How To Cook a Fun and Easy Halloween Feast for Kids

Halloween is a great time to get creative with your cooking. Our own friends and family look forward to our annual Halloween spread. They can eat regular food on the other 364 nights of the year, but Halloween is something special. To create a Halloween feast that's fun for kids young and old, it's important to strike a balance between creepy looks and delicious flavor. Read on for a table full of recipes sure to please your little goblins this Halloween.

Halloween Feast: Appetizers

Eyeball Eggs

What You'll Need:
- One dozen eggs
- One tub of cream cheese, whipped
- One small bottle of pimento-stuffed olives

These creepy-looking orbs are easy to make, and they taste great, too! Boil a dozen eggs, then let them cool. Remove the shells and cut the eggs into two halves, lengthwise. Scoop out the yolks and discard. Fill the hollowed-out egg halves with the whipped cream cheese. Then take an olive and press it into the cream cheese so that the pimento is sticking up, creating the appearance of a green iris with a red pupil. You'll find that kids get a special kick out of eating food that's staring back at them.

Lady's Fingers

What You'll Need:
- One bag of baby carrots
- One tablespoon of cream cheese
- One package of almond slivers

Spread out and wash the baby carrots. For each carrot, take one almond sliver and dip it in a tiny bit of cream cheese. Then, using the cream cheese as an adhesive, stick the sliver onto the tip of a carrot so that it resembles a brown fingernail on a skinny, orange finger. Creepy, crunchy, and healthy to boot!

Halloween Slime Dip

What You'll Need:
- One container of sour cream or ranch dip
- Food coloring, red or green

All you need to do to make this yucky-looking appetizer is to take some food coloring and add it to your container of dip. A little green goes a long way, but if you opt for blood red, be prepared to use a little more coloring. Blend the two colors if you want, but remember that the goal is to get kids to actually eat it! Enjoy the dip with the Lady's Fingers (above), or with some festive orange and black corn chips.

Halloween Feast: The Main Dish

Spider Meatloaf

What You'll Need:
- Five pounds of ground beef
- Three cups of Italian-style bread crumbs
- Two eggs
- One jar of meaty spaghetti sauce
- One can of bake-'em-yourself breadsticks (like Pillsbury)
- Some black or green olives for decoration

Mash up your ground beef, eggs and bread crumbs, then shape into a round loaf with a concave middle. Bake for about ninety minutes at 350-degrees, checking periodically to ensure that the meatloaf is cooked all the way through. When it's done, take out your breadsticks and bake them according to the instructions on the box. You will want to drape one end of the sticks over something cylindrical, like the cardboard container they came in, or an oven-safe rolling pin. While the breadsticks bake, transfer the meatloaf onto a large serving dish. Pour the meaty spaghetti sauce into the concave center of the meatloaf. Be sure to let some dribble down the sides, like blood. When the breadsticks are ready, remove them from the oven and allow them to cool. Then arrange them around the meatloaf like spider legs. As a finishing touch, poke several eye socket holes into the meatloaf, and insert an olive into each to give the spider lots of beady "eyes".

Halloween Feast: The Sweet Stuff

Simple Halloween Snack Mix

What You'll Need:
- One box of Frosted Rice Chex or similar cereal
- One bag of candy corn
- One bag of miniature pretzels
- One bag of M&Ms
- One container of honey-roasted peanuts

This super-easy snack mix is just the right blend of salty and sweet. Autumn candy mixes work great, because they include candy corn and candy pumpkins. Tweak the amount of each ingredient to suit your own tastes, and enjoy!

Blood Clot Punch

What You'll Need:
- One can of frozen strawberries
- One 2-liter bottle of Tropicana Fruit Punch soda
- One 2-liter bottle of Fresca Black Cherry soda
- One bag of gummy worms

Dump the frozen strawberries into your punch bowl, and pour in the soda. Allow the strawberries to melt, stirring occasionally. Just before your guests arrive, toss the gummy worms into the punch. Young guests will love it when you ladle out a serving of punch complete with squishy "blood clot" strawberries and slimy gummy worms. Dry ice can be used to add a smoking effect. If that's too much trouble, try filling some rubber gloves with water, then freezing them. Once they're frozen, remove the gloves and float the icy hands in the punch to keep things cool.

Have a happy Halloween!