Ridiculously cute (and healthy!) Halloween treats

29th October 2009

Ridiculously cute (and healthy!) Halloween treats

posted in Food Culture, Health, Nutrition & Fitness, Rachel, Recipes, Vegetarianism |

Someone from Disney FamilyFun magazine emailed me last week with the most cleverly fun — and healthy! — Halloween treats. And bonus, they’re all vegetarian! I wish I had an iota of this creativity when it comes to food.

Black Bean Cat Crudite´s

No bones about it, this kitty skeleton makes a healthy centerpiece for Halloween parties or school gatherings. Just arrange assorted fresh vegetables and a bowl of your favorite black bean dip in the shape of a spooky cat.

Edible Eyeballs

Set out a platter of these creepy peepers, and your party guests are bound to do a double take. Simply slice carrots into 1-inch-thick chunks, top each with a blob of cream cheese and one half of a pitted black olive, and they’re ready to serve.

Salty Bones

It wouldn’t be Halloween without a skeleton—in this case, one that’s been disassembled into a pile of tasty bones to pick. Unroll a tube of refrigerated breadsticks we used an 11-ounce tube to make 12 bones) and separate the rectangular pieces. Working with one piece at a time, stretch the dough to lengthen it a bit and then use kitchen scissors or a knife to cut a 1K-inch slit in the center of each end. Shape the resulting four flaps of dough into knobs that look like the ends of a bone. Place the dough bones on an ungreased baking sheet, spacing them a few inches apart, and sprinkle on a little coarse salt. Bake the bones at 375° until they are light golden brown, about 12 minutes.

English Mummies

These yummy mummy pizzas make a quick and fun Halloween lunch or dinner. To create one, first spread a tablespoon of pizza sauce onto half of an English muffin (toast it first, if you like). Set olive slices in place for eyes and add round slices of green onion or bits of red or green pepper for pupils. Lay strips of cheese (we used a pulled-apart cheese stick) across the muffin for the mummy’s wrappings. Bake at 350° until the cheese is melted and the muffin is toasty, about 10 minutes.

Pumpkin Roll-Ups

Here’s a wholesome snack to serve before the kids head out to trick-or-treat. Lay American cheese slices or spread cream cheese on sun-dried-tomato tortillas, then roll them up and cut them into 1-inch sections. Use a toothpick to secure each roll-up, topped with a sprig of cilantro or parsley.

Melon Brain

Created from nothing more than a small, round seedless watermelon, this spooky cerebral creation is bound to turn heads. First, use a vegetable peeler to remove the entire green rind, exposing the inner white rind. Then slice off the bottom of the melon to make a flat base that will keep it from rolling. With a toothpick, outline squiggly furrows that resemble the folded surface of a brain. Finally, carve narrow channels along the tracings with a sharp paring knife (a parent’s job) to expose the pink fruit beneath the rind.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 7:55 am and is filed under Food Culture, Health, Nutrition & Fitness, Rachel, Recipes, Vegetarianism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On October 29th, 2009, sam said:

These are amazing! I am using some of these for my class Halloween party tomorrow!

posted on October 29th, 2009 at 9:50 am

2 On October 29th, 2009, rachel with a little "r" said:

Haha…in the recesses of my brain I hear the refrains from the anti-vegetarians…”But…you vegetarians don’t eat MEAT! So why do you want to eat things that are in the shape of animals/meat/body parts…!”

I never could quite get any of them to understand that, um, being a vegetarian is about animals not having to DIE for you to eat…

posted on October 29th, 2009 at 10:22 am

3 On October 29th, 2009, Bree said:

I could never eat those edible eyeballs, even if I know they’re just carrots with olives and cream cheese. The same goes for the melon brain.

Everything else looks yummy though.

posted on October 29th, 2009 at 11:08 am

4 On October 29th, 2009, Mary Sue said:

Aw, I was hoping the pumpkin rollups would use real pumpkin.

All you’d need to do would be swap out the tomato ‘tortillas’ for wheat flour tortillas, mix some canned pumpkin (or other squash puree) with a bit of salt, brown sugar, and cayenne), and proceed as directed.

Hm, now I’m inspired to do a whole “How To Use Pumpkin For Delicious, Delicious Foods” post.

posted on October 29th, 2009 at 11:28 am

5 On October 29th, 2009, Elizabeth said:

How about Eyeball Caprese?

posted on October 29th, 2009 at 11:43 am

6 On October 29th, 2009, Rachel said:

@Mary Sue: We had a bake sale yesterday at work for our United Way drive and someone made a great tasting bread. All you do is add a can of pumpkin to yellow cake mix. It was quite the rave.

@rachel: Yes, I actually loved seafood and steak and still miss the taste of it sometimes. It definitely wasn’t the taste of meat that made me go veg.

posted on October 29th, 2009 at 11:55 am

7 On October 29th, 2009, Rachel said:

@Elizabeth: I don’t know if I could eat that — it looks TOO realistic! Even when I was a meat-eater, I could never eat anything that still had eyes staring back at me.

posted on October 29th, 2009 at 11:56 am

8 On October 29th, 2009, Alyssa (The 40 year-old) said:

Hoe fun! Maybe it’s ’cause I’m emotionally 12, but the eyeballs and the brain look AWESOME to me!
(BTW, that cake recipe also works really well with devil’s food cake mix.)

posted on October 29th, 2009 at 2:56 pm

9 On October 29th, 2009, Bingo said: