Other People’s Recipes: Halloween

I don’t know that I’ve ever gotten really into themed treats around specific holidays, but this Halloween I went all out. I contributed the following three snacks for a pot luck dinner with some friends before heading out to celebrate this year.

Up first are Richa’sMummy Veggie Dogs. The potato & veggie-based filling was relatively easy to make, but I required a lot more liquid than was indicated in the recipe because my potatoes kept sticking to the pan. I chose to blend the cooked veggies with the breadcrumbs in the food processor rather than by hand to give the dogs a much smoother consistency.

I wrapped the veggie dogs in store-bought pizza dough. This was the first time I’ve used the pre-made dough available for purchase from Fortino’s. As I mentioned in my Pretzel post, I don’t cook very often with dough, so I’m not sure if this was normal or not, but the dough I used was SO springy! I couldn’t manipulate it any way I tried. I liked using this dough for convenience, but the texture wasn’t quite right to go with these veggie dogs. Regardless, I loved the idea and I think they’d be perfect with another type of dough.

Next I made Bloody Falafel Fingers. I used Angela’s falafel recipe from her cookbook (which is similar to this recipe), but was inspired again by Richa. These couldn’t have been simpler to make: throw everything in a food processor, shape into fingers, bake & enjoy!

I used a mix of ketchup with a bit of sriracha for the nail bed, and an almond sliver for the fingernail. I also made a ‘bloody’ dipping sauce of ketchup, sriracha, balsamic vinegar and a bit of leftover tomato paste. These were a hit & I’ll definitely come back to this recipe again, but I’ll likely just shape them into patties and not fingers…

For something sweet after dinner, I made Kathy’sPumpkin Pie Pillow Cookies. These cookies fit right in with the ‘so easy to make’ theme. Both the dry and wet ingredients are simply mixed together in the blender (separately) then combined in a bowl. I found these cookies plenty sweet enough and I loved that there was only 1/4 cup of coconut sugar in the entire batch (of about 20 cookies).

The final result was fluffy, delicious cookies. The batch went so fast that I was only able to grab a picture of the last 3 with my phone (hence the poor photo quality). I can imagine that the recipe could be easily adapted to use sweet potato, or even butternut squash!

This year’s Halloween treats were quite a bit different from my candy-inhaling childhood days of yore, but they were so delicious & satisfying that I didn’t miss the sugar-induced coma one bit!