Ghoulish treats for howling good time
Frankly, I don't mind when Halloween falls during the week; I can keep my involvement minimal. I buy the candy, get the boys' costumes together and send them out the door.
But with the clock striking the witching hour at midnight on a Saturday this year the pressure is mounting to do more. Even if I don't host a fright fest, I can't show up to the neighbor's party empty-handed.
With spending on Halloween items expected to reach $5.8 billion this year, according to the National Retail Federation, I figure more people are planning to scare up a good time in one form or another. Here are some ideas for turning your Halloween into a monstrously memorable event.
Haunted house
Line the walk to your front door with mini pumpkin luminaires. The carving could be as simple as scooping out the squash guts to make a votive holder, or as elaborate as a Martha Stewart jack-o-lantern.
Inside, set the scene with spider webs. A little bag of spider webbing (I grabbed one at Target) goes a long way. Drape it in doorways, stretch it over the buffet table (put a black or dark tablecloth down first), hang it from the bathroom mirror. Black plastic spider rings do double duty as embellishments for the webbing and as napkin rings.
Search the seasonal aisles at kitchenware stores for eerie plates and serving pieces, like skull dip bowls and webbed cake plates. If you're bringing appetizers or dessert to a party, put them on a ghoulish platter and leave it for the hostess.
Tricks and treats
Cupcakes move from cute to creepy and are a must for the treat table. The decorating options are virtually endless and the Internet is chock full of ideas.
With white frosting and black decorating gel you can create skulls or ghosts; green frosting and gummy eyes and colorful sprinkles gives you friendly aliens. Create mini graveyards with chocolate frosting and chocolate cookie crumbs for dirt; mark tombs with chocolate-dipped biscotti. Black licorice becomes spider legs on a black-frosted cupcake; chocolate wafers morph into bat wings.
Dip biscotti in white chocolate and decorate with small candies or royal icing to create a gaggle of wispy ghosts.
For more savory eats, create craggy severed fingers with almond slices and some red food dye and your favorite brand of chicken fingers (the almond slice is the fingernail). This bloody nail idea also can be applied to refrigerator-dough breadsticks and bake-at-home breaded cheese sticks.
Your favorite cheese ball can take just about any shape, from a pretty pumpkin (garnish with a green pepper stem) to a plump spider with pretzel legs to a zombie hand.
Spirited sips
Nothing is scarier than running out of drinks at a party. Make sure that doesn't happen to you with a well-stocked beverage selection.
Little goblins can sip Witches Brew – complete with tapioca eyeballs and creepy crawlies in the pot while bigger goblins can dive into a variety of spirited cocktails.
Stir together a cauldron of Vampire Punch (add a few chunks of dry ice to get that foggy effect) or have the bottles on hand for a Ghostly Coolada: Mix 2 ounces SKYY Infusions Pineapple with 1 ounce cream of coconut or coconut milk and ½ ounce lime juice in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a cocktail glass, and float two chocolate circles on the top of the drink for your Ghostly Coolada's eyes.
If beer is the favored brew, don't be scared off by pumpkin ales on liquor store shelves. “Pumpkin beers are extremely popular and we're seeing a growing number of breweries offering their own version of what's best described as ‘pumpkin pie in a bottle,' says Anthony Norkus, craft and specialty brands manager for Lincolnwood-based distributor Louis Glunz Beer.
“I think the reason for their appeal is that pumpkin beers are so completely different from all other beer styles, and yet familiar, as they tend to be spiced as pumpkin pie with ground ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and allspice, he adds.