Spectacularly Spooky Halloween Finger Foods

Halloween is my all time favorite holiday and for good reasons: the costumes are spectacular, the decorations thrill me completely, and oh yeah, the food! I have a huge Halloween party every year and my favorite part of planning it is preparing the food. It usually consists of bloody worms and eyeballs, witches' fingers, and bat wings. Sounds ideal, right? Yes, but it also takes time. If you don't have that much time or you're not the greatest mad scientist in the kitchen, finger foods are your savor. They're easy to make and easy to eat. Voila!

　

Tasty Stuffed Roaches

(These things look disgusting which is awesome for your party!)

Ingredients:
1. In a small bowl, combine cream cheese and nuts until well mixed.
1/3 C. cream cheese, softened
1/4 C. walnuts, chopped semi-fine
20-30 dates, pitted
Instructions:

2. Gently fill each date with cream cheese/nut mixture (you may have to split the dates slightly).

3. Serve in a festive Halloween tray decorated with several rubber roaches (if desired). Label as "Stuffed Roaches," or "Fresh-caught Cockroaches," etc.

　

Creepy Cheese and Crackers

your choice of cracker (Ritz is pictured)
orange cheese, preferably already sliced
a contrasting layer (I used white cheese slices)

For the version shown with the white background, cut the slices of cheese into cracker-sized squares. Cut the orange cheese into jack-o-lantern shapes by hand, or use a miniature cookie cutter if you're lucky (I wasn't lucky, so I cut all of these by hand). Lay the contrasting layer on the cracker, then top with the jack-o-lantern slice.

　

Shapely Sandwiches

sliced bread of your choice
sandwich filling of your choice
condiments of your choice
Halloween cookie cutters

Make your sandwiches however you'd like, but try to have ingredients that will stick together and not fall apart after the sandwiches have been cut. The metal cookie cutters work best, since not all the plastic ones are as tall to cut through all the bread and fillings.
　

Decayed Corpse Chips with En trail Salsa

blue corn tortilla chips
coffin
salsa

This isn't so much a recipe as it is a creative display. Arrange the blue corn chips in a coffin in the shape of a long-dead corpse. The natural blue corn chips have almost a dusky shade of brown in them that hints of decayed skin. Serve with a nice blood-red chunky salsa as accompanying entrails.
　

Sticky Sweet Spider Treats

What you'll need: Cupcakes (plain, prepared), vanilla icing (store bought is fine), black food coloring (available at party supply stores), knife, piping bag with small round tip (Wilton tip #3 is ideal).

Begin by spreading white icing on each cupcake. Color some icing black and add it to the piping bag. Draw several circles on the top of each cupcake, with small circles in the middle and gradually larger ones as you move outward. Once you've drawn the circles, put the tip of the knife in the center of the cupcake and lightly drag it through the icing to the edge. Repeat for a total of six times per cupcake. Always begin in the middle and move to the edge. Your spider web cupcakes are ready to eat!

http://www.coolest-party-ideas.com/halloween-party-foods.html

http://www.britta.com/HW/HWr.html#friedspiders

http://www.divinedinnerparty.com/gross-recipes-for-halloween.html#stuffed-roaches