Halloween Festivities
Straight forward Halloween plan
To say I am excited about Halloween is a slight under statement, even in this covid world some fun can still be had. Later today I will be attempting to hang a witches broom above the table as a centre piece. With tea lights hovering above peoples heads as if flying this may be a risky choice. I will be serving plenty of French martinis to keep everyone distracted from impending doom (Boris Johnson later announced another lockdown).
Halloween is fun but let’s face it, its also a lot of work (a mini warm up for Christmas). This takes time to come with plans, to decide what to eat, drink, decorations you want and entertainment.
Having thrown many, many dinner parties my biggest suggestion is serve something big but simple. You don’t want to be heading in and out of the kitchen while in the middle of a good gossip, neither do you want to be trying to create some elaborate dessert under the influence of blood vodka shots… we have all been there. What you do want to do is keep your guests bellies full and their glasses topped up.
Decorations!
Every year you get a few trends, bats and white pumpkins seem to be making the rounds this time. Its Halloween, do what you want! Get some fun labels for glass bottles and burn black candles down the sides (see picture). Buy.a gold skull which is full of salted caramels (Artisan du Chocolate). Have bats flying all over the place or hang a broomstick above your dinner table. Sadly the only picture I have of this has my toddler sat in the middle of the table helping herself to a pot of chocolates.
Dinner
The easiest way to keep each course in tune with the next is to get the majority of it from the same cookbook. Therefore this Halloween feast will be from Simply by Sabrina Ghayour apart from the dessert because you can’t go wrong with a chocolate cake.
Starters - Green humous and pitta (simple, easy and tasty).
Main - Slow cooked beef brisket, salmon bites (one of our friends is a pescatarian) with wild rice and a big salad. The salad will be courtesy of our greenhouse which is still growing a lot of tomatoes. I always like to throw in something fresh and easy so that a meal isn’t too heavy.
Dessert - Chocolate beetroot cake that Rosie from the Bakeoff made. All my friends are big Bakeoff fans so I know this will go down well. When we have a big meal I tend to reduce anything too fussy for pudding because firstly not everyone will have room for that amount of food but also if you leave it and eat it later in the day, what does it matter. Finally everything on the list can be eaten the following day with wraps and a fresh salad. Win win!
Entertainment
I love to terrify my guests! So tiny little attic room with an Ouija board, I think so!
