Fun recipes for Halloween

What if Halloween was also an opportunity for the kids (and the adults too) to explore some new flavors!
Pumpkins are absolute musts to help you decorate for this, the strangest of festivals, precisely because pumpkins and squashes are harvested during the Fall.
There are lots of different kinds of squashes, in all sorts of different colors, but they always taste great... A squash dressed up in its Halloween best on the table is sure to create some surprise and get your tastebuds going too!

Just imagine the look on the kids' face when they come into the kitchen with the eternal question, ''what's for dinner?'' to discover a 'head' in the oven looking out at them!

As squashes come in many different sizes, this recipe is equally suitable for a large number of dinner guests or just one or two people!

For 4 people, a 2.2 or 2.6 lb Japanese squash will do. Pick an organic squash so that you can eat it together with the skin (the skin is edible and in fact, especially nutritious but contains a lot of pesticides if it is produced from non-organic sources): the squash also acts as the oven dish!

As this recipe requires a lot of skillful cutting, we leave it to the adults. The kids can, however, being the faithful helpers that they are, begin the work by scrubbing the surface of the small pumpkin under running water! Remove the top of the squash (this is the tricky bit, mind your fingers!) then remove the seeds and fibrous parts. Scoop out a little bit of the inside with the help of a spoon.

Using a small knife, draw on big eyes, a nose and a toothy mouth (depending on the age of the guests, you can make it smile if you want!). Still using the knife, remove the skin from these areas.

Add a stuffing mixture to the squash: onions, sausage meat (or else organic sausages, which are easy to find and are free of additives that could be harmful for young children..), with cooked rice or quinoa. The squash is covered with its 'hat' and placed in a hot oven for an hour at a low heat (165°C /329°F). See the complete sausage meat-stuffed squash recipe.

Here's a slightly different vegetarian recipe, that uses a butternut squash. What really matters is that, when you lift off its hat, it's really ''gross" ! At last, here's a vegetable that will bring the kids running to the dinner table!

The squash's Halloween-style look, with big manga-type eyes comes from the effects you can create from the squash's skin: You can simply peel it off, to create a sticking-out tongue (!) and eyes with frowning eyebrows, or else take off all the skin in the areas you've marked out and make the most of the color contrasts between the yellowish-orange flesh and the beige-colored skin. The stuffing mix is made from a browned onion (it's Halloween, after all!) and cooked rice mixed with the squash flesh and spices (nutmeg will work well here). Cook it in the oven with potatoes, which will absorb the cooking juices from the squash, thus making a nourishing vegetarian meal. See the detailed instructions for the stuffed butternut squash recipe.

Another vegetable that's easy to carve is the potato. Keep the first and last piece of each potato you cut up, it being these 'potbellied' slices that will give a 3D-look to your little phantoms. Cut each piece in 2 using a zigzag cut. Cut out triangular eyes using the tip of a knife.

Wash the fries and dry them (by putting them in a salad spinner), then place them in hot oil (165°C /329°F) in a deep fryer (hot enough to cook the fries as healthily as possible, using organic cold-pressed olive oil).