Silly Apple Monsters
Ingredients:
- 3 green apples
- 3 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
- 2 ounces of sliced cheese (cheddar or colby jack both work)
- 2 tablespoons of pumpkin or sunflower seeds
- A package of candy eyes
Instructions:
- Quarter the green apples and slice off the core and seeds. Carefully cut out a v-shape into the center of the apple quarter to create the mouth of the monster. Repeat with all the apple pieces.
- Spread a thin layer of peanut butter into the monster mouths. Repeat with all apple slices.
- Press several pumpkin or sunflower seeds onto the top of the mouth along the edge to form teeth. Repeat with all apple slices.
- Place a triangular piece of cheese into each monster mouth.
- Using the remaining peanut butter, spread a small amount onto the back of the candy eyes and place them on top of the the apple slices.
- Serve immediately!
Halloween Fruit Salad
Ingredients:
- 2 Passion Fruit
- 1 Apple
- 2 Pears
- ½ Bottle Soda Water used to stop apple and pear turning brown
- 2 Kiwi
- 1 Blueberries
- 1 Grapes
- 1 Blackberry
- 4 Satsumas
- 2 slices Cucumber cut into for pumpkin stalk chunks
Instructions:
- Slice apple & pears into thin slices
- Soak the apple and pear in a bowl with soda water, keep in the fridge until you've finished the other steps
- Remove skin from all of the melons and the pineapple
- Slice melons and pineapple lengthways to maximize the number of shapes able to cut from it
- Use Halloween cutters to cut out shapes in the melon and pineapple slices. Cut the leftover melon and pineapple into chunks
- Prepare the other fruits
- Start layering the leftover chunks of melon or pineapple on to a plate or shallow bowl, then start adding the other fruits
- Once plate/bowl starts filling up place your Halloween Shapes on top. Use the smaller fruits, such as red grapes and blueberries behind them to help stand them up
- Use a cocktail stick to make holes ready to stick in eyes
- Push your chosen decoration as eyes into the holes
- All done, keep covered and refrigerated until ready to consume
Witches Broomstick Snack
Ingredients:
- 8 String Cheese Sticks
- 24 Pretzel Sticks
- Fresh Chives
Instructions:
- Cut each string cheese stick in thirds (about 1 ½" each).
- Make lengthwise cuts around the cheese stick to about half way up.
- In the uncut end of the cheese, insert a pretzel stick.
- Bind with a piece of chive. Cut off extra chive.
Halloween Roasted Veggies
Ingredients:
- 2 large sweet potatoes
- 2 large white potatoes
- 4 carrots peeled
- 3 red beets large, medium
- 2 Tbsp olive oil 30 mL
- Pinch of salt and pepper
- 2 Tbsp rosemary
- ½ bulb garlic cloves separated with skin still on
- 1 tsp balsamic vinegar 5 mL
- 1 tsp honey 5 mL, or maple syrup for vegan option
Instructions:
- Parboil: Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cut sweet potatoes and white potatoes in half, width wise, then drop into the boiling water. Boil for 5 minutes, then remove. Drop whole beets and carrots into the boiling water and cook for 5 minutes.
- Cut: Cut the potatoes into ½ inch thick (1 cm) slabs. With a small paring knife or with a cookie cutter, cut jack-o-lantern shapes into the sweet potatoes. Do the same for the white potatoes, cutting them into ghost shapes (I used a straw to cut out the eyes!) Cut beets into ½ inch thick slabs, then cut out witch’s hat shapes. We’ll call the carrots witch’s fingers and just leave them be.
- Bake: Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (204 C). Set veggies on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and rosemary leaves, and toss to evenly coat. Crush garlic cloves with the flat part of your knife and scatter around the pan. Bake for 1 hour, flipping the vegetables halfway through. When you have 10 minutes left, drizzle balsamic over the beets and honey over the carrots, then return to the oven.
Halloween Cheese and Crackers
For these you will need crackers, cheese slices and a small cookie cutter. Simply cut out Halloween shapes (like a pumpkin or ghost) and place on the cracker.
Halloween Veggie Tray
For the pumpkin Halloween veggie tray, you’ll simply place a ranch or dill dip into two small containers for the eyes and set those on a large plate. Then make a circle out of carrots. Use chopped celery sticks for the stem, olives for the nose and cut cucumbers for the mouth. You could also add in a variation of vegetables (or more olives) around the edge of the plate, but I find most kids prefer carrots.
Mini Orange Pumpkins and Ghost Bananas
For the oranges, simply peel the orange and then place a tiny piece of celery on top for the stem. Then for the ghost, simply peel the banana, cut into thirds and place two mini chocolate chips on the top for the eyes. If you wanted to leave the skin on, you could draw a jack-o-lantern face onto the orange and a ghost face onto the banana.
No Tricks – These are Great Treats!
Cameron Graziano, now 23 with 22 Halloween celebrations behind him, shares the following in hopes it will be helpful to families: “Halloween doesn’t have to mean ‘candy’. Halloween can feature ghoulishly fun and healthy veggies and fruits! Host a Halloween Party at your home so your family can better manage supervision. Invite guests to wear costumes, have a dance party, and swerve some of the healthy options below. Switch things up every year to make treats exciting and fun year after year!”
- Lisa Graziano, PWS Parent
Carrot Hand in
Hummus
Watermelon and Pineapple Chunks
String Cheese
Ghosts
Carrots and Blueberries
Pumpkin
Pepper Pumpkins and Carrot Sticks
Sugar-Free Keto Cranberry Sauce
In our house if you are having turkey, you must have cranberry sauce - but store-bought cranberry sauce has too much sugar and too many carbs. Here’s a recipe for the cranberry sauce/relish I make for Thanksgiving every year. We have some holdouts that still want canned cranberry sauce - but my son and I love this one!
- Elaine Towle, PWS Parent
Pumpkin Spice Mini Donuts & Cinnamon Oven-Roasted Apples
For Thanksgiving as dessert I make PWS friendly Pumpkin spice mini donuts with cinnamon oven-roasted apples topped with a little heavy whip cream. It’s delicious and the whole family can enjoy it.
- Sujeiri Colon, PWS Parent
Mini pumpkin donuts
2 eggs
1 cup of pumpkin purée
Tea spoon of vanilla extra
1/3 cup of Almond milk
Mix together
In a separate bowl
Almond flour
Coconut flour
Pumpkin spice powder
Cinnamon powder
Pinch of salt
Baking soda
Baking powder
Add dry and wet ingredients together and blend
Optional can add walnuts to batter.
Grease mini donut tray with avocado butter and in the oven at 350.
Recipe for cinnamon apple
Cut apples to your size of choice
Sprinkle lemon juice
Sprinkle lightly avocado oil
Sprinkle cinnamon powder
Put in oven at 350
Once ready to serve I add heavy whipped cream and a little sprinkle of Cinnamon powder or Pumpkin spice powder. Enjoy!
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Jennifer Bolander has been serving as a Special Education Specialist for PWSA (USA) since October of 2015. She is a graduate of John Carroll University and lives in Ohio with her husband Brad and daughters Kate (17), and Sophia (13) who was born with PWS.
Perry A. Zirkel has written more than 1,500 publications on various aspects of school law, with an emphasis on legal issues in special education. He writes a regular column for NAESP’s Principal magazine and NASP’s Communiqué newsletter, and he did so previously for Phi Delta Kappan and Teaching Exceptional Children.
Evan has worked with the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association (USA) since 2007 primarily as a Crisis Intervention and Family Support Counselor. Evans works with parents and schools to foster strong collaborative relationships and appropriate educational environments for students with PWS.
Dr. Amy McTighe is the PWS Program Manager and Inpatient Teacher at the Center for Prader-Willi Syndrome at the Children’s Institute of Pittsburgh. She graduated from Duquesne University receiving her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Education with a focus on elementary education, special education, and language arts.
Staci Zimmerman works for Prader-Willi Syndrome Association of Colorado as an Individualized Education Program (IEP) consultant. Staci collaborates with the PWS multi-disciplinary clinic at the Children’s Hospital in Denver supporting families and school districts around the United States with their child’s Individual Educational Plan.
Founded in 2001, SDLC is a non-profit legal services organization dedicated to protecting and advancing the legal rights of people with disabilities throughout the South. It partners with the Southern Poverty Law Center, Protection and Advocacy (P&A) programs, Legal Services Corporations (LSC) and disability organizations on major, systemic disability rights issues involving the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the federal Medicaid Act. Recently in November 2014, Jim retired.