Halloween can be a tough time for parents.
So many people are concerned about obesity and nutrition that a holiday devoted to sugary treats poses quite a challenge.
Adults may be able to forgo the sweets, but it doesn't seem fair to deny children.
Parents can rise to the challenge with a strategy of compromise and moderation that lets children celebrate Halloween with something special -- and even something sweet -- without downing mounds of sugar in one sitting.
If you are having a party or sending food to school for a class party, consider treats that temper the sugar with some nutritious ingredients. These might be fruit, whole grains or nuts.
Cinnamon Apple Chex Mix combines whole-grain cereal with almonds and raisins, providing some protein and fiber.
Popcorn is another whole grain. In the recipe on Page D4 for Halloween Heaven, popcorn is combined with peanut butter, marshmallow cream and candy corn for a snack that's filling and a lot healthier than straight candy.
Popcorn also makes a suitably spooky treat when stuffed into plastic food-service gloves with just a couple of pieces of candy corn for "fingernails."
The recipe for spiced pumpkin cookies not only uses some whole-wheat flour but doesn't contain any butter. The cookies come out more breadlike, but each one has just 68 calories and 2 grams of fat.
The pumpkin is an excellent source of beta carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A. One of these cookies contains 15 percent of the recommended value of vitamin A. Feel free to add ¼ teaspoon each more of cinnamon and ginger to make them spicier.
Jack-o'-lantern fruit cups have all the goodness of fruit dressed up in serving cups made of fresh oranges and decorated with a magic marker.
The folks at FamilyFun magazine have lots of neat ideas in the October issue. One is nothing more than a watermelon, but it's ingeniously carved to create a melon "brain."
Ghost toasts are pieces of toast with cream cheese cut in the shape of ghosts, with currants for eyes.
FamilyFun's recipe for "salty bones" makes use of refrigerated breadstick dough. All mom, dad or the kids need to do is shape the dough like bones, sprinkle with salt and bake.
When Halloween comes around a week from Friday, here are a few more tips to help parents minimize kids' sugar intake and make for a healthier holiday:
? Before sending kids out for trick or treating, give them a full, nutritious meal. That way, they will be less likely to gorge themselves on candy before they get home.
? For treats to give neighborhood children, consider 100 percent juice boxes, prepackaged individual servings of nuts of sunflower seeds, pretzels or low-sugar, high-fiber breakfast bars. Treats don't even have to be food; try temporary tattoos, colored pencils, crayons, glow sticks or glow necklaces.
? When the kids get home, check through their Halloween haul and remove some of the worst offenders, such as sticky candy that might promote cavities. Offer this trade: mom or dad gets to take out so many pieces in exchange for letting the child eat a certain number of pieces before bed.
? Get the kids to split up their treats. Putting them into plastic sandwich bags is a good way to do this. Then parents and kids can work out a schedule for how often the child gets to open a new bag. Explain how this is a healthier way to eat -- and how it will make the treats last longer. Saved treats also can be doled out with school lunches or in place of dessert. When serving these treats, pair them with a healthy food or some exercise.
? Encourage kids to share with other family members or to donate a portion to a food bank or other charity.
? Don't forget to make the kids brush and floss well before going to bed.
Cinnamon Apple Chex Mix
Recipe from General Mills.
5 cups Wheat Chex cereal
1 cup lightly salted almonds
¼ cup butter or margarine
? cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup chopped dried apples
½ cup yogurt-covered raisins
1. In a large microwaveable bowl, mix cereal and almonds.
2. In a 2-cup microwaveable measuring cup, microwave butter, brown sugar, corn syrup and cinnamon uncovered on high about 2 minutes, stirring once halfway through, until mixture is boiling.
3. Stir butter mixture, then pour over cereal and almonds, stirring until evenly coated. Microwave entire mixture on high for 3 minutes, stopping every minute to stir and scrape down sides of bowl.
4. Stir in dried apples. Microwave on high for 2 minutes or just until apples begin to brown on the edges.
5. Spread mixture on waxed paper or foil to cool, about 5 minutes. Place in serving bowl and stir in raisins. Store in airtight container.
Makes 16½-cup servings.
Nutrition information for one serving: 220 calories, 9 g fat (3 g saturated), 10 mg cholesterol, 200 mg sodium, 32 g carbohydrates, 4 g dietary fiber, 4 g protein.
Haunted Popcorn Hands
Recipe from the Popcorn Board. Unfortunately, the gloves aren't edible, but they serve as a handy container for the popcorn.
Clear polyethylene food-service gloves
Candy corn
Popcorn
Ribbon or yarn
For each glove, place 1 to 3 pieces candy corn, depending on the size of the glove, in the end of each finger to make fingernails. Then fill the rest of each glove with popcorn and tie it shut with ribbon or yarn.
Halloween Heaven
Recipe from the Popcorn Board. Note: This recipe contains peanuts.
8 cups air-popped popcorn
7 ounces marshmallow cream
½ cup reduced-fat peanut butter
1 cup candy corn
1. Combine marshmallow cream and peanut butter in a large bowl; mix until smooth.
2.Stir in popcorn and candy corn and mix until coated evenly.
3. Drop heaping spoonfuls on wax paper or nonstick surface and allow to cool. Store in airtight container.
Spiced Pumpkin Cookies
Recipe from www.eatingwell.com, the Web site of EatingWell magazine.
? cup whole-wheat pastry flour
? cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
¾ cup canned plain pumpkin puree
¾ cup packed light brown sugar or ? cup Splenda Sugar Blend for Baking (See Note)
2 large eggs
¼ cup canola oil
¼ cup dark molasses
1 cup raisins
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat three baking sheets with cooking spray.
2. Whisk whole-wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and nutmeg in a large bowl.
3. Whisk pumpkin, brown sugar (or Splenda), eggs, oil and molasses in a second bowl until well combined. Stir the wet ingredients and raisins into the dry ingredients until no traces of dry ingredients remain. Drop the batter by level tablespoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing the cookies 1 ½ inches apart.
4. Bake the cookies until firm to the touch and lightly golden on top, 10 to 12 minutes, switching the pans back to front and top to bottom halfway through. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool. Store in an airtight container, with wax paper between the layers, for up to 2 days or freeze for longer storage.
Makes 36 cookies.
Nutrition information for one cookie: 68 calories; 2 g fat (0 g sat); 12 mg cholesterol; 12 g carbohydrate; 1 g protein; 1 g fiber; 67 mg sodium; 78 mg potassium. (If you make the cookies with Splenda Sugar Blend for Baking, each will have only 62 calories and 10 g carbohydrates.)
Note: For a sugar substitute for baking, EatingWell's editors recommend Splenda Sugar Blend for Baking, a mix of sugar and sucralose. People also make this blend themselves, using half sugar and half Splenda Granular.)
Melon Brain
Recipe from the October 2008 issue of FamilyFun magazine.
1 small seedless watermelon
1. Use a vegetable peeler to remove the entire green rind, exposing the inner white rind.
2. Slice off the bottom of the melon to create a flat base that will keep it from rolling. With a toothpick, outline squiggly furrows that resemble the folded surface of a brain.
3. Carve narrow channels along the tracings with a sharp paring knife (a parent's job) to expose the pink fruit beneath the rind.
Jack-O'-Lantern Fruit Cup
Recipe from www.about.com.
6 to 8 oranges
2 medium cans fruit cocktail, drained
1 medium can pineapple chunks, drained
1. Cut the tops off the oranges, as if it was a pumpkin you were carving. Scoop out the orange, being careful not to rip the peel. Cut up the orange flesh and set aside.
2. Using a black marker, draw jack-o'-lantern faces on the orange shells. Set them aside to dry.
3. In a large bowl, combine the fruit cocktail, pineapple chunks and the orange pieces. Scoop fruit mixture into the oranges and chill for at least one hour before serving.
Salty Bones
Recipe from the October 2008 issue of FamilyFun magazine.
1 tube of refrigerated breadstick dough (we used an 11-ounce tube to make 12 bones)
Coarse salt
1. Unroll a tube of refrigerated breadstick dough and separate the rectangular pieces.
2. Working with one piece at a time, stretch the dough to lengthen it a bit and then use kitchen scissors or a knife to cut a 1½-inch slit in the center of each end.
3. Roll or shape the resulting four flaps of dough into knobs that look like the ends of a bone.
4. Place the dough bones on an ungreased baking sheet, spacing them a few inches apart, and sprinkle on a little coarse salt. Bake the bones until they are light golden brown, about 12 minutes.
Ghost Toasts
Recipe from the October 2008 issue of FamilyFun magazine.
White bread (1 slice per ghost)
Whipped Cream Cheese
Currants (or raisins)
1. For each "ghost," toast a slice of white bread and then cut a ghost shape from it. You can do this freehand using a knife, or you can use a gingerbread-girl cookie cutter.
2. When the cutouts have cooled, spread on a generous coating of whipped cream cheese.
3. For eyes and mouths, add currants.
Eerie Eyeballs
Recipe from the October 2008 issue of FamilyFun magazine.
Apple rings
Dried apricots
Raisins
1. For each pair of eyes, gently flatten two dried-apple rings with the palm of your hand.
2. Carefully slice a dried apricot through the middle so that you end up with two circular halves. Press a half, sticky side down, over the hole in the apple ring.
3. For the eyes, use kitchen scissors to cut a raisin in two, and press the halves, sticky side down, onto the apricots.
Frozen Frog Eggs
Recipe from the October 2008 issue of FamilyFun magazine.
2 kiwi fruit
1 cup limeade
1 tablespoon honey
1. Peel the kiwi. Cut 1 kiwi into small chunks. Combine the kiwi, limeade and honey in a blender and blend until the mixture is somewhat smooth. (Some chunks are fine.)
2. Slice a second kiwi into eight thin pieces and press the pieces into the bottoms of eight, 3-ounce plastic or paper cups. Pour the blended fruit mixture into the cups, filling each one of them each about halfway.
3. Place the filled cups in a Pyrex baking dish and cover them with foil. Insert a Popsicle stick through the foil and into each cup (the foil will hold the sticks in place) and freeze the pops until solid, about 4 hours.
4. To remove the pops from their molds, loosen them by briefly dipping the bottoms of the cups in warm water if necessary.
Makes 8 servings.
Copyright 2008 Winston-Salem Journal
