Fiendishly fun Halloween dinner
Crisp, vibrant leaves dance on the breeze, swirling and drifting past lit pumpkin faces. There’s a chill in the air, like phantom fingers slowing sliding down your spine. The ghouls and goblins are preparing their path, and the witches are ready to take flight. It’s All Hallows Eve in the neighborhood, and the kiddos are ready to run the sidewalks in search of sugar bounty.
When my boys were young, Halloween was always a challenge for me as a working mom. When it’s already dusk when you’re pulling in the driveway, and you need to somehow manage to put some food in your families bellies before they rot their teeth with candy, what’s a mom to do?!
Moms often struggle between fast dinner and healthy dinner, and on nights like Halloween, fast usually wins. In my home, we established the tradition of octopus sandwiches and severed fingers. Fast meets fun with the simplicity of every kids favorite…hot dogs! Add another favorite, mac and cheese and a veggie, and you’re out the door and on your way to tricks and treats.
For octopus sandwiches, start approximately 2 inches from the top, and slice the rest into 4 pieces lengthwise to form the legs. The solid piece at the top will be the head. If you want your octopi or octopuses, (whichever you prefer) anatomically correct, slice each leg in half again to make 8 legs.
Throw them in a large pot of water, and boil for about 5 minutes, or until the legs start to curl up. Serve them on hamburger buns as beds for your kid friendly mollusks, and complete with any and all hot dog fixins.
Severed fingers take a little more knife time but they are still fast fun. They up the gross factor and give a new meaning to the term “finger food.”
With a small knife, carefully slice a piece out of one end of a hot dog to make the finger nail. An inch or so below the “nail” slice 3 shallow lines to be the first “knuckle.” About an inch below that area, make 3 more shallow lines for the second knuckle. Simply break off the the other end so that it looks rough.
These also get thrown into a large pot of water, and after boiling for approximately 5 minutes, or when the hot dogs plump up, the cut pieces will start to resemble a finger.
Place each finger in a hot dog roll and cover the “severed” part in ketchup to add to the gruesome. Or, place each dog cut side down in a bowl of ketchup for a family style presentation.
Now that the boys are older, they still like hot dogs, but I struggle to make a meal that is still fun for Halloween but more suitable for their age. I decided to make stuffed jack-o-lanterns out of orange bell peppers. Now, stuffed peppers are something that I make often, but if I cut them like pumpkin faces, the ground beef and rice would fall out of the openings! So I switched it up all together, and stuffed them with Philly cheese steak. To speed the process for me, and to make my steak tender, I let it cook in the crockpot while I was at work. This is what we did:
- Ingredients:
- 4 orange bell peppers. Cut off the top but reserve it to put back on to make the stem of your pumpkin and then clean out the seeds
- 2-3 lbs thin sliced steak. ***TIP – You can use a cheaper cut of meat because of cooking in the crockpot
- 8 oz mushrooms, sliced
- 1 can of beef broth
- 1 tbsp worchestershire sauce
- salt and pepper to taste
- 4-8 slices of provolone cheese
- OPTIONAL: Onions would be great in this too, but they give me migraines so I leave them out. I also added Montreal Steak Seasoning in mine, but you don’t have to
-Put everything but the peppers and provolone cheese in the crockpot. Cook all day on low. For me this was about 8 1/2 hrs.
-Take your peppers that are already seeded, and cut a jack-o-lantern face with a sharp pairing knife. Put them whole into a large pot of boiling water and blanch until softened, then drain.
-Stand your peppers upright in a round or square baking dish.
-Take one slice of provolone cheese and line the inside of each pepper.
-Spoon the steak mixture into each pepper using a slotted spoon to remove excess juice.
-If desired, place another slice of provolone on top of the meat and tuck any excess down into the pepper.
-Place pepper stem back on top and bake in a 400 degree oven for 10-15 minutes, or until cheese is melted.
Serve with a green salad and dinner is done! I hope that your family loves these easy dinner ideas as much as mine do!
Do you have other fiendishly fun ideas for Halloween dinner? Make sure your post them on Instagram and tag us at @norolesjustbiscuits so that we can all share in the devilish delights. Happy Halloween!
