Dips, Snacks, & Appetizers --------------------------------- Bloody Popcorn Add some red food colouring to the butter you are melting. Incidentally, to get true red or black colours, buy paste food colouring from a craft or cake decorating supply store. No matter how many drops of liquid red you add, it'll always be some shade of pink. When the red butter is melted, pour it over the popcorn as usual. Sticks and Stones Easy. Pretzel sticks and candy that looks like rocks. Often sold in bulk food sections. Slug Guts Use any dip you like for chips or veggies. Orange Worms Yield: 13 servings 2 cn Apricot halves packed in-light syrup 4 Envelopes unflavored gelatin 2 c Orange juice Wiggle these worms any way you want on your plate. If you like, give them 'eyes' made from licorice bits. Place apricots in colander and let drain. Place drained apricots in food processor, cover, and whirl until well blended. Place gelatin in 3 quart pan, add orange juice, and let5 stand for 5 minutes to soften gelatin. Place pan on burner and bring to a boil over med/high heat,stirring with whisk. Turn off burner and remove pan to rack. Add apricots and mix with whisk until well blended. Pour into baking pan,cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about 4 hours, until set. Use butter knife to cut gelatin crosswise into 9 inch long, 1 inch wide strips. (you should have about 13 strips) Use pancake turner to remove strips to serving plate. Use your hands to twist strips into worm shapes. Makes 13 worms. Origin: Cookbook Digest Sept/Oct 1993. Kids' Popcorn Balls Yield: 6 servings 1/2 c Molasses 1/2 c Corn syrup 1 1/2 Cubes butter (3/4 cup) Salt 8 c Popped popcorn (measure -after popping) Cook 1/2 cup molasses with corn syrup until thermometer reaches hard crack stage, about 270 degrees. Stir in butter and salt. Have the popcorn in a bowl. Slowly stir in the mixture with a wooden spoon. Coat all the popcorn. IMPORTANT! Butter your hands lightly and shape the popcorn into balls. Make them the size you want. Set them on wax paper and let them harden. Wrap the ones you don't eat with wax paper. Cheese Eyeballs Ingredients: 1/2 lb (2 c) Cheddar cheese, grated 1/2 c Margarine 1/2 ts Salt 1 ts Paprika 1 c Flour 6 oz Bottle stuffed green olives Directions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees Shred cheese in work bowl of food processor, then place metal chopping blade in work bowl and add margarine. Combine salt, paprika, and flour in separate bowl. Turn on food processor, and slowly add flour mixture tbrough the feed tube. Stop processing as soon as ingredients are combined. Measure approximately one ts of this mixture and form an "eyeball" around an olive. Turn the olive in the "eyeball" so that it is "staring" outward. This recipe will yield about 24 "eyeballs". Line up the eyeballs on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in the oven for approximately 15 minutes. If you want to make these ahead of time, freeze them UNBAKED on the cookie sheet and transfer to a plastic bag when frozen. Then just thaw and bake when needed. Creepy Deviled Eggs Start with deviled eggs make nasty faces on the yolk part with sliced green olives for eyes and green or red pepper for mouth and eyebrows. Strained Eyeballs 6 eggs, hardcooked, cooled, and peeled 6 oz whipped cream cheese 12 green olives stuffed with pimientos Red food coloring or ketchup Half eggs widthwise. Remove yolks and fill the hole with cream cheese, smoothing surface as much as possible. Press an olive into each cream cheese eyeball, pimiento up, for an eerie green iris and red pupil. Dip a toothpick into ketchup and draw broken blood vessels in the cream cheese. Bug Bites Color creamcheese green, put pickle slice on cracker, add lump of cream cheese and stick in two almind slices to look like wings. Can add small olive pieces to look like eyes. Brain Dip 1 whole cauliflower 1 tub Trader Joe Spinach and Water Chestnut dip radishes assorted raw vegetables, crackers for dipping Cut florets from the top of the cauliflower until you have a cauliflower 'bowl'. Remove greens from bottom. Cut stems from radishes, leave the root, remove skin. Using toothpicks and food coloring, draw an eyeball on the flat part of the radish (where the top was). The root will look like the optic nerve. Fill cauliflower with dip, garnish with radish 'eyes', serve with veggies and crackers. Deadly Dipper Try hummus dip and use enough black beans beside the garbanzo beans so it looks either grey or brown grey and serve with chips.