Curdling Cauldron Party

Make everyone bring his or her own potluck brew, in a witch’s cauldron! Have your guests come over in whatever costume they want. Tonight, it will be about the food after all.

Prepare your place with a large enough table that could accommodate all the coming food. Make sure there’s enough space to fit all the wide-brimmed cauldrons. Use a simple orange-colored table cloth and strategically place a few “wayward” straw and dried ears of corn around the table. Make your centerpiece a cornucopia of fresh fruits and vegetables. Vary them according to color to make the piece both interesting and festive.

Hang orange and black streamers across the room and make sure anything you hang above the table will not drop on to the food below. Try to serve non-alcoholic fruit punch if you know little goblins and wee witches will be attending the Halloween party. At least a day ahead, sterilize latex gloves and fill them with fruit juice of a dark color, grape for instance, and freeze it in the fridge until set. After you have made your fruit punch, pour it into an attractive punchbowl. Just peel back the glove and drop the frozen “hand” into the punch and enjoy!

Prepare a pumpkin shaped pizza for the little guests to savor. You will need frozen pizza dough which is readily available in the frozen food section of your local grocery. Arrange the cheese and topping to form a yellow pumpkin face. No carving needed for this little trick! Try triangle squares of salami for the eyes, nose and mouth. Use red bells peppers, thinly sliced, as the indentations of the pumpkin body.

For a nasty but tasty surprise, crumble day old cake into a large bowl and mix with cookie crumbs and vanilla pudding. Gently mix and spread out on to a brand new and recently washed kitty litter box lined with wax paper. Soften a few big pieces of Tootsie Rolls in the microwave for a few seconds. Timing counts, otherwise you would just end up with messy goo on your hands. When they are soft enough, reshape them to make them more rounded at the ends and stouter at the middle. Add a few to the cake mixture and reserve a couple for the topping. Sprinkle with the remaining leftover crumbs and add the reserved Tootsie Roll on top. Serve them with the pooper scooper to one side.

For an extra fun treat for the kids, bake plain cookie rounds. Prepare Icings, gummy bears and various candy corn toppings in separate bowls. Encourage the little ones to make their own Halloween Cookies! It will stimulate not only their imagination but also their appetites.

In lieu of pumpkin pies, try making pumpkin bars, pumpkin tarts and other sweet treats. You could save a few of them and wrap them in special containers to be given out to your guests at the end of the evening as party favors. They would love you for filling their hearts and also their stomachs!