It’s taken a while, but the UK has finally embraced Halloween. For years, ours was the lone jack-o-lantern in the neighbourhood, and four or five kids might knock on the door all evening. Last night, we had more than 150.
These days our neighbourhood association publishes a “trick-or-treat trail” of participating houses, and crowds of little witches and ghouls traipse round the route. The high street shops get in on it too, decorating their windows and handing out sweets.
This year the local dentist erected some scaffolding outside their premises to create a raised platform, and grinned maniacally at the kids as they passed below, complete with smoke machine adding to the atmosphere. Halloween is firmly on the calendar now, it would seem.
We feed the girls and their friends some proper food before they set off to fill their buckets and stomachs with sweets. Over time, I’ve settled on a menu of roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin soup, witches’ fingers (chicken strips) and steamed green beans.
These bloodsucking jellies make a light, reasonably healthy dessert for a Halloween menu. Easy to make, they look great, and our little vampires love sinking their teeth into them. I squeeze the juice from a dozen fresh oranges and use it to make the jelly. The original recipe comes from Delicious magazine.
Bloodsucking jellies
(makes 48)
- 12 regular oranges
- two packs of raspberry jelly (135g each)
- Slice the oranges in half and thoroughly juice them.
- Arrange the halves face up on a baking tray or in a casserole dish.
- Break the jelly into cubes and put into a jug. Add 200ml cold water and microwave according to packet instructions. Stir until completely dissolved.
- Add 200ml of the orange juice to the jelly, then add cold water until you have 940ml in total (to make a firmer jelly).
- Carefully fill the orange halves with jelly and transfer to the fridge to set.
- When firm, halve the oranges again before serving.
Ten More Bites 
Actually kids have been ‘guising’ in Scotland for ever. They do only go to the houses of people they know, family or friends. I’m a little sorry to see it is now being called trick or treat. Would be nice to keep our own traditions going instead of borrowing someone else’s.
That’s interesting – I’ve never lived in Scotland and hadn’t heard about guising. It could well be that trick-or-treating is actually a Scots custom that North Americans have adopted…:-)
You certainly go to a lot of work to create a memorable Hallowe’en. I like the combining of a delicious looking treat with it actually being healthy for you.
The girls both love Halloween and so do Adam and I. The jellies are fun, and as treats go, reasonably healthy…