My kids are getting excited for trick-or-treating this Halloween. My son is going as a football player. One New England Patriots NFL jersey, Gronk mask, jeans and sneakers = One happy 11-year-old. Check. Done and done. Then there is my little girl. It seems like just yesterday when she wanted to be a princess for Halloween. I’d hand her a tiara and pink tu tu from the back of the closet and she’d run up and give me a hug. She went as an alien last year with spooky eyes that lit up. (It freaked me out, but I got used to it by the time we put it in the attic where I swear it still glows.) This year, she decided that she wanted to be a scary ghost. Scary being the operative word, given that she did not like my I’m-so-turning-into-my-mother idea of taking a white sheet and poking two holes in it. I actually have faded sheets that deserve to be destroyed, so this would have killed two birds with one stone, thank you very much. But no. That would have been too easy. My independent daughter asked us if she could please buy a ghost costume, and because we could tell she knew what she wanted, off to the party store we went.

“This mask hurts,” was all we could hear in the first aisle. Same for the second and third. We had a little “talk” with her in aisle four, hoping to bring her expectations down a few levels. Surely she would find something ghostly that would satisfy her Halloween costume expectations in the next 10 minutes. Three stores and 13 aisles later, she found a mask that was both spooky and comfortable. Yes, my daughter is wearing the mask from the movie Scream with a black robe. It scares the living daylights out of me every time I see it. Before leaving for our neighborhood Halloween parade a few days ago, she “surprised” me by our front door. Let’s just say I let out a scream that sounded a little too much like Mr. Flanders from the Simpsons.

What are you doing with your leftover Halloween candy? Try this recipe on for size! And don’t forget to send in your post-holiday dessert recipe here. It could be in my next book!

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Halloween Ogre Toe Cookies
(Inspired by a recipe from Kraft and 1001 Recipes to Send!)

2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 pkg. (3 oz.) lime flavored gelatin
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups of flour
20 red gummy candies
Pre-heat oven to 350°F.

Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add flour and dry gelatin mix. Roll dough into 20 toe-shaped pieces; place, 2 inches apart, on baking sheet. Flatten one end of each “toe”. Use knife to make crosswise slits in each toe for the knuckles. Flatten candies with rolling pin. Place candy on flattened end of each green toe.
BAKE 10 to 12 min. or until edges are lightly brown. Cool on baking sheet for five minutes.

Have a safe and Happy Halloween!