The culinary Hallowe’en extravaganza! pt. 3

Next up in the Halloween dinner recipe reminiscence is Eye of Newt, crunchy Zombie Fingers, and the sweet Zombie Kidneys — all of which were quite tasty.

Funny… writing all this down has reminded me of helping out my little sister many years ago, when she was in grade school. Her class had to each pick a piece of Shakespeare they particularly liked, then perform the lines, so she and a friend chose the scene with the three witches in MacBeth. Admittedly, it had to become “The Two Witches of MacBeth,” but she and the friend did an amazing job: they had little black cloaks and borrowed my mom’s big cast iron pot and found things to throw into the pot for all the elements of the magical recipe.

I can’t remember now if they found the dry ice they wanted for the scene, but I remember my sister being upset at the requirement for “lips of Turk.” She and my mom were pondering what to do about that — maybe leave that bit out of the speech? I walked into the kitchen and heard this, and promised I could fix it for them. I peeled an orange, took two abutting segments and poked a tiny hole into each one with a sharp knife, then put several drops of red food coloring into them. The orange segments turned a wonderfully disgusting mottled/bruised color, and my sister was delighted!

When she came back after school that day she was even more pleased at how well the “Two Witches” had been received. According to her, too, when the “lips of Turk” were pulled out and brandished before being tossed into the pot, there was a gratifying chorus of, “Eeeeew!” from her half-horrified, half-delighted classmates!

So I guess I have a long history of enjoying the imaginative creation of gleefully disgusting food. Think of the addition this will be to my resume! :)

Eye of Newt

Ingredients:

• 12 eggs
• 1 tablespoon sweet pickle relish
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise
• 1 pinch celery salt
• 1 tablespoon prepared yellow mustard
• 2 drops green food coloring, or as needed
• One 6 oz. can sliced black olives, drained

Directions:

Place all of the eggs into a large pot so they can rest on the bottom in a single layer. Fill with just enough cold water to cover the eggs. Bring to a boil, then cover, remove from the heat and let stand for about 15 minutes. Rinse under cold water or add some ice to the water and let the eggs cool completely. Peel and slice in half lengthwise.

Remove the yolks from the eggs and place them in a bowl. Mix in the relish, mayonnaise, celery salt, mustard, and food coloring. Spoon this filling into the egg whites and place them on a serving tray. Round the top of the filling using the spoon. Place an olive slice on each yolk to create the center of the eye. Dab a tiny bit of mayonnaise in the center of the olive as a finishing touch.

Notes to self: Next time I think I’ll only make half a dozen instead of a dozen. I also want to round the yolk irises more, and use less of the yolk, so I can squish the olive pupil in more deeply. Rounding off the mayonnaise centers might be good too. Also, credit where credit is due.

Next are the very yummy…

Zombie fingers

Ingredients:

• One 8 oz. package pitted dates
• 4 ounces almonds
• 1 pound sliced bacon

Directions:

• Preheat the broiler.
• Slit dates. Place one almond inside each date. Wrap dates with bacon, using toothpicks to hold them together.
• Broil 10 minutes, or until bacon is evenly brown and crisp.

That’s it! This took far longer to prepare than it did to actually cook, but wow, was it tasty! Next time I’m going to make more of these delicious little things.

Finally there were the sweet zombie kidneys, which we somehow managed to completely forget to photograph, darnit. They were also very easy to make: slice an apple in half down the core, use a melon baller to dig out the core and a little of the inner fruit, then balance on a muffin pan. Pour in melted caramel; once it has cooled and hardened you can embellish as desired, though I left mine as-was due to running out of time. As can be seen, the original photo that inspired me has the caramel-filled apples cut into slices. I did manage to find a very similar recipe, however, to link to here: inside-out caramel apples. They’re also occasionally left as half an apple, then sprinkled with chopped pecans, which looks really tasty to me!