Halloween Fruit Salad
Ingredients
12 oranges
3 bananas, cut up
4 apples, cut up
3 pears, cut up
Preparation
Cut off the tops and bottoms and hollow out 12 oranges, being careful not to break the skin; use a small serrated grapefruit spoon.
Carve a face in each orange and put a tea candle inside.
Arrange them around the edges of a platter and pile the platter high with cut fruit.
Light the little jack-o-lanterns when your guests arrive.
Serves 12.
Hint: Keep the carved-out oranges, and let them dry out on a shelf. When they become rock hard, dip each in polyurethane to seal it against mold, and hang it on a string to dry. These tiny jack-o-lanterns make unique napkin rings or ornaments on Halloween wreaths.
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Sherried Pumpkin Soup with Candied Apple
Ingredients
1/4 cup each of: diced onions, diced carrots, diced leeks, and diced celery
1/4 tsp. minced garlic
2 tbs. clarified butter (melted butter with the solids skimmed off the top)
1 cup sherry
4 cups pumpkin, roasted and peeled
1/4 cup rice
4 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup cream
Salt and pepper seasoning to taste
Pumpkin seeds (roasted and husked, available in health food stores
1 Granny Smith apple, julienned
Turbinado sugar (this is coarse, unrefined sugar—substitute brown sugar if you can't find turbinado)
Preparation
Saute all vegetables in clarified butter until tender.
Add one cup sherry and simmer until reduced by half.
Add chicken stock, rice, pumpkin, and salt and pepper.
Cook until rice is exploded (very overcooked).
Blend or process, then run through a sieve.
Add cream and reheat.
Saute julienned apples in butter and sugar until caramelized.
Garnish soup with pumpkin seeds and caramelized apples.
Serves 6.
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Ruth Faris' Lebanese Pumpkin Kibbee
Note: This recipe requires taste-testing at several points to get the spices right.
Ingredients
Medium sized sugar pumpkin (the small hard kind used for cooking, not carving), cooked, peeled and seeded; about 4 cups pulp
1 cup cracked bulgar wheat
4 medium onions, chopped
1 cup slivered or shredded almonds
Whole wheat flour (optional)
2 tbs. cooking oil (for sauteing)
Salt, pepper, allspice, and cinnamon to taste
Preparation
Soak bulgar wheat for 1/2 hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mash cooked pumpkin pulp and add two chopped onions, raw.
Squeeze all water from wheat and add wheat to pumpkin mixture, stir.
Add spices: salt, pepper, allspice and cinnamon, to taste.
For a smoother texture, add 1/2 cup wheat flour.
Saute remaining chopped onion in oil.
Add 3/4 cup nuts and more spices (salt, pepper, allspice, cinnamon) to taste.
Put 1/2 of the pumpkin mixture in casserole pan, cover with a layer of sauteed onions and nuts, and top with remaining pumpkin mixture.
Sprinkle thin layer of uncooked nuts on top.
Cut kibbee into diagonal triangle pattern.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.
Kibbee can be frozen either before or after cooking.
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Pumpkin Dessert Dip with Ginger Snaps
Ingredients
2 cups powdered sugar
8 oz. whipped cream cheese
15 oz. pumpkin puree
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger
Preparation
Mix all ingredients well and chill for one hour.
Pour in pumpkin.
Serve with gingersnaps for dipping.
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Blood Red Cocktails
Ingredients
1-1/4 oz. vodka
3/4 oz. Chambord
Splash of cranberry juice
Preparation
Mix together vodka, Chambord, and cranberry juice.
Shake with ice.
Strain into a glass.
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Halloween Schnapps
Ingredients
Apple Schnapps
Cinnamon Schnapps
Hot sauce
Preparation
Mix equal amounts apple and cinnamon Schnapps in a shot glass.
Add a drop of red hot sauce.
