Halloweentown Themed Dinner
This week, we’re kicking off the spooky season with a special Halloweentown themed dinner!
Halloween starts early in our house – too early some may say. But the way I see it, if Halloween parties are taking place at Disney, then we should be celebrating too!
So, to kick-start the Halloween season, we enjoyed a themed dinner to the Disney Channel Original Movie – Halloweentown!
To create our Halloweentown dinner menu, I took inspiration from the characters and fun food references in the film.
So, grab your broomstick and a witch’s brew as we share our Halloweentown dinner and movie night!
Town Square Jack-O’-Lantern Cheeseball
The giant jack-o’-lantern in the middle of Town Square is a major focal point of the film. This magical pumpkin isn’t just a great piece of Halloween décor, it also gives life to all of Halloweentown!
I wanted to incorporate the jack-o’-lantern somewhere on our menu, and while perusing Pinterest for an answer, I was delighted to find several recipes for pumpkin-shaped cheeseballs. Voila! With a couple embellishments I felt confident I could transform our cheeseball into the jack-o’-lantern from the film.
For our cheeseball, I used a recipe from The Country Cook. This recipe included great instructions to achieve that perfect pumpkin shape.
Once the cheeseball was ready, I used sliced red pepper to make the eyes, nose, and mouth. The most difficult part was making sure my two-year-old didn’t steal all the sliced peppers off my cutting board. Until that day, I had no idea he was such a fan of raw peppers!
Aggie’s Broomsticks
Witches’ brooms play another important role in the film. Marnie kicks off her witch training by picking out her very own broom, after all!
So, I whipped together some broomsticks for the kids to enjoy during the movie. You may recognize this same concept from our Wizard of Oz Dinner.
Making the broomsticks is super simple! All you need is string cheese, pretzel rods, and chives or green onion. It takes some patience peeling the cheese into fine strings, but it pays off in the final presentation!
The broomsticks had repeat success with the kids and made the perfect addition to our Halloweentown dinner.
Gwen’s Fried Chicken with Ghostly Mashed Potatoes
A classic scene in Halloweentown is when Aggie magically turns Gwen’s leftover fried chicken back into a live chicken.
This scene inspired the main entrée for our Halloweentown dinner – fried chicken! And before you ask – no, there were no live chickens in my kitchen during the making of this dinner. In fact, to keep things simple, I cheated and picked up our fried chicken from Popeyes.
Now fried chicken isn’t very *Halloween* so to add a spooky element I served our chicken with mashed potato ghosts. I used a piping bag to pipe the mashed potatoes into ghost shapes and popped on some peas for the eyes.
The ghosts were definitely more silly-looking than spooky, but the kids approved of my attempt. And better still, I miraculously got my seven-year-old to eat some peas!
Marnie’s Magic Talismans
In Halloweentown, the kids use Merlin’s Talisman to save the town from evil forces. So, for our Halloweentown dinner, I made some magic talisman fruit wands.
I used dragon fruit, grapes, and blueberries for our wands. I specifically chose dragon fruit because it is a special treat at our house – plus it looks so cool!
The kids loved this healthy side dish. Food always seems to taste better when it’s on a stick!
Sophie’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
Dessert for our Halloweentown dinner was inspired by Sophie’s flying chocolate chip cookie.
So, I whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookies with a recipe from Handle the Heat. These cookies were awesome! This recipe will be my go-to for chocolate chip cookies moving forward.
To make these chocolate chip cookies more *Halloween* I topped them with chocolate spiders. Besides, as Aggie says in the film, “Being normal is vastly overrated!”
I melted leftover chocolate chips in a Ziploc bag and cut the corner to serve as my piping bag. Piping the spiders was more difficult than I thought it would be! But the kids thought the spiders looked great, so I was happy with how they turned out. And best yet, they tasted amazing!
“Halloween is Cool”
I hope you enjoyed our Halloweentown themed dinner! Having a special themed dinner is a great way to make movie night memorable.
Have an idea for our next Halloween themed dinner? Let us know in the comments!
Looking for other spooky themed dinners for the Halloween season? Be sure to check out our Haunted Mansion Dinner and Nightmare Before Christmas Dinner!
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