Freaky fun for Halloween

The Associated Press

Ghost-shaped bread rolls would go tastily with a holiday meal, to dip into hot soup or a warming bowl of chili. Here’s the recipe:

Dippin’ Ghosts

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1 regular-size loaf frozen bread dough, thawed but still cold

1 egg, beaten

Cut loaf into 3 or 4 equal sections. Press each into a heel shape. At the rounded end, cut a slice down each side 1 1/2 inches, to form “arms.” Pull arms out a little from body, and tuck pointed ends under.

Place each ghost on baking sheet sprayed with nonstick cooking spray. Pull the bottom edge of each ghost shape to a point, with a little curve to one side. Indent eyes and mouth with a clean pencil eraser. Brush with beaten egg. Let rise until double.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Bake bread for 20 minutes, reinforcing eye and mouth indentations once after 5 minutes of baking.

Party favors

  • Make tiny cone-shaped cornucopias of shiny paper filled with little chocolate candies to hand each guest.
  • Dippin' Ghosts can decorate a table or be part of a meal.

  • Put a small bundle of rice-cereal treats or mini candy bars in the center of an oblong piece of white paper towel. Fold and roll the paper around the goodies making a cylindrical bundle; a third of the way up, twist a rubber band around the bundle — making a “neck” below a “head.” With a marker, put a couple of wide, haunting eyes on your homemade ghost’s head, and set as many as you want to make around the room to double as decorations.
  • Buy blue-award ribbons from a local party-favor store and award your guests honors for the best, the scariest, the most creative, costumes — as individuals or as pairs.
  • Put a selection of jack-o’-lantern or monster cookie pops in a real or plastic pumpkin beside the door, for guests to take as they leave.

Spooky servings

Just reading jokey Halloween menu entries can sometimes make the blood run cold. If you have the nerve, you can quite easily make many of the most horrible-sounding dishes.

Spooktacular ideas for Halloween dishes for both youngsters and adults are offered by Rhona Silver, owner of the Huntington Townhouse, her catering business based on Long Island, N.Y.

Silver has a creative eye for presentation. Picture these:

  • “Haunted” gingerbread house, served on plates festooned with spun sugar cobwebs.
  • Dried apple “shrunken heads” with features made with dried cranberries, raisins and nut features.
  • “Eyeballs and worms with blood sauce” (eyeballs are little meatballs; worms are spaghetti, and the blood is tomato sauce). Optional extra eyeballs could be made from small mozzarella cheese balls into each of which you push a slice of black pitted olive; green olives stuffed with pimento, also sliced.
  • “Blood soup” in an acorn squash tureen (blood is rich tomato).
  • “Coffin salad,” with bug-shaped vegetables, is served with blood-orange vinaigrette.
  • “BooBerry gobbler,” for which this is the recipe:

BooBerry Gobbler

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6 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons finely grated lemon rind

2 cups marshmallow fluff

Prepared pie crust

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a small bowl, combine fruit, flour, sugar and lemon rind. Stir to mix well. Pour into muffin pans (if available, use Halloween-related shapes). Crumble pie crust evenly over fruit mixture. Bake for about 50 minutes.

Served topped with marshmallow fluff.