Creepy, Crawly Treats To Liven up Halloween

Nothing says Halloween like a big, jiggly brain on your dining room table. At least that's how we celebrate at my house.

Halloween season is here, and that means it's time for recipes that are gooey, gross and generally creepy.

Gelatin molds are an easy way to make impressive and tasty accent pieces for your holiday table.

Molds are available in a variety of body parts, including brains, and other scary shapes and are available at many seasonal and online stores.

Other recipes are all about presentation. From Severed Finger Cookies with Dipping Blood to Skeleton Stromboli, tap into your creative side and create some ghoulishly simple treats to scare and satisfy your guests.

Severed Finger Cookies

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

cup sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 325 F. Combine butter, brown sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add flour, cup at a time, until dough becomes too stiff to beat. Knead by hand until all the flour is incorporated. Roll pieces of dough into shapes about the size of fingers and transfer to greased baking sheets. Using toothpick or sharp knife, carve knuckles into dough. Insert almond slice into tip of each dough finger as fingernail. Bake 15 minutes or until golden. Makes about two dozen fingers.

You can also use refrigerated sugar cookie dough to make the fingers.

And what severed fingers are complete without bloody stumps?

Blood Dipping Sauce

1/2 cup light corn syrup

Red food coloring

Mix light corn syrup and red food coloring until you achieve the color you want your blood. As this contains a lot of red food coloring, it can stain.

Crispy mummies

3 tablespoons butter or margarine

1 10-ounce package large marshmallows (about 40) or 4 cups miniature marshmallows

6 cups crisp rice cereal

Dried cranberries or raisins

Rolled gauze

In large saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat. Add cereal and stir until well-coated. Shape mixture into oval head shapes and cool on pan. When cool, wrap heads with gauze, leaving a space for the eyes. Place cranberries or raisins for eyes.

Halloween punch

Orange juice, with pulp

Cranberry juice

7Up or Sprite

Combine equal parts in large punch bowl. Pulpless orange juice can be used, but the pulp adds a nice creepy touch to this punch. For an added touch, make a frozen hand out of cranberry juice to float in the punch bowl.

Use a hand gelatin mold or if you don't have one available, make a frozen hand using a clean latex glove. Wash the glove out thoroughly before beginning.

Fill the glove with cranberry juice - or any other liquid you choose, depending on the effect you want in your punch bowl.

Tie the end off with a rubber band and set the hand in the freezer. When ready to place in your punch, gently remove the latex glove, and your icy hand is ready.

Realistic jello brain

2 6-ounce boxes peach or watermelon gelatin

1 cups boiling water

cup cold water

9 ounces fat-free evaporated milk (must be fat-free or it will curdle)

Red, green and blue food coloring

Coat the mold with cooking spray or small amount of vegetable oil and wipe out excess. Put gelatin mix in a large bowl and add boiling water. Stir until dissolved. Stir in cold water. Stir in evaporated milk. Add 15 drops each of red, green and blue food coloring. Adjust until desired color is reached. Pour mixture into brain mold, stopping inch from the top. Place mold in shallow bowl so it will sit level and refrigerate overnight.

Skeleton Stromboli

This recipe is all about presentation. You can make this stromboli with any fillings you want, such as pizza, ham and cheese, Philly cheesesteak, or any other combination.

2 cans refrigerated pizza dough

Pizza sauce

8 ounces mozzarella

Any meat or fillings, such as pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, olives.

Preheat oven to 400 F. Roll half of the dough into large rectangle. Spread sauce, top with half the cheese and half the toppings. Roll up and tuck in the ends. Repeat with other half of the dough. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown. When cool, slice into strips. . Place a skull at the top of the large tray or foil-covered piece of cardboard and arrange the strips to look like ribs.