Witch’s Potion Buffet Dinner & Halloween Pumpkin Carving Party #MealsTogether

We had such a fun time with our annual fam­ily pump­kin carv­ing “party”! For added fun, we put together a witch’s potion themed buf­fet din­ner! It looked so spooky and involved, but it was actu­ally really easy to put together! The key is get­ting cre­ative with easy-to-prepare foods! Just about any­thing can be turned into a witch’s potion ingre­di­ent when given the right name. But, cer­tainly some items work espe­cially well! For the more main dish options, we went with two things: fried worms and fried spi­ders! The fried worms were actu­ally Tyson’s Any’tizers chicken fries! There are two great vari­eties, includ­ing a new ranch fla­vor. Yum! (You can find them at Wal­mart & see details from our whole party-prep shop­ping trip on google+ here). The Any’tizers chicken fries were easy to prep, tasted great, and made the per­fect “fried worms”! I was wor­ried that call­ing the food by spooky names might freak the boys out a bit, but it didn’t at all. Big Brother really got into it! And, the boys slurped their fried worms right up! For the fried spi­ders, I used two things: mini corn dog bites & crispy chow mein noo­dles. We did the same con­cept for the bug bites at our Wild Kratts party! So, I knew they’d be per­fect for our potions buf­fet. It is a lit­tle tedious stick­ing 8 chow mein noo­dles into each corn dog bite, but you could cer­tainly recruit the kids to help. And, the end result is great! Much like how I would envi­sion large fried spi­ders would look! The rest of the menu was really easy to put together. And, we all had fun com­ing up with potion ingre­di­ent names!

Here’s the com­plete witch’s potion buf­fet spread:

• Fried Worms - Tyson’s Any’tizers chicken fries
• Fried spi­ders– mini corn dog nuggets & chow mein noodles
• Insect sliv­ers– coleslaw
• Black widow bod­ies — black olives
• Eyes of Newt — green olives
• Hearts of bat — grape toma­toes
• Poi­soned entrails — baked beans
• Troll fin­gers — car­rots with sliv­ered almond “fingernails”
• Gob­lin toes — snap peas with sliv­ered almond “toenails”
• Root of Hem­lock — sliced cucum­bers
• Frog’s blood– ketchup
• Toad venom — mus­tard
• Dragon’s milk — ranch dip
• Bub­bling swamp slime — our favorite green punch recipe with dry ice

After all of us had eaten our potions plates clean, we enjoyed some pump­kin cin­na­mon cup­cakes for dessert and then shifted gears toward some pump­kin carv­ing (and paint­ing). Ever since Big Brother was lit­tle, we’ve let the kids go to town with paint and small pump­kins while the adults carve. They love it. It was such a fun night!

Do you do any fun Hal­loween fam­ily activities?

Dis­clo­sure: I am a mem­ber of the Col­lec­tive Bias®  Social Fab­ric® Com­mu­nity.  This shop has been com­pen­sated as part of a social shop­per insights study for Col­lec­tive Bias™ and Tyson Any’Tizer’s #CBias #Social­Fab­ric #Meal­sTo­gether. How­ever, as always, all opin­ions & expe­ri­ences are entirely my own.

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