The Worms Crawl In, The Worms Crawl Out
Halloween is one of my all time favorite holidays and as I've gotten older, I've transferred the desire to transform myself into transforming my home (and of course food) into works of art.
I can't exactly take credit for this brilliant idea, but I gotta admit, I think I took it to the "next level" so to speak! Unfortunately, I was so excited about how it was turning out that I completely forgot a coouple of elements that I had planned to include. Most notably, purple cabbage. Shredded purple cabbage would have added a wonderful pop of color. I had also planned on including shaved fresh parmesan cheese for a nice bite of flavor. Oh well, Halloween may have come and gone, but Autumn hasn't, so I may just have to make these fun little guys again. Maybe as an appetizer for Thanksgiving? You don't have to go the whole creepy, spaghetti "worm" route. You can stuff the peppers with whatever you'd like. Maybe rice or quinoa or just plain Thanksgiving stuffing! Anything your little creative heart desires!
Ok kids, this is what you're gonna need:
Peppers:
Bell peppers - colors of your choice. Mix it up and give everyone different colors if you like.
Pasta - any lengthy wormy looking pasta. I used orange colored, veggie spaghetti.
Sauce - This is where I don't play! As I've stated in the past, I SUCK at homemade sauces and dressings so far, (I'll hopefully get it down eventually) but there is only 1 brand of jarred sauce that I will ever eat again: RAO's! Any of the number of flavors that they offer. My favorite is their Garden Vegetable because it contains HUGE chunks of veggies. Trust me on this, you'll thank me later. Once you go RAO's you'll never go back to any other jarred sauce.
Garlic butter bread sticks - bake them and stand them up like tombstones!
Salad:
Clearly you can use just about anything you want, but the more colors and textures the better.
Lettuce of your choice. I got a bag of mixed springs greens to cut back on prep time and to have depth of color and texture
Grape or cherry tomatoes. I was happy to find the yellow cherry tomatoes just because I love vibrant, colorful food. I really wanna find the elusive purple cauliflower some day!
Whole Radishes
Black Olives
Carrots
Cucumbers
Capers
Garlic butter bread sticks
.....and unlike me, do NOT forget the purple cabbage!
Method:
Super damned quick and easy. Especially, if like me, you don't cook the peppers. You can choose to stick 'em in the oven for a bit, but I was worried how the carvings would hold up so I didn't bother. Your choice.
Cut off the top half inch of your pepper and and remove seeds and ribs and wash peppers. I used my 'lil baby pumpkin carving tool but you can also use a pairing knife. If your peppers don't wanna stand up on their own, cut a bit off the bottom to make a flatter surface so they will stand upright.
Cook pasta according to package directions. I snapped my pasta in half to make sure that I could get squirmy pieces to slither outside of the pepper orifices!
Heat up the RAO's sauce. I SWEAR to you, it is the tastiest sauce on the planet. And NOT overly sweet like a lot of jarred sauces. You can sprinkle a little crushed red pepper in it to add some heat if you like, but other than that, you don't gotta do alter it in any way. It's pure yum all on its own.
It is important to place your peppers on the plates you plan to serve them on to preserve presentation.
Layer pasta and sauce into each pepper and string pasta through the orifices you choose. (Yes, I used the word orifices twice because it's a fun word!) Layering is important so that all of your pasta gets sauced. Replace the pepper lid.
Arrange your salad mixture around the rim of the plate. Kind of gives it a "pumpkin patch" feel.
I also made little "Ghost" radishes by cutting off one end so they would stand up and leaving the root because I thought it looked creepy. I poked holes in the radishes with my little pumpkin kit piercy thingie, (I'm fairly certain that "piercy thingie" is not an actual word, but it's definitely an appropriate description!) and I stuffed little baby capers in for the eyes and mouth.
Dress your salad however you choose!
Be creative.
Have fun with it!
Let's face it, isn't fun the best thing to have!?
