All kids look forward to collecting a bag of candy on Halloween. Few would gracefully accept a healthy piece of fruit, much as their parents might support the idea.

Yet, there are healthy foods that kids see as treats, and you can feel good about handing out:

Just don’t tell the kids that these are “healthy snacks” and they’ll enjoy them as much as the candy.

There are 364 other days each year to discuss the benefits of fiber and nutrients and the ills of empty calories, salt, sugar and fat.
  

A hostess gift for Morticia Addams? Photo
courtesy ArtisanBreadInFive.com.

Halloween is great fun for kids, but adults enjoy fun food too. These crunchy breadsticks combine the ghoulish with the delicious. You can make them as is, or add a few drops of green food color to the dough if you want your witch to have green-tinted flesh.

The recipe is courtesy of Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François, baking partners who have written several books that make bread-baking easier for anyone who wants to pull fresh loaves from the oven.

Why not serve the breadsticks with a bowl of “bloody worm” pasta: maloreddus pasta with tomato sauce?

RECIPE: WITCH’S FINGERS BREADSTICKS

Ingredients For 8 Breadsticks

1. PREHEAT oven to 450°F. There is no need for a stone.

2. DIVIDE the 8-ounce ball of dough into 8 equal pieces. Elongate the pieces into ropes.

3. TWIST the ropes so there is a knot in the middle; this will look like a gnarly knuckle when they are baked.

4. GREASE a baking sheet and arrange the breadsticks at least an inch apart. Let them rest for 20 minutes. Right before baking, press the almond “fingernail” into the end of each breadstick. Be sure to press hard, so they won’t pop off while baking.

5. BAKE for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Here are photos of the whole process.

Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François know that people want to bake their own bread, so long as they can do it easily and quickly. Their revised classic enables you to do just that: “The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking,” by Jeff Hertzberg, Zoë François and Stephen Scott Gross.

You can read a nice chunk of the book via the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon.com, and can pursue the authors’ blog for more recipes.

The authors have also taken on healthy bread, with “Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free.”

During a 10-year career at some of Chicago’s top restaurants (including one of our all-time favorites, the late, lamented Trio in Evanston), Paula created sophisticated desserts for demanding foodies.

But on her days off, she wanted a simple, satisfying piece of pie—the kind her Hoosier aunts learned to bake on the farm. She took a summer off, taught herself how to make great crust (practice! practice! practice!) and ultimately opened the Hoosier Mama Pie Company.

Here are two tips, and you can purchase The Hoosier Mama Book Of Pie for many more.

BONUS: There’s an excellent amount of the book free online, in the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon.com. Check out the chapter, “Lessons From The Rolling Table
The Making, Rolling And Handling Of Pie Dough.”

TIP: BLIND BAKING PIE SHELLS

Blind baking is the term for prebaking a pie shell prior to adding the filling. The trick is to weigh down the crust to avoid air bubbles from forming.

Nothing works better for blind baking a pie shell than a large coffee filter (basket style) filled with dried beans. The filter fits perfectly into a 9″ pie shell, and the beans can be re-used many times.

TIP: AVOIDING SOGGY BOTTOM FRUIT PIES

Along with starting out with a good hot oven to set the crust, dust the bottom of the crust with a 50/50 mixture of flour and sugar. Paula refers to this as “crust dust,” and uses it with every fruit pie.

MEDITATIONS ON PIE

Paula has also assembled a fun collection of pie quotes. Head to the Hoosier Mama Pie website for quotes like these.

He was as normal as pumpkin pie and now look at him.

—Elderly Neighbor in “Breaking Away” by Steve Tesich

[2] These days, it’s easy to buy beets that are cooked, peeled, and ready to eat.

The greens of summer give way to the colorful root vegetables of fall: poetic and good for you.

What’s also good is that this recipe, from LoveBeets.com, uses only one pan. Prep time is 15 minutes, cooking time is 40 minutes.
 
 
RECIPE: ROAST CHICKEN WITH ROOT
VEGETABLES

Ingredients For 4 Servings

1. PREHEAT the oven to 425°F.

2. COMBINE potatoes, beets, carrots, turnips, onion and garlic in a large roasting pan. Drizzle the olive oil over the vegetables and then pour over the wine. Tuck the thyme sprigs in-between the vegetables. Season well with salt and pepper.

3. SEASON the chicken legs all over with salt and pepper and lay them on top of the vegetables. Cover loosely with foil and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

4. REMOVE the foil from the pan and return to the oven. Bake for another 20-25 minutes or until the chicken is golden and crisp and the vegetables are cooked through.
 
 
WHAT ARE ROOT VEGETABLES

Root vegetables are plant roots that are eaten as vegetables. The term is used to refer to any part of the plant that grows underground, including the onion/garlic family, which are technically classified as bulbs. Often, the stems and leaves of these plants can also be eaten.

We’ve written about Sara Snacker cookies in the past, a business that began a decade ago in Sara’s college dorm room in Arizona. These days, the mother of three runs her business from New York City.

We enjoy most of the line very much, and are always happy when a new sample rolls in.

This week, we trued the company’s first gluten-free, dairy-free cookie: Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chippy.

While they don’t come out of the package looking like much (there’s a lot of cookie “dust”), they go into the mouth tasting great. We couldn’t stop eating them. The 12 cookie balls lasted maybe 24 hours.

The ingredients are all natural, and include creamy peanut butter, crunchy whole grain oats and semisweet chocolate chips.

In addition to a gluten-free recipe, the cookies are certified kosher by Star-D.

There’s a store locator on the website. The retailers are largely on the East Coast, but you can shop online at SaraSnacker.com.

Or, in our case, a peanut butter lover who isn’t on a gluten-free diet can happily make them disappear.