangles about the size of a long fingernail. Use a soft cheese to attach the nail to the flattened part of the finger. You can serve on a platter with your favorite dip. I placed mine in little witch cauldrons that were filled with ranch.
Spider Water
This is super easy! Buy some plastic spiders at the Dollar Tree (they could even be spider rings and cut the ring circle part off). Fill an ice cube tray with water and place a spider in each space. Voila! Once it’s frozen, you can place them in a cup of water and it looks like spiders are in your water!
Bloody Hot Dog Fingers
Take thawed hot dogs and cut grooves into them where knuckle lines should go. Look at your own hand to help. Cut a nail bed into the tip of the hot dog and peel the skin off the nail part. I suggest cooking on the stove instead of the microwave or grill to keep the finger look intact. Boil water, then place dogs in for about 4-6 minutes. Put on a bun and smear ketchup all over in a messy way. It helps if you place ketchup in the bun before the hot dog as well so it looks like it’s bleeding out from underneath.
Candy Corn Cupcakes
Buy your favorite white or yellow cake mix. Follow box instructions to make the batter. Divide the batter into two bowls. Use orange food coloring in one and yellow in the other. (I suggest gel food coloring instead of liquid drops.) Stir each. Fill your muffin tin with fun Halloween cupcake liners or grease if not using liners. Place 2T of the yellow batter in the bottom of each. Then try to evenly place 2T of orange batter on top. Bake according to box instructions. Use white frosting or a whipped topping once cupcakes are cool. Decorate the top with candy corn, candy pumpkins or festive sprinkles. Once you peel your liner off, your cupcake will look like candy corn!
Apple Teeth
Slice up an apple. Put peanut butter on two slices, place a row of marshmallows or peanuts on both for teeth and then place the two slices together like an open mouth.
Bowl of Guts
This is another easy one! Make some red Jello and after it’s congealed, stir it up so it looks goopy instead of smooth. Place in a bowl, or for extra fun, place it in some type of prop. I used mini witch cauldrons.
Alien Smoothie
If you already have a favorite green smoothie, make it and just call it alien blood on Halloween! If you don’t have a green smoothie recipe, here’s one my kids liked:
*2 frozen bananas
*1 cup spinach
*1.5 cups pineapple chunks
*1 cup coconut milk
*½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Blend and serve. If too thick, add more coconut milk or some water. Add a fun Halloween straw to be more festive!
Blood Punch with Floating Hand
Fill a latex glove with water and tightly secure the end with a rubber band. Place in freezer overnight. Make your favorite red-colored punch (could even dump fruit punch in to a punch bowl). Once hand is frozen, remove glove and let it float in the punch bowl to keep it cool. As it melts, it will look like it’s missing fingers.
Franken Pudding
Find the short clear Solo cups. Draw Frankenstein faces on the bottom half with a black sharpie. Make vanilla pudding tinted with green gel food coloring and place in cup until it reaches the eyebrows. Remove the cream from Oreos and smash the chocolate parts in a baggie. Sprinkle the cookie crumbles on top for his hair.
Halloween Ravioli
If you don’t want to work too hard, but want to make your meal cute and festive, some grocery stores sell orange and black ravioli around Halloween time. Buy a bag and cook it up!
Mummy Garlic Bread
You could go all-out and get a long baguette that you cut down into rectangles and create your own buttery garlicky mix OR you could just buy frozen pre-cut garlic bread like I did. Bake garlic bread according to package. Once bread is golden brown, peel apart mozzarella string cheese into strips and place across your bread like a mummy, leaving a space for the eyes. Return bread to the oven and broil on high for 2-4 minutes, making sure the cheese doesn’t burn. Add two black olives for the eyes.
Here are a few extra ideas I’ve used for breakfasts or snacks:
Raw Meat
Ingredients:
*Rice krispies – 6 cups
*Marshmallows – 10.5oz
*Red velvet cake mix – ¾ cup
*Butter – 3 tablespoons
*Vanilla extract – ½ teaspoon
Directions: Melt butter and marshmallows in a large pot over medium heat. Once melted, add in the vanilla and cake mix. Once combined, add the krispies and stir until everything is red. The most important part of this recipe (in my opinion) is finding the foam trays used at grocery stores. I found them in the paper plate aisle at Walmart. Amazon also has them. Divvy up the raw meat on the foam trays and cover with plastic wrap. To be extra naughty, you can place in your friends’ mailboxes like I did!
Cinnamon Roll Intestines
Buy a can of cinnamon rolls (the kind that come in a tube and unravel). Preheat oven to 400F degrees. Unravel all the cinnamon rolls into long strips. Using a large 9×13 greased sheet pan, place the strips in a curved and twisted manner so it resembles intestines. Leave spaces so when they expand, it doesn’t become one big connected blob. Bake for 10 minutes. Don’t follow the time on the package because they cook faster when they’re in strips. As they cook, make your frosting. If it comes with frosting, you can just add red gel food coloring to it. If you don’t have frosting, you can mix 1 cup of powdered sugar with 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons of milk and your red gel coloring. Once the intestines are done, drizzle with your bloody frosting.
Ghost Toast
Using a small ghost cookie cutter or your excellent knife-cutting skills, cut out a ghost shape from a slice of bread. Melt 2 teaspoons of butter in a skillet over medium heat. Once one side is toasted, flip the bread and add an egg white only (remove the yolk beforehand) into the ghost opening. Don’t let the egg white go higher than the bread. Cover the skillet and cook until the egg sets (about 2-3 min). Use hot sauce, sriracha or ketchup to add two tiny eyes. I also toasted the cut out ghosts!
I haven’t created my menu for Halloween this year yet, but hope to try out some new ideas that I can share in a future post. If you try anything above or that I’ve done in my previous Halloween meals post, please comment with how it turned out!
Happy Halloween!
