Halloween Food - appet-EYE-sers

The year we hosted our Dead Man's Diner Party I had a few friends in the diner kitchen preparing food as our guests ordered from the diner menu. I knew we couldn't prepare all of the food for our 80 guests during the party, so I decided to serve our appetizers on a buffet table. I wanted a quick and easy way to prepare a lot of appetizers that fit our theme.  My solution was to turn everything into an EYE. I combined store bought items with gourmet recipes to create my appet-EYE-ser buffet.

I always try to have some type of pizza at my parties and turning a pizza into an eye is so super simple by adding chopped olives and strips of roasted red peppers to a cheese pizza.

Top a store bought pizza crust with sauce and cheese. Set a small round cookie cutter in the center of the pizza with a larger one around it.  Put chopped black olives in the center and green or kalamata olives in the larger circle. Remove the cookie cutters. 

Cut a roasted red pepper into thin strips.  Place the strips in squiggle patterns around the boarder of the pizza to create the blood-shot veins.

Bake on a pizza stone or directly on the oven rack for 6-9 minutes in a 425 degree oven. To crisp up the crust and get the cheese really nice and bubbly, heat the pizza under the broiler for 30-60 seconds.  Serve hot.

 
I turned a store bought spinach/artichoke dip into an EYE by simple adding a black olive pupil, store bought green pesto iris, and roasted red pepper veins. I served it hot in a small fondue pot.

Store bought meatballs are covered in store bought biscuit dough and baked at 350 degrees until golden brown. Then a small round of green pesto is added for the iris and topped with a small black olive pupil and tomato sauce veins.

Super easy bean dip (re fried beans,Velveeta, salsa) is topped with sour cream, leaving a small round exposed as the brown iris.  Chopped black olives form the pupil and enchilada sauce is piped on to create the blood-shot veins.

I had to have one gourmet recipe so I created a layered dish of Madeira Mushrooms, Roasted Red Peppers, Brie, Prosciutto, Mozzarella Cheese, Roast Beef, and Black Olives.

We can't have a party without my family's favorite hot chicken dip (link to hot chicken dip recipe) so I turned it into an eye by adding cracker crumbs for the iris (plain) and pupil (wheat) and roasted red pepper strips for the veins.  

So, as you can see, you can simply transform any of your favorite appetizer recipes into an eye by adding a pupil, iris, and blood-shot veins.  Store bought food can be morphed into fun Halloween food and your guests will never guess you didn't make it from scratch.

So get your creative juices flowing and make your own version of appet-EYE-sers for your Halloween party.  I'd love to see what you come up with, so send me pictures of your own appet-EYE-ser buffet and I'll share them with everyone.