Tapas or Treats: Halloween appetizer table

I was thrilled when my dear friend, Bird (from Bird's Party), asked me to use her printables to style a Halloween table for her Fall e-zine. I wanted to do something a little different (and after the Spiderman party I was feeling really sugared out!), so I decided to put together a savory, appetizer buffet. My aim was to make small "tapas" style plates that looked like treats! Although the dishes were not true "tapas" dishes, I liked the play on words of "Tapas or Treats". You can see the feature in the Fall e-zine here.

Here's what was on the menu, if you want to re-create this table, using Bird's printables:

"Spider web" guacamole and chips.

This is so simple to make--just top the guacamole with a spider and a sour cream "web" piped on using a piping bag (or even a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off).

"Swamp dip" (aka spinach dip), served with toasted spider bread. 

Cut the bread into spider shapes using a cookie cutter. Serve the dip in tiny "tasting" cups, to keep with the tapas feel.

Goat cheese and poppy seed "bats". 

Mix crumbled goat cheese with cream cheese; roll into bite size balls and coat with poppy seeds; use olives for eyes and blue corn tortilla chips for wings.

"Deviled" eyeballs.

Make deviled eggs per your favorite recipe, garnish with hot sauce "blood" and olives.

"Jack O Lantern" naval orange and pumpkin seed salad.

After scooping out the inside of the oranges, "carve" faces into them like pumpkins. Fill with a mixed greens salad, tossed with the leftover orange pulp and  toasted pumpkin seeds.

"Blood" orange martinis.

Make the martini with vodka, triple sec and orange juice (or use St. Germaine instead of Triple Sec for an interesting twist); drop candy corn  into the glasses and rim with paper bats from the printables collection. The candy corn will bleed a little (no pun intended), creating a nice effect.

I used the paper printables to complete the look.

To make a "pumpkin pom" simple attach a face to a tissue paper pom pom. 

For many other great uses for the printables collection, see Bird's fall E-zine.