Michelle Darmody: Spooky savoury treats to make this Halloween week

Fill up with something tasty and healthy before trick-or-treating — sausage mummies and ghostly pizza should do the trick

These sausage mummies will go down a treat. 

It is a little confusing this year having the bank holiday one weekend and Halloween the next. It might be a nice opportunity to spend some time in the kitchen, on this long weekend, and start making some Halloween nibbles. 

The mummies can be made with different fillings: for example, small balls of falafel work well if you want a meat-free option. Whichever filling you opt for it is good to wrap the pastry tightly and pinch it well to seal it — otherwise, they can unravel as they bake.

You can get excellent pizza bases in shops. In fact, some are made right here in Ireland but taste wonderfully Italian. They come in packs of two or three: you can eat them all at once, or they freeze very well. There is a recipe for the tomato sauce included here but you can of course use a nice passata instead of making your own. You can also decorate the pizza in many spooky ways.

Ghost pizza

recipe by:Michelle Darmody

Readymade pizza bases are ideal for this quick and easy spooktacular feast

Servings

2

Preparation Time

 5 mins

Cooking Time

 10 mins

Total Time

 15 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 1 pizza base

• 500g tomatoes, roughly chopped

• 3 cloves of garlic, halved

• ½ tbsp light olive oil

• 1 tsp honey

• 50g cheddar cheese, roughly grated

• 1 ball of mozzarella, sliced

• black olives, destoned

Method

1. Place the tomatoes, garlic, and oil into a saucepan over a low heat and allow to come to a simmer.

2. Season and add in the honey allow to simmer for about 15 minutes. Set aside to cool.

3. Blitz the tomato mixture until smooth. This will make too much for one pizza, but you can store it in the fridge for a few days or freeze it.

4. Preheat your oven to as hot as it will go. Place a baking tray into the oven to heat up.

5. Spread two or three generous spoons of your passata onto the pizza base. Sprinkle the cheddar on top.

6. Cut the mozzarella slices into ghost shapes and arrange these on the pizza.

7. Cut some olives into thin strips for spider legs and into little circles for eyes. Dot the olive spiders onto the pizza and add the ghost’s eyes.

8. Be very careful taking the hot tray out of the oven and slide the pizza onto it. Place this back into the oven and bake for about 10 minutes until the base has crisped up and the cheese has melted.

Sausage mummies

recipe by:Michelle Darmody

You can make these mummies with meat-free sausages if you want to make them vegetarian

Servings

6

Preparation Time

 10 mins

Cooking Time

 20 mins

Total Time

 30 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 300g puff pastry sheets

• 12 small sausages or 6 cut in two

• 1 tsp mustard, optional

• 1 egg, lightly beaten

• To decorate:

• 2 tsp cream cheese

• 4 black olives, de-stoned

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 200°C and line a large flat baking tray with parchment.

2. Slice the pastry into long thin strips. Wrap the strips around the sausages until they look like mummies — leave a gap for where you will add the eyes. Pinch the strips together at the back so they do not open during baking. Repeat this 12 times.

3. Brush all of the mummies with the beaten egg yolk and bake for about 20 minutes until the pastry is golden and the sausages are cooked through. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

4. Once cooled, dab a little dot of cream cheese as eyes and cut a small circle from the olives and place these on top.