Halloween!

After racking my brain for a week trying to think of savoury dishes to take to Halloween, the inspiration came all at once and I had heaps of ideas.  Apparently everyone was taking sweet dishes, and that was all I could originally think of also.

We ended up going for Eyeball tarts, and a few 'interesting' dips.

The tarts were simply shortcrust tart cases, filled with a tomato, bacon and mushroom filling, and topped with my version of a culinary eyeball!

I simply cooked off a few tins of tomatoes with some garlic, red wine, chilli flakes, basil and oregano.  I then added thin slivers of bacon, and some finely sliced mushrooms.  This became the filling for the tarts.  We then topped them with thin slices of baby bocconcini for the white of the eye, and added stuffed green olives for the iris.  Some of them had just the right curve for an eyeball, probably the slices of bocconcini that came from the ends.  I was pretty pleased with the results!

The 'Carrot Fairy' dip was simply a mango kasundi I made at trade school, mixed with some grated carrot, and thick greek yoghurt.

The 'Exorcist' dip was a green pea and wasabi puree (recipe below), and the corn chips we made by pressing our tortillas, cutting them into triangles, brushing with oil and salt, and then baking.

'Exorcist' Dip

1/2 onion, very finely diced
1/2 cup cream
1-2 cups of thawed or fresh peas
salt
pepper
approx 1 tsp wasabi

Saute the onion gently in some olive oil - do not allow it to brown at all.  Once it is soft and translucent, add the cream and bring to the boil.  Once boiling, reduce the heat to medium and add the peas.  Season with salt, pepper, and wasabi (be careful!) and allow to cool.  Once it has cooled, process with a stick blender, or food processor.

Note:  I have made this a few times, and sometimes the final consistency varies.  You may have to add more cream to make it runnier, or more peas to make it thicker.  Add the wasabi bit by bit to ensure you don't add too much.