Severed Sweet Potato Hand

Happy Halloween weekend! Instead of a recipe today, I'm sharing an idea for a spooky - and edible - creation that you can make for Halloween.

After seeing these crow claws on Betty Crocker's site, I loved the concept of creating creepy hands using cashews as fingernails, so I set out to create something similar myself.  Somewhere along the way, I came up with idea of carving a sweet potato.

I wasn't sure if it would actually work, but the sweet potato turned out to be the perfect material - the outside skin of the potato had the scraggly texture that I imagine a zombie's skin would be like, and the shape of the whole potato was perfect for carving out a wrist, hand, and fingers!

Here's how the potato looked as I was carving it.  It doesn't have to be perfect - as you can see, my hand ended up having six fingers by accident!

Once the potato is carved and fully cooked (unless you don't plan on actually eating it afterwards, in which case you can leave it partially cooked), you can add the creepy special effects!  To make my severed hand more realistic, I tore a bit of potato skin off the wrist end and smeared it in ketchup.

Next, I lifted the skin at the ends of each fingertip and stuck a cashew in between to act as the fingernails, smeared with a bit more ketchup of course!  The final touch was to make small tears throughout the rest of the potato skin to get that decaying skin effect.

My severed hand turned out more realistic than I was expecting - I almost didn't want to touch it because it really did feel like a heavy, lifeless hand of the undead...brrrr

If you feel too weird about eating your creation after, you can leave it as is and use it as a scary Halloween decoration.  If not, feel free to pluck off the fingers one by one, dip them in more "blood", and enjoy!

Severed Sweet Potato Hand

1 medium-large sweet potato
5-6 whole cashews
ketchup (I mixed regular ketchup with my spicy Indian ketchup to get a darker colour)

Preheat oven to 400°F. Wash and dry the sweet potato, leaving the skin on. Place sweet potato on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for about 20 minutes.  Remove and let cool slightly until it is cool enough to handle.

Using a knife, carve slits in the wider end of the sweet potato to create the fingers (if you have an unevenly shaped potato like I did, the skinnier end should be the wrist). Try to cut out a thin slice of potato in between each finger so that they are clearly separated. Then carve out the bottom half of each finger to create a thinner finger shape (see pictures above). 

Return carved potato to the oven for another 40-50 minutes, until it feels soft when you squeeze it gently (the cooking time will depend on the size of your potato - I only did mine for 40 minutes and the middle was still a bit hard). 

Remove from oven and peel off the skin from the end of the wrist and from the ends of the fingers.  Stick a cashew into the potato flesh of each fingertip right underneath the potato skin.  

Spoon ketchup onto the wrist and smear.  Add a dollop of ketchup to each fingertip around the cashews. 

Place on a serving dish. 

Spooky Pumpkin Spice Latte Hummus

If you thought there was a mistake in the title of this post, don't worry - I really did mean to add the word "hummus" after "pumpkin spice latte".  While this recipe is quite different from the famous Starbucks seasonal drink in some respects, it still has many of the same components - but in the form of a shareable dip!

As soon as I got my new food processor last week, I immediately started thinking about all the things I wanted to make with it. My first thoughts turned to hummus, but not just any plain hummus - it had to be something special!  And since I was recently reassured that pumpkin season is not over yet, I knew I wanted to make a pumpkin hummus... but instead of doing a savory version (like this Spicy Pumpkin Hummus at Once Upon a Cutting Board), I wanted to make a dessert hummus.

To come up with a good recipe, I turned to the blog The Broccoli Hut, which has lots of unique hummus ideas. I used their recipe for Sweet Maple Pumpkin Hummus as a guide, and made a few tweaks to get the pumpkin spice latte flavour I was looking for.

The result was a smooth and creamy hummus with the taste of pumpkin and Fall spices. I thought the amount of sweetness was just right, and there was just enough of the coffee to give it a bit of a kick without being too overpowering - but feel free to increase or decrease the amounts of sweetener and instant coffee to your own taste!

I've already made two batches of this hummus - the first I ate with apple slices, and the second I ate with some homemade vegan and gluten-free buckwheat graham crackers.

And since Halloween is coming up, I cut my graham crackers into "spooky" shapes (unfortunately I didn't have cookie cutters so they're a bit rough - but they are supposed to be tombstones and coffins!)  I loved the graham crackers on their own (they tasted more like gingerbread cookies), but they were even better dipped into the hummus!

This would be a great idea to bring to a Halloween potluck or party, with either apples or graham crackers.

Hope you all have a Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Spice Latte Hummus
Adapted from The Broccoli Hut

1 cup canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed (preferably with the skins peeled first)
1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 tbsp almond butter
1 tbsp + 1 tsp pure maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
pinch of nutmeg and cloves
scant 1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp instant coffee

Place all ingredients in a food processor and puree until smooth and fully mixed. Store in the refrigerator.

Makes about 1 1/4 cups.


Buckwheat Graham Crackers


Recipe can be found at Sketch-free Vegan Eating

The only changes I made to their recipe was to use dark buckwheat flour instead of light (since that's all I could find), adding a pinch of ground ginger, and using a bit of almond milk to replace some of the water. I would also adjust the cooking time to 18-23 minutes, depending on the thickness of the crackers.