Eyeball and Monster Foods - Focus on Halloween Party Menu

Details of our Halloween Party food -- I wanted to focus on a certain type of food. So, I started looking for eyeball and monster foods.  After some time, I went with what I had time to get done and was within my realm of abilities.

Here's our complete menu. I linked to the original recipe and if I made significant changes, I am going to post those below.  

Hopefully, you'll find something you'll want to use. 

Our Menu

Entrees

Tombstone Sandwiches, original recipe, see below for more info
Tortured Squash Soup, a remake of my butternut squash and apple soup
Ghost and Eyeball Pizzas, see below

Appetizers/Side Dishes

Witch Vomit, original Pinterest item
Punkin Chunk 
Hummus Veggie Tray

Desserts

Ogre Eye Cookies, original recipe
Witch's Hats, original recipe, see below for more info
Jello Worms, original recipe, see below for more info
Ghost S'Mores Brownies, original recipe, see below for more info
Monster Eye Cupcakes, original recipe, see below for more info
Monster Munch, see below

Drinks

Blood Punch

Tombstone Sandwiches

Ingredients

Hoagie Rolls (cut in half)
2 cans, Canned Chicken
2 tbsp, Miracle Whip
2 tsp Brown mustard
1 small Cucumber, peeled and well- chopped
3 tsp, Tarragon

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl.
2. Spoon into hoagie rolls.

Notes for Future: I just leaned them up against each other on a platter.  The effect would be stronger if they had been in a bed of shredded lettuce.

Ghost Pizza and Eyeball Pizza

(I only a picture of the post-cut ghost pizza -original crust recipe is from Cottage Living magazine, so old that my paper copy is wrinkled and dirty.)

Pizza Crust

Ingredients

2 cups bread flour
2 cups wheat flour
1 (1/4 ounce) envelope active dry yeast
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil

Directions

1. Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup warm water (100 to 110 degree). Let stand 10 minutes (mixture should be creamy and bubbly.) Combine yeast mixture with 1 cup warm water and remaining ingredients in a large bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Mix at medium 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic. (Dough will be slightly wet.) Place in a large, lightly greased bowl. Cover with lightly greased plastic wrap, and let rise 2 to 3 hours in a draft-free environment. (Dough will double/triple in volume.)
2. Push dough down gently, turn into a floured surface, and divide into 3 portions (for three large pizza, can also do 6 small pizzas). Form into round balls, cover with lighly greased plastic wrap, and let stand 20 minutes.
3. Stretch dough gently into the Halloween shapes - make one look like a ghost and the other into an ellipse for the eye - directly on baking stones (I always use Pampered Chef) sprinkled with flour.  Top as desired to look like an eye or ghost.
4. Bake in preheated 450 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

Toppings
Mozzarella, pre-shredded cheese
Pepperonis - for mouth
Black Olives - for black part of eyes

Witch's HatS

Ingredients

Fudge Stripe Cookies
Hershey Kisses
Chocolate for melting (I bought Wilton's melting chocolate) 

Directions

Fudge Stripe cookies flip over, melt chocolate (I picked up neon green), and make a circle around the middle hole. Then push a Hershey's Kiss into the center.

Easy peasy. 

Thinking of doing at Christmas and using white and red for Santa Hats 

Worms

So disgusting, but so worth it in terms of appearance.

Ingredients

100 flexible plastic straws (The straws with a bendable neck make the most realistic worms by adding ridges to the worm.)

Empty, clean 1-quart milk or orange juice carton to hold straws (The straws will fill up to the height of the container, the taller the better.)

1 package (6 ounces) raspberry or grape flavor gelatin
3 envelopes unflavored gelatin
3 cups boiling water
3/4 cup whipping cream
12 to 15 drops green food coloring
waxed paper

Directions

1. Combine both kinds of gelatins in a bowl and add boiling water. Stir until gelatins completely dissolve. Chill until lukewarm, about 20 min.
2. Meanwhile, gently pull straws to extend to full length; place in tall container with bendable necks at the bottom.
3. Blend cream and food coloring with the lukewarm gelatin mixture. Carefully pour into the straws. If the coloring is off, just get the red food coloring out and try to adjust the coloring.  I think mine had a bit too much green.
4. Chill until gelatin is firm, at least 8 hours, or cover and chill up to 2 days.
5. Pull straws from container or, if you’re using a carton, simply tear the carton away from the filled straws. Pull straws apart. Run hot tap water for about 2 seconds over 3 to 4 straws at a time. Starting at the empty ends, push worms from straws with your fingers.
6. Lay worms on waxed paper-lined baking sheets. Cover and chill until ready to use, at least 1 hour or up to 2 days. Worms will hold at room temperature for about 2 hours.  I filled a bowl up of the worms and placed that bowl in a bowl of ice - the worms lasted hours.

Ghost S'More Brownies

Graham Cracker Crust
1 stick of unsalted butter, melted 
1 1/2 cups crushed graham cracker crumbs 
2 tablespoons sugar 
Pinch of salt

Directions

1. Press the crumb mixture evenly over the bottom of a well-buttered 8 x 8 pan~ the scarily perfect size for 3 rows of 4 marshmallow ghosts.
2. Bake crust 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

Top of S'more Ingredients

Brownie Mix, plus ingredients for brownies
Peeps - 12 Ghosts
Chocolate Chips
Mini Chocolate Chips (@12) 
 

Directions

1. Pour your brownie batter on top of the graham cracker crust and bake according to recipe/mix directions.
2. Added a layer of chocolate chips during the 5 minutes of baking time for more chocolatey-s’more-goodness and to help the marshmallow spooks stick to the brownies.
3. Place your PEEPS^® Ghosts on top your chocolate chip/brownie layer and broil very briefly!  If you do and burn them to death like I did, rescue them, scrape off the black part and put on new ghosts and make another attempt.

 

Monster Cupcakes

Ingredients

Devil's Food Cupcake Mix & Ingredients
Icing
Purple sprinkles
Marshmallows
Chocolate Chips

Directions

1.  Make the cupcakes according to the box directions.
2. Frost the cupcakes.
3. Sprinkle icing with purple sprinkles.
4. Place a large marshmallow on sideways.  Use a bit of icing to stick a chocolate chip in the center.

Notes for future:  Pre-pour all the sprinkles into a bowl. Dip the frosted cupcakes into the sprinkle - you would get fuller and better coverage.  Also, either make mini cupcakes so the large marshmallows look bigger or try two large marshmallows - would increase the "wow" factor.

Monster Munch

Basically a Halloween trail mix...

Ghost Poop - mini marshmallows
Witch's Nails - candy corn
Scarecrow Stuffing - rice chex
Worms - sour worms
Bat Poop -chocolate covered raisins
Kidney Stones - dried cranberries
Pumpkin Hearts - dried mango

Throw it in a bowl, make a cute sign and you are ready to roll!