5 Easy & Fun Halloween Recipes- Make a Pre-Trick or Treating Family Dinner a New Tradition!! (The kids will have more energy & won't fill up on candy!)

With Halloween only a few days away, there's no better time to start getting in the spooky mood! This is such a wonderful and exciting time of year for kids, and I like to make it a tradition in my household to have a fun, pre-Halloween dinner before Trick-or-Treating. That way the kiddos will be filled up, you won't have to worry about a sudden loss of energy ("read: "Mommy I'm tired can you carry me!") and best of all, if they eat a filling meal before hand, they will be less tempted to stuff their faces with candy!

Here are simple ideas for a fun family Halloween dinner!



1) Mummy Hot Dogs

Ingredients:

• Pillsbury or store-brand dough or crescent rolls
• hot dogs
• mustard or ketchup for eyes

1. Pre-heat oven to 400° 

2.Cut the dough into strips and wrap the hot dogs into mummies. 

3. Bake for 15 minutes at 400° 

4. Add mustard or ketchup dots for eyes. 

Tip: You could cut the hot dogs in half for mini mummies.

2) Eye Ball Sub

Serves: 12

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup drained canned cannellini beans or other white beans
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 1/2 tablespoons ketchup
• 1 tablespoon apple butter
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 1/2 pounds ground turkey
• 8 pitted colossal green olives, cut in 3 round slices
• 2 cans (15-ounce each) tomato sauce with Italian herbs
• 1 -2 small black olives, cut in 1/4-inch dice, you will need 24 pieces
• 12 small club rolls (about 5-inches long), split
• 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
    
2. Mash the beans with a fork, potato masher or food processor until completely smooth.
    
3. Mix with egg, ketchup, apple butter and soy sauce.
    
4. Mix into the ground turkey using your hands until completely incorporated.
    
5. Wet your hands with cold water, form 24, 1-1/2-inch meatballs, and put them on 2 sheet pans leaving plenty of space in between.
    
6. Push a green olive ring deeply into the center of each meatball, with the circular side facing up.
    
7. Mold the meat around the olive into a football shape so that each meatball looks like an eye.
    
8. Bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes until the meat is cooked through.
    
9. While the eyeballs are cooking heat the tomato sauce in a saucepan until simmering, and keep warm.
    
10. Remove eyeballs from the oven. Dab away any juice from the top with a paper towel and insert a piece of black olive into the hole in the center of each green olive giving each eye a dark pupil.
     
11. To serve: Spoon 1/4 cup sauce in each roll, top with 2 tablespoons cheese and insert 2 eyeballs side-by-side staring out from each roll.

3) Turkey Eyeball Spiderweb Pizza

Prep: 20 minutes

Cook: 20 minutes

Yield: 12 servings

Ingredients

11/4 pound Honeysuckle White Ground Turkey
3 tablespoons panko breadcrumbs
1 egg white
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped onion (optional)
1 (12-inch) unbaked pizza crust
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
11/2 cups pizza sauce
1 cup refrigerated Alfredo pasta sauce (from 10 ounce) container
1/4 cup sliced black olives

Preparation

1. Combine ground turkey, panko, egg white, sea salt, garlic powder, lemon pepper, black pepper, and onion, if desired, in a large bowl, mixing well.

2. Shape turkey mixture into 1/2-inch meatballs. Cook meatballs in batches over medium heat in a lightly greased large nonstick skillet. Brown all sides and turning occasionally about 8 minutes or until no longer pink.

3. Preheat oven to 450F.

4. Brush pizza crust with olive oil. Sprinkle evenly with cheese. Pour pizza sauce evenly over cheese, gently spreading to cover cheese.

5. In a medium resealable plastic bag, place Alfredo sauce; seal bag. Cut off a tiny corner of bag. Squeeze bag to drizzle Alfredo sauce in circles over pizza sauce, starting at the center continuously to the outer edge to look like a spider web design. Top pizza evenly with meatballs and place 1 sliced olive on top of each meatball.

6. Bake in preheated oven 8 to 12 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Cut into slices and serve.

4) Scary Tacos

via alibird.blogger.com

1) Buy a taco kit (or just the ingredients shells / separately)

2) Cook and season lean ground beef or ground turkey.

3) Fill tacos with meat and fillings as desired.

4) Cut out slices of cheese to look like teeth, red peppers to look like tounges, and green olives for the eyes!

4) Creepy Veggie Dips and Plates

Using cream cheese, hummus, or even nut butter as “glue”, attach items that look like fingernails onto your favorite sliced veggies or cheese sticks (ex: cranberries on jicama sticks, almonds on carrots, and olives on celery). Use mashed up avocado for dip or add a couple drops of natural green food coloring to organic ranch dressing (crushed chlorella or liquid chlorophyll works well and is available at health food stores such as Whole Foods.)

5) Spider Deviled Eggs

picture via Makeit-loveit.com

6 eggs, hard cooked and peeled
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon yellow mustard
3/4 teaspoon white wine vinegar
pinch of salt (optional)
fresh ground black pepper (optional)

Cut eggs in half. Arrange egg whites cut side up on a serving plate and put the yolks in a small mixing bowl. Mash yolks with fork then stir in mayonnaise, mustard, and vinegar. Mash and stir all ingredients together well. Taste and add salt and pepper if desired. Spoon a little bit of the mixture into each egg white half, dividing mixture as evenly as possible between the eggs. Sprinkle eggs with smoked paprika if desired. 

Cut black olives in half, using some for the "body" and continuing to cut out others for the "legs". Add to the top of the eggs. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve.