October ColorWeeks Treat Recipes

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We're celebrating ColorWeeks at work so I thought it would be fun to come up with some colorful ideas for Halloween treats. ColorWeeks is a celebration of foods that represent the rainbow of colors and a variety of health benefits from ingredients that provide those colors.


Red

• Try some blood red fruit juice concoctions.  Add cherry or cranberry juice to other juices to give it a red tone.  You can make a homemade lemonade with fresh lemon juice, honey and a little cranberry, raspberry or cherry juice.


• Make a homemade jam, fruit butter, sauce or compote with your favorite red berries such as raspberry, cranberry or cherry.  There's a nice Vitamix recipe for making homemade cranberry juice and sauce with one batch of cranberries.   Drizzle red fruit on foods or place in pie for a bloody good treat.


• Bobbing for apples is a traditional fall game.  Modern versions of the game tie an apple to a string and let you try to catch a sweet treat in your mouth without use of your hands. Add an apple a day to keep the doctor away.


• Try some tomato to add a blood red color to your meal.


• Use dried cranberries and other dried fruits to make a fun trail mix snack.


• Radishes are red, at least some of them are.  How about carving a mini jack-o'-lantern with this root vegetable?


• Shape a red pepper to look like a pumpkin or carve a face in it.  Remove seeds and make stuffed peppers.  Stuff with rice, orzo, quinoa or other choices.  You can include tomato sauce for a bloody addition.

Orange

• Orange is the color of pumpkin.  Make a homemade pumpkin pie. Add pumpkin puree to various baked goods like brownie recipes.


• Orange is also the color of oranges.  You can create and decorate a mini pumpkin made from a real orange. Decorate the peel with eyes, nose and mouth to create the face of the pumpkin. Another option, remove the peel from the orange keeping it as intact as possible. Cut out features for eyes, nose and mouth. Eat the inside of the orange and fill the peel with other treats.


• How about trying a blood orange for Halloween?


• Peel a mandarin orange.  Top with celery or other green vegetable for a stem and you have a mini pumpkin.


• Make candied orange peels by saving organic orange peels and boiling in honey. It's delicious by itself, with other snacks or covered in chocolate.


• Shape an orange pepper to look like a pumpkin or carve a face in it.  Remove seeds and make stuffed peppers.  Stuff with rice, quinoa or other choices.


• Cut round, flat sweet potato slices. Cut out features for eyes, nose and mouth to resemble a pumpkin. Add some olive oil and bake at 400 degrees on a baking sheet. You'll have baked sweet potato fries that look like little pumpkins.


• Cut carrots in coin like rounds to look like pumpkins. First, cut length-wise to take out two small long triangles. These will form the shape of the stem later. Cut the other direction similar to small coins. Resulting shape should be similar to a pumpkin.


• Carrots come in multiple colors not just orange. Create a multicolored carrot salad or display using carrots in the shades of candy corn.


• Combine frozen pineapple slices and some frozen apricot.  Blend in high-powered blender to make orange ices.


• Add some edible orange or yellow nasturtium flowers to perk up a salad and provide a Halloween hue.


• If you can find mamey sapote pulp in your local grocery store, combine it with other frozen fruits in a high-powered blender for a delicious ices treat.

Yellow

• As mentioned under the red suggestions, lemon juice is great for homemade lemonade.


• Shape a yellow pepper to look like a pumpkin or carve a face in it.  Remove seeds and make stuffed peppers.  Stuff with rice, quinoa or other choices.


• I like to make a full moon gelatin from apple juice and gelatin.  Most circular containers make a suitable mold.  You can mix with ice cream for a two layer treat or add a second blood red layer of cranberry or cherry juice.


• You can also make a candy corn colored gelatin dessert using apple juice for one layer and a second layer of orange juice mixed with melted vanilla ice cream.  The ice cream will separate and make a separate layer.  You could use a combination of apple or pineapple and orange juice gelatins topped with whipped cream.


• Here's a chance to add orange and yellow to your diet.  Make a candy corn style fruit cup.  Layer a yellow fruit such as pineapple or gold kiwi and then add an orange fruit such as cantaloupe or orange.  Top with yogurt, whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.


• Freeze pineapple juice, orange juice and yogurt for a candy corn colored popsicle treat.


• Create a nori roll with white rice and some candy corn colored yellow and orange ingredients such as carrot and yellow pickled daikon radish or some corn off the cob. You can even add avocado and cucumber.  You can also add colored pepper slices.

Green

• Pumpkin is traditional this time of year, so how about adding some pumpkin seeds to your diet as a snack?  You can mix it with other seeds or nuts.


• Freeze green grapes or eat them fresh as a snack. They look (and feel) like eyeballs.


• Make a slimy looking, but healthy, green shake from a variety of green ingredients such as leaves (spinach, bok choi, lettuce, parsley, etc.) and your favorite milk (cow or goat milk or nut, coconut, soy or oatmeal 'milk') and/or yogurt.

Blue

• Blue foods in nature and animals with blue colors in nature are very rare.  Try blueberries (or boo-berries) as a treat for Halloween.  They're wonderful in pie or tarts or as an oozing jam or runny compote.

Purple

• Purple grapes are a wonderful snack for Halloween.  They're used in spooky foods as a substitute for eyeballs.  You can freeze grapes to make a fun snack.  You can also dip frozen grapes in chocolate.


• Purple cauliflower is another fun and unusual option.


• Raisins make a healthy snack for Halloween too.

White

• Garlic, it's so healthy it scares vampires away and also helps scare away other ailments.  Garlic has antibiotic properties.  If the flavor is too strong for you, try some of its relatives, onions, shallots and leeks. Chives, another allium, can produce beautiful white edible flowers.


• Cauliflower might just resemble an exposed brain especially if it's presented properly.


• Turnips - Jack-o'-lanterns were originally carved in root vegetables like turnips especially in Europe before becoming a tradition in America using pumpkins.  Some turnips have a skin with a purple hue which can add some purple to your diet too.


• A banana can make a stand-in for a ghost.  Just add some chocolate tidbits for eyes.


• Egg ghosts can be made from hard-boiled eggs. Remove the egg shell after hard-boiling. Cut out eyes and a mouth so that the yellow yolk can show through.


• Cottage cheese or plain yogurt can also be given a ghostly shape.  Add a fruit like grapes or add some chocolate tidbits for eyes.  It doesn't have to be two eyes either.  You can add multiple eyes to your creature as a delicious and flavorful addition.


• Homemade coconut macaroons can be shaped liked ghosts.


• Marshmallow ghosts are a spooky treat.  It's simple to make homemade marshmallows.  All you need is water, honey and gelatin.  Check out the recipes at the end of the Halloween Holiday Tour.