Food Ideas and Tips for a Halloween Birthday Party

Party Menu

Serve Rats Baked in Blood

For the Rats:
1-1/2 lbs. lean ground beef
1/2 cup uncooked long grain white rice
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
1 egg, beaten
2 tsp. salt
Uncooked spaghetti, broken into quarters
Thinly sliced raw carrots
Black peppercorns, cooked black beans

For the blood:
1 can crushed or ground tomatoes
1-1/2 cups water
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper

In a mixing bowl, combine the ground beef, rice, onion, egg and 1 tsp. of the salt. Mix well.
Make the rats. Using a measuring cup, scoop out 1/4 cup of the ground beef mixture. Form it, by hand, into a firmly packed teardrop shape — pointy on one end, rounded on the other. This is your basic rat. Place it into a 3 quart shallow baking dish and gently pinch in the neck area. Poke a piece of uncooked spaghetti into the larger rounded end as a tail. Repeat with the remaining ground beef mixture.
When all the rats are neatly placed in the baking dish, stir together the tomatoes, water, sugar, Worcestershire sauce, remaining 1 tsp. of salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper. Pour over the rats. Cover the dish with foil wrap and bake at 350°F degrees for 45 minutes. Uncover and continue to bake for another 45 to 50 minutes, basting occasionally with sauce, or until the rice is tender and the rats are fully cooked.
Gently remove rats, one at a time, from the sauce and place gently on a serving platter. Into each rat, insert two carrot slices as ears, peppercorns for eyes, and a few more broken strands of uncooked spaghetti for whiskers. Spoon sauce around the rats and serve!

Witches Finger Cookie Recipe

1 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2-2/3 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
3/4 cup whole almonds, blanched
2 squares of melting chocolate, or chocolate bark

Combine the sugar, egg, butter, almond extract, and vanilla in a bowl. Mix in the flour, and salt. Cover and refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes, or until it’s firm.
When you’re ready to shape the cookies, take out one small portion of the dough at a time. Shape the cookies into fingers by rolling and working with your hands. Score the top of the cookie with a knife or spatula to make it look like the wrinkles in your knuckle. Press an imprint into the tip of the cookie with your finger to make a spot for the almond fingernail. Press an almond into the tip of each finger to look like a fingernail.
Place on a cooking sheet lightly coated with no-stick cooking spray and bake at 325°F for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the cookies are a very light golden brown. Let the cookies cool on a drying rack.
Use melting chocolate to go around the outside of the almond nail, giving a ghoulish appearance. Just melt the chocolate, put it in an icing piping bag, and cut a very small hole in the tip. Then pipe around the nail.
If you use red melting chocolate the look will be even more dramatic. You can also make small drops of chocolate blood, or chocolate cuts on the cookies if you really want to gross out your guests.

Blood & Guts Pasta. Use elbow-shaped green pasta, sauce, and stuffed Spanish olives. Make up the pasta and cut the olives in half to make the eyeballs and place on top of the blood & guts.

Bat Wings. Use one dozen chicken wings and create a marinade using 1 cup soy sauce, 1/3 cup honey, and 1 tsp. ginger. Marinate overnight and grill or BBQ.

Chocolate Spiders. Melt some chocolate chips in the microwave. Add dry chow mein noodles to the melted chocolate and mix together. Spoon onto greaseproof paper as little blobs and add two M&M’s® Minis® for eyes. Place in the fridge to cool.

Ghosts in the Graveyard Cake. Make a batch of instant pudding and spread it into a pan. Sprinkle with Oreo® cookie crumbs, and decorate Pepperidge Farm® Milano® cookies with icing to look like tombstones. Stick them into the pudding. Place dollops of whipped cream into the graveyard for the ghosts. Add M&M’s® Minis® for their eyes.

Dip pretzel rods into chocolate and roll in orange and black sprinkles for a special Halloween Wand!

Kellogg's® Rice Krispies Treats® Pumpkins. Add orange food coloring to the Kellogg's® Rice Krispies Treats® and make a batch. When cool, roll into balls and decorate faces on them. Use shoelace licorice for a mouth, green gumdrop for the stem, M&M’s® Minis® for the eyes, and a red hot for the nose.

Edible Swamp. Make a bowl of gelatin. Before it sets, add in gummy worms, bugs, and fish for a swampy treat.

Jack-O-Lanterns. Toast English muffins, and add orange food coloring to cream cheese to make a festive pumpkin spread. Spread the cream cheese on the English muffins and have the kids use raisins to make pumpkin faces on them.

Pumpkin, witch, bat, and ghost cookie cutters make great inspiration for a thematic party menu:

Gelatin. Make a batch of gelatin using orange and lime flavors.
Scary Sugar Cookies. Use these same cookie cutters to make a batch of sugar cookies. Have the kids decorate these Halloween characters.
Spooky Sandwiches. Fill the sandwiches with blackberry jam and cream cheese. Add chocolate chips for eyes.

During the party, turn your regular snack into ghoulish treats by simply renaming them:

Baked Skeleton Bones (Pretzel Sticks)
Bat Brains (Popcorn)
Bloated Ants (Raisins)
Boiled Lady Bugs (Red Jelly Beans)
Braised Beetles (Milk Duds®)
Candied Spider Eggs (Gum Drops)
Cheesy Owl Eyes (Puffed Cheese Balls)
Chocolate-Dipped Houseflies (Chocolate-Covered Raisins)
Compressed Cobwebs (Chex® Brand or Similar Cereal)
Crumbled Bat Wings (Blue Corn Chips)
Deep Fried Fingernails (Bugles® Brand Snacks)
Dehydrated Dragon’s Wings (Doritos®)
Dirty Shoelaces (Black Shoestring Licorice)
Dried Seaweed (Chow Mein Noodles)
Earthworm Knots (Miniature Pretzel Twists)
Flattened Slugs (Corn Chips)
Freeze Dried Drops of Blood (Red Hot Candies)
Ghost Guts (Mini Marshmallows)
Goblin’s Belly Button Lint Balls (M&M’s®, Any Style)
Plops of Pigeon Poop (Yogurt Covered Raisins)
Rat Claws (Shelled Sunflower Seeds)
Roasted Snack Eyes (Peanuts)
Shredded Lizard Gizzards (Coconut)
Splintered Turkey Bones (Shoestring Potato Chips)
Toasted Cat’s Eyes (Blanched Almonds)
Vulture Toenails (Candy Corn)
Witches’ Warts (Chocolate Chips)