Being tricky with healthful treats

If my boys ask, I'll deny it, but Halloween is my least favorite holiday and it has nothing to do with spending long hours making costumes.

I try my best getting them to avoid candy, then I send them out on Halloween with bright orange buckets for collecting the stuff. When it comes to trick-or-treating, there is just no avoiding the gobs of candy they haul in.

My goal this year is to pump them full of healthy food before the frenzy. I figure if I keep healthier eats on the menu, I can balance out the sugar rush. I assume other moms will pick up the challenge as well.

There really are plenty of opportunities if you want your more-healthful eats to stand a chance against the sugar onslaught.

First, offer kids lots of choices. Children like the power of choice and are more likely to pick something healthy if there's variety.

Fresh and dried fruits are naturally sweet and offer plenty of shapes, colors and tastes. Consider a variety of textures and -- remember, we're talking about children -- noise. Nuts, whole grain crackers, popcorn and even fresh vegetables are crunchy, and children enjoy making noise when they eat.

Second, presentation is key to making it fun.

Take homemade popcorn balls, or even whole apples, wrap them in orange cellophane and tie them up with a piece of thin, black licorice to make them festive.

And vegetables can be downright ghoulish when assembled the right way. Use cream cheese to "glue" a slivered almond to one end of a baby carrot, then drizzle it with ketchup or dip it into roasted red pepper spread to make "bloody fingers."

Or, add a few drops of green food coloring to ranch drip to create slime for dipping a variety of vegetables, suggests Cheryl Bell, nutritionist with Meijer stores.

To make edible eyeballs, peel boiled new potatoes and make a hole on one side of each that's large enough to fill with a pimento-stuffed olive.

Or, mold ground turkey and mashed beans into meatballs. Decorate with sliced green and black olives, then place the meatballs side by side on a roll to create Eyeball Subs.

Make mini jack-o'-lanterns by using the tip of a sharp knife to cut eyes, a nose and a mouth into an orange. Cut just deep enough to expose the white pith.

Kids love to play with their food, so make it as interactive as possible.

Use Halloween cookie cutters to make spooky shapes with whole-grain bread, reduced fat cheese slices and sliced deli meats, then let the children assemble "sandwitches."

Peanut butter boulders combine whole-grain oat cereal with dried cherries and sunflower seeds to make a wholesome treat with flavors children love. They're sweetened with honey rather than refined sugar and, best of all, they're no-bake.

If you like, wrap them in pieces of wax paper, twisting the ends, and they'll look just like a piece of candy.

Graveyard Sandwiches

4 cans (5 ounces each) chunk breast of chicken or turkey in water, drained

teaspoon poultry seasoning

½ cup light mayonnaise

24 slices white sandwich bread

1 head lettuce, finely shredded

Ketchup or mustard (in squirt bottles)

Break the canned chicken, turkey, tuna or ham into flakes in a mixing bowl. Add the seasoning and mayonnaise and mix to combine.

Trim the bread slices into tombstone shapes. Toast in a toaster oven until the bread has browned. Divide the filling between half of the toasted bread slices and spread evenly. Assemble into sandwiches with the remaining toasted bread slices. Decorate each sandwich with "R.I.P." or skull and crossbones with ketchup or mustard in squirt bottles.

To serve: Arrange shredded lettuce on a large tray and set the sandwiches on the end in the field of lettucelike tombstones in a graveyard.

Serves 12.

Variations: For Tuna Sandwich Filling: Combine mayonnaise with 4 cans (6 ounces each) chunk light tuna in water, drained and teaspoon celery seed.

For Ham Sandwich Filling: Combine mayonnaise with 4 cans (5 ounces each) chunk lean ham in water, drained and finely chopped and teaspoon pumpkin pie spice.

Nutrition values per serving: 217 calories, 5 g fat (0 saturated), 24 g carbohydrates, 0 fiber, 12 g protein, 38 mg cholesterol, 459 mg sodium.

www.Mealtime.org

Eyeball Sub

½ cup drained canned cannellini beans or other white beans

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 tablespoon ketchup

1 tablespoon apple butter

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1½ pounds ground turkey

8 pitted colossal green olives, cut in 3 round slices

2 cans (15 ounces each) tomato sauce with Italian herbs

1-2 small black olives, cut in ¼-inch dice (for 24 pieces)

12 small club rolls (about 5-inches long), split

1½ cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Mash the beans with a fork, potato masher or food processor until completely smooth. Mix with egg, ketchup, apple butter and soy sauce. Mix into the ground turkey using your hands until completely incorporated.

Wet your hands with cold water and form into 24, 1½-inch meatballs, and put on 2 sheet pans leaving plenty of space in between.

Push a green olive ring deeply into the center of each meatball, with the circular side facing up. Mold the meat around the olive into a football shape so that each meatball looks like an eye. Bake 10 minutes until the meat is cooked through.

While the eyeballs are cooking heat the sauce in a saucepan until simmering, and keep warm.

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.

To serve: Spoon ¼ cup sauce in each roll, top with 2 tablespoons cheese and insert 2 eyeballs side-by-side staring out from each roll.

Serves 12.

Nutrition values per serving: 352 Calories, 8 g fat (3 g saturated) 39 g carbohydrate, 3 g fiber, 28 g protein, 68 mg cholesterol, 705 mg sodium.

www.Mealtime.org

Halloween Test Tube Shooters

1 package (3 ounces) orange-colored gelatin powder, such as orange, peach or apricot

1 cup boiling water

1 can (15 ounces) peaches, apricots or pears in juice or extra-light syrup, not drained

2¼ cups purple grape juice (see note)

¼ cup hot-chocolate mix (see note)

Equipment

18 test tubes (2 ounce each) and rack to hold them

1 long bamboo skewer

Mix gelatin powder and boiling water until the powder completely dissolves, about 2 minutes.

Purée the canned fruit in a blender or food processor until completely smooth. Mix with gelatin and divide between the; you should fill each test tube about half way. Refrigerate until firm.

Heat the grape juice in a sauce pan until simmering. Stir in the hot-chocolate mix until it dissolves; refrigerate.

To serve: Fill the test tubes with the grape-juice mixture. Poke a skewer down the sides of the test tube into the gelatin so that the grape-juice mixture flows down creating dark stripes through the orange gelatin.

Serves 18.

Nutrition values per serving: 39 calories, 0 fat, 14 g carbohydrates, 0 fiber, 0 protein, 0 cholesterol, 31 mg sodium.

www.Mealtime.org

Peanut Butter Boulders

½ cup reduced-fat peanut butter

½ cup honey

½ instant nonfat powdered milk

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1½ cups oat ring cereal (such as Cheerios)

¿ cup dried cherries

¿ cup raw sunflower kernels

In a large bowl, combine the peanut butter, honey, powdered milk and lemon juice. Mix well. Add the cereal, dried cherries and sunflowers seeds and stir well.

Have a small bowl of water on hand. Moistening your hands as needed, roll the cereal mixture into balls. Set on wax paper until the outsides feel dry to the touch, about 30 minutes. Store in an airtight container at room temperature up to four days.

Serves 30.

Nutrition values per ball: 60 calories; 2 g fat (trace amount saturated), 10 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 2 g protein, 0 cholesterol, 46 mg sodium.

Jim Romanoff, Associated Press

Munch-A-Roaches

1 can (15 ounces) tropical fruit salad, drained and finely chopped

3 tablespoons butter

1 package (10½ ounces) mini-marshmallows

6 cups crispy rice cereal

48 currants or dried blueberries

10 licorice laces, any color

Sandwich the fruit between 2 layers of paper towel and blot away as much moisture as possible.

Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the marshmallows and stir until melted. Remove from heat and stir in fruit and crisped rice cereal until cereal is uniformly moistened. Scrape onto a sheet pan and cool.

Wet your hands and form cereal mixture into 24 tablespoon size, egg-shaped balls (bodies) and 24, 1½ teaspoon size balls (heads). Stick the heads onto the bodies and decorate with currants or dried blueberries for eyes, and small pieces of licorice for legs and antenna.

Serves 24.

Nutrition values per serving: 93 calories, 1 g fat (0 saturated), 19 g carbohydrates, 0 fiber, 1 g protein, 4 mg cholesterol, 80 mg sodium.

www.Mealtime.org