Scare fare

Published on Saturday 28 October 2006 00:23

I LOVE all excuses for a party, and Halloween is no exception.

But food for Halloween parties can and should satisfy both children and adults. Simple food, but themed to Halloween, is the order of the day - or night; thick soup, interesting sausages, and treacle toffee. Treacle toffee is easy to make and is so delicious to eat that all thoughts of Gillian McKeith's You Are What You Eat are banished, along with any hint of conscience. After all, Halloween is just one night in the year.

The simple menu leaves some room for dooking for apples - with the fruit being eaten preferably before all the treacle toffee - and catching a pancake suspended from a string, using your teeth. If you're combining Halloween celebrations with bonfire night and fireworks, soup and sausages in buns will be really welcome, eaten in the cold night air. When guisers call in these rural parts, we entertain each other with songs sung and poems read. We are very lucky to live in Skye.

BACON, POTATO, APPLE AND LEEK SOUP

Serves 6

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 2 onions, skinned and chopped

• 4 rashers of back bacon, smoked or unsmoked, fat cut off (use scissors for this) and the bacon sliced thinly

• 4 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and chopped

• 3 medium to large-sized leeks, trimmed and sliced

• 2 eating apples, skin left on, cored and chopped

• 2 pints/1.1 litre chicken or vegetable stock, or a good stock substitute such as Marigold powder made up with boiling water

• plenty of black pepper

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. Add the chopped onions and fry over moderate heat, until the onions are turning golden at the edges, about five minutes. Then add the bacon, chopped potatoes and sliced leeks, and cook for a further five minutes or so, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Then add the chopped apples and the stock and simmer gently, the pan half covered with its lid, for 15 to 20 minutes. Test to see if the potato is cooked by squishing a chunk against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon. Draw the pan off the heat, season with pepper and allow to cool. Blend to a smooth consistency and reheat to serve, but don't let it get too hot - you don't want guests burning their mouths. Serve in mugs.

The soup can be made up to two days in advance, but it must be kept in the fridge till it is to be reheated.

SAUSAGES AND BARBECUE SAUCE IN BUNS

The barbecue sauce can be made a day in advance, then reheated and spooned over the sausages in the buns.

Serves 6

• 12 pork sausages - or beef, if you prefer

• 6 buns, buttered on one side if you like (the sauce around the sausages means you do not have to butter the buns if you prefer not to)

For the barbecue sauce:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 onion, skinned and finely and neatly diced

• 1 clove of garlic, skinned and chopped finely

• 2 teaspoons soft brown sugar

• 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar

• 1 can of chopped tomatoes, 15oz/420g size

• 2 tablespoons Heinz tomato ketchup

• pinch of salt and a grinding of black pepper

To make the sauce, heat the olive oil and fry the diced onion for several minutes, until soft and transparent. Add the chopped garlic and cook for a further couple of minutes. Then stir in the soft brown sugar and wine vinegar and cook for a few seconds before adding the chopped tomatoes, the tomato ketchup, pinch of salt and the pepper to the pan. Simmer the sauce gently for 15 minutes. Reheat to serve.

Grill the sausages till they are brown and slightly crisp. Put two sausages on each bun, spoon some of the barbecue sauce over them and serve.

TREACLE TOFFEE

makes about 24 pieces

• 1lb/450g demerara sugar

• 3 tablespoons black treacle

• 3 tablespoons golden syrup - have a bowl of near-boiling water to hand, and dip the metal spoon into it for several seconds before spooning both treacle and syrup; the heat of the spoon will mean they slip off the spoon easily

• 1 tin of condensed milk, 15oz/420g size

• 4oz/110g butter

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Put all the ingredients except the vanilla extract into a saucepan. Stir, over a gentle heat, until the sugar has dissolved completely. Bring the contents of the pan to the boil, and continue boiling for 15 to 20 minutes. Pull the pan off the heat and drip some of the toffee into a small bowl of cold water - it should crack, ie be brittle, in the water. When it reaches this stage, stir in the vanilla extract.

Butter a baking tray, then cover it with a sheet of baking parchment. Pour the toffee into this and leave to set. When it is nearly cold, mark the toffee into squares with a sharp knife.

Leave to go completely cold, then break the toffee into squares and, if you like, wrap each piece in greaseproof paper. Store in an airtight tin.

If you don't wrap the individual squares, line the tin with some baking parchment or greaseproof paper, and make sure to put a piece of the paper between each layer of toffee pieces, otherwise you will find that they stick together in the tin.