Want a fun but easy Halloween? These easy Halloween recipes are 2021 friendly (aka low stress) and yet deliver spookiness in a tasty, delightful way. From an eerie-sistible delicious Char-Spookerie platter, a giant Rattus meatloaf, tasty vegan BOO-ritos to red velvet cinnamon bun intestines you'll delight your guests without stressing yourself out! Plus take a look at the frightening and clever costumes that my Halloween party guests wore!
Halloween Recipe Quicklinks
Click here for Red Velvet Intestine Cinnamon Roll Recipe
Click here for the Charcuterie or Char-spookerie platter Recipe
Click here for Halloween BOO-rito Burritos Recipe
Click here for Giant Rat Meatloaf Recipe
Click here for Halloween Focaccia bread with a Haunted House Scene Recipe
Click here for Dalgona Candy Recipe
Click here for Pentagram Pies Recipe
Dear Reader, COVID and the horror shows of 2020 and 2021 really put a damper on Halloween plans. Firstly there was the question about whether we would be out of lockdown in time for Halloween, then it was how many people I could invite and where we could hold it. And don't even get me started on the weather...
For the past few years the weather has played havoc with Halloween with everything from thunderstorms to persistent, heavy rain which was all very on-theme for Halloween but somewhat limiting with the location. At the time of planning my party mid September I decided to do a smaller outdoor Halloween. An outdoor picnic, like an outdoor wedding is fraught with precipitation worry so I looked for a solution that would protect us from the rain.
A few weeks ago we went on a picnic with Queen Viv and Miss America and came across a gorgeous rotunda in Camperdown Park which is called the Magical Band Rotunda. It was perfect! Not only would it protect in case of inclement weather, but it was the perfect spot to decorate too. The space was also bookable which meant one less thing to worry about.
I also decided on one key thing that was important to me: I was making less food than I usually do. I tend to go a bit overboard and there's food that ends up being thrown out which I think is a waste. So instead of making 13 things, I decided to make 6. And they would be 6 delicious things that anyone could make too. While I love a huge Halloween cake, it rarely gets eaten because everyone is too polite to cut into it and I end up with a cake for 30 people for Mr NQN and myself.
As I have for many years, I got props from The Party People in Drummoyne who always have the BEST selection of Halloween goodies. There's a whole floor devoted to Halloween decorations and costumes and you can also try on the costumes in the store because if you've ever bought pre-made Halloween outfits, they do vary in quality and sizing so it's good to try them first. They had some amazing props including a lot of animatronic ones including three clowns going around a carousel and a monster dangling a kid. I earmarked them for next year as there would be no power source in the park.
Food-wise I started with a Char-Spookerie platter with several types of cheese with a triple creme Langres, Bleu de Rambouillet, Crottin, Delice de Bourgogne and a Ossau Iraty. For fun I also made cheese and pretzel broomsticks and a "pumpkin" cheese ball. This was a cheese ball spiced up with Sriracha and was rolled in crushed tasty cheese corn chips with a cinnamon stick stem. The broomsticks were a bit trickier as I found it hard to find straight pretzels but Valentina came to the rescue and found some!
For something a bit more substantial for vegetarians I made Frankenstein BOO-ritos using spinach tortillas. I made them vegan because I didn't want to worry about keeping them cold and meat or fish spoiling. Frankenstein had cheese (you can get vegan cheese slices), carrot and olive eyes and corn chip hair. They were a massive hit as everyone really enjoyed them and they were easy to transport. I just wrapped each one in greaseproof paper and then unwrapped them at the location and placed them in a picnic basket. The eyes and corn chip hair stuck to them surprisingly well!
The main event was a Giant Rat Meatloaf complete with chicken's feet claws, potato ears, spaghetti whiskers and an articulated long red chilli tail. I originally wanted to use a parsnip for the tail but didn't get one in my vege box and wasn't sure how to communicate with the click and collect shoppers that it needed to look as "rat tail" like as possible. I used wagyu beef mince for this and he was pretty damn tasty. I wasn't sure if he looked that rat-like until Laura pointed out that he looked just like Rattus from The Ferals (which is a show I've never seen but let's pretend that was what I intended all along!). There was also my Halloween Focaccia bread with a Haunted House scene.
For dessert I had Dalgona candy and Pentagram pies filled with apple and strawberries as well as some rather gruesome cinnamon buns. These red velvet cinnamon roll intestines are as gruesome as they are tasty! They're made of red velvet flavoured bun dough with a buttery caramelised cinnamon filling! If you love a bit of a scare with your morning tea or breakfast then please give these red velvet cinnamon roll intestines a go!
A lot of red velvet cinnamon roll recipes use a box of red velvet cake mix but I don't even know if ours would be the same as the cake mixes in America so I decided to make a version without the cake mix box. Red velvet really lends itself to cinnamon buns as red velvet cakes are moist and soft in texture and are lightly flavoured with cocoa powder and a helluva lot of red colouring which was easy enough to replicate in cinnamon roll form. Usually it is smothered in cream cheese icing so in this case we used a cream cheese glaze on top (coloured bloody red of course!).
As for my outfit, I quickly got changed just before guests arrived. Costumes are usually a last minute afterthought for me as I focus mostly on the food but I really wanted to improve on my bought Halloween costume last year so I enlisted the help of my favourite costume designer Queen Viv. Every year she creates clever costumes, often hand made and she genuinely enjoys the whole process of costume making. A couple of months ago Monica had sent me a photo of a costume of a witch burning at the stake. It was so clever and I loved the idea of it because I'm 100000% sure I would have been burned at the stake if I were alive at that time. Queen Viv also suggested that I have a crystal tear on my face because of course I was an innocent witch.
Queen Viv came to the shops with me to procure all the necessary bits and pieces of felt and introduced me to a hot glue gun. I turned the design studio in her apartment into a barn as the pea straw went everywhere and we glued and she sewed a straw edged hem onto the dress. I literally dropped straw everywhere I went.
Valentina and Peter kindly offered to come earlier to help set things up which took a lot of stress off as they are great at decorating whereas I'm not so much. These are the people that you want on your team. Valentina and Peter came as Mario and Luigi of the Mario Brothers and all I can say is that if you want to be popular with kids and adults alike try these costumes. We had so many people calling out "Mario!" and "Luigi!" to them as we were setting up. They didn't even see how Val and Pete had ghoulified their costumes with wounds and fake blood.
Teddy Elliott even got into the act as part of Mr NQN's costume. Mr NQN came as John Wick as he has a bit of a Keanu Reeves look especially with lockdown longish hair. But like all divas, Teddy had a change of outfit. You see about a year ago Sammie and I had agreed that for the following Halloween we had to get the two Teddys matching Chucky doll outfits. Teddy Elliott was unable to keep the wig on (it was quite loose) and shook it off but not before we snapped some cute pics of them. 1000% adorable and have you seen happier Chuckys?
As for my guests, Ivy was the first to arrive as Wednesday Adams, a costume I had considered briefly. While I've never worn the same costume as another guest I'm sure there will be a time that I do!
Sammie and David arrived with Teddy Roo in his outfit. She apologised in advance for a recycling of her costume from last year albeit with a wig for this year. I totally understood as 2021 has been enough of a challenge and even Mr NQN wanted to recycle his plague doctor outfit from 2017.
Monica and Marco were the next to arrive as Carmela and Tony Soprano. She chose these costumes as it would be the easiest and most comfortable for him while she had most of the Carmela outfit at home and completed it with her grandmother's gold jewellery. But you'll just have to imagine it as she's very shy so she didn't want any photos taken but here's a pic of her squid ink taramasalata with salmon roe on top and charcoal crackers which was epic and delicious.
A Halloween party without Julie isn't Halloween really. Julie lives quite far away and every year she makes the effort to come along which is so lovely as everyone loves seeing her. "OK wait, I have a musical cue," said Julie playing some music on her phone. "Oh my god - red light! Green light!", I exclaimed. She came as the creepy doll in the Red Light Green Light game on Squid Game! Her costume was one of my favourites and I loved that she came as a Squid Game character!
On the theme of Korean tv shows, JY came as Yoon Hye-Jin from a show called Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha who is known for her pink dress and matching pink umbrella!
Queen Viv and Miss America arrived together. Queen Viv was worried about a crucial part of her costume arriving in time but it came just in the nick of time. When I saw her I had to laugh. She was the Octopus Teacher (and yes without the octopus the costume would be lacking a crucial part).
Miss America came as No Face from Spirited Away. This only proved difficult when it came to eating and charades as nobody could read his body language.
Every year Laura has a slight timing clash with her niece's birthday party so she usually zombifies the outfit she wears to her niece's party. This year the kid's birthday theme was Where's Wally so she went to a vintage store and snapped up a one piece red leotard complete with sequined detail on top of her Where's Wally top and beanie.
Some notable absences were Nina and Garth as Garth wasn't quite ready to come out of lockdown and mingle with people and Girl Next Door who isn't likely to make any more Halloween parties as she has switched careers and is now a marriage celebrant so all of her Saturday nights for the foreseeable future are now taken up with weddings!
Valentina made incredible pumpkin eye pies and a French onion dip. Sammie brought her amazing rocky road and Laura brought a fruit punch complete with snakes alive lollies inside and eyeballs made of lychees and cherries!
The Dalgona Candy ended up being a conversation piece. I wrapped them individually and let everyone know that there was a prize for anyone that could trace out the inside shape as per the Squid Game challenge. However the shapes that I used were a bit more complicated than the triangle and circle (although luckily for everyone I didn't have an umbrella cutter). Most people gave it a go but gave up after one or two goes instead chomping on the tasty honeycomb.
However JY and Laura decided to take it up as a challenge. If I could pick two of my friends that I think would do that it would be these two as they're competitive gals that like a challenge. It was getting dark so Laura used her phone as a light. Nobody was quite willing to lick their way to winning the challenge instead using toothpicks. In the end JY removed an owl shape from the candy using a pocket knife and won a prize. However the prize I had was a block of chocolate with peanuts in it and JY is allergic to peanuts! So 2021...SMH.
Just after 8pm the rain fell which cleared away any other picnickers but thankfully we were still protected under the magical rotunda. We also played some charades. This time Miss America didn't forget which team he was on and surprisingly nobody picked COVID-19 which was a surprise as nothing was more horrific. And the best thing for me? Nobody noticed that there were less items than last year as the table was filled up with my items and those from my friends.
Onto the recipes Dear Ghouls! So tell me Dear Reader, are you celebrating Halloween this year? Would you try the Dalgona challenge?
Love,
Morticia
xxx
Reader Comments
Loading comments...Add Comment