Halloween Eats and Treats and Spooky Songs

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Unroll the puff pastry and sprinkle a few handfuls of parmesan over the top. Fold in half, then transfer to a lightly floured surface. Roll the pastry out to a thickness of aobut 1/8 of an inch. Cut the pastry into one-third to one-half inch strips, then twist each strip several times to form a snack shape.
• On a parchment paper-covered baking sheet, lay out the snakes with a small amount of space in between. Bruch each one with egg and sprinkle with more cheese. Scatter seeds over each one, then flatten one end of each snake. Press in two peppercorns as eyes. Bake for 12-14 minutes, or until golden. Allow to cool, and then enjoy your slithering snacks.

• In a large heavy pot, cook the bacon over medium heat, turning occasionally, until crisp, about 8 minutes. Transfer the bacon to paper towels to drain. Keep the fat in the pot.
• Stir the onions, garlic into the fat in the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, 8-10 minutes. Stir in the carrots, celery, stock and split peas and bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the split peas are very soft and falling apart, about 1-1/2 hours or more. Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste and crumble with the reserved bacon on top.

For Spooky Bat Chips

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
• Lightly brush each tortilla with olive oil on both sides. Using a bat shaped cookie cutter, cut out bats from your tortillas and place them on a large baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt or seasoning, as desired.
• Bake for 3 minutes and then turn. Bake another 3 minutes or until lightly golden. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

Spider Web Black Bean Dip

• Add garlic cloves (to ward off vampires) to a food processor and blend until finely chopped. Pour in the black beans and process until smooth. Combine the remaining ingrnedients and process until smooth. Taste and adjust seasonings to your liking.
• To decorate your devilish dip and bring your spider to life: Spoon the haunted hummus into a serving dish and use the back of a spoon or spatulat to make it smooth on top. Fill a pastry bag with a few teasoons of soy yogurt or thinned tahini, then pipe on a spider web design. Make an olive spoider by slicing a black olive in half lengthwise. Place one-half cut side down on the dip for the body. Slice the oother side into 8 equal "legs" and arrange on the dip to finish your spooky spider. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Cupcake Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 12-cup standard muffin tin with paper liners. Spray the paper liners with cooking spray.
• In a medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Set aside.
• In another bowl, or the bowl of your mixer, add the butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar and mix until well combined and it lightens in color. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each egg. Mix in the vanilla extract and sour cream.
• Add the food color and mix. Start with one teaspoon and keep adding until you get the desired color. (Different food color brands may yield different color results with the same quantity.)
• Add the flour mixture and mix on low until wellblended, scraping the sides of the bowl as you go along.
• Using a small ice cream scoop, scoop the batter into the prepared muffin tin, filling each so that it's approximately 3/4 of the way full.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.Cool the cupcakes in the muffin tin for 5-10 minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting

• Beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth. Add the vanilla extract, salt and icing sugar and continue mixing until smooth and fluffy.
• Prepare a piping bag and fill it with the frosting and frost the cupcakes.

Decorating

• In a small bowl., whisk all of the icing ingredients. Use as much red food color until you achieve a dark blood like icing. The icing should be quite thin so that you can easily drizzle it.
• Drizzle over the white icing to achieve a bloody effect.

• Wash and dry apples thoroughly, then place them on a baking sheet. Firmly poke the enter of each apple with a dowel or a stick. Line a second baking sheet with buttered parchment paper and set aside.
• Add sugar, 3/4 cups water, and corn syrup to a medium saucepan with a candy thermometer. Place over medium heat and whisk until sugar is fully dissolved. Stop stirring and let the temperature rise until it reaches the hard-crack mark at 310 degrees. When it does, remove the termometer and take the pan off the heat. Add food coloring and swirl the pan to mix the color in completely. Holding the apple by its dowel, swipe and twirl the apple through the candy, shake off the excess, and place on a buttered baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining apples.