Pumpkin Pasties

Ingredients:
Makes about 3 dozen miniature pasties.
2 eggs, slightly beaten
3/4 cup sugar
500 gm pumpkin
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1 2/3 cups milk
1/2 tsp allspice (use garam masala)
9 oz pie crust pastry (enough for two single standard pie crusts)

Procedure:
Bake the pie filling only (no crust) in a large casserole dish in hot oven (425 degrees) for 15 minutes. Keep oven door closed and reduce temperature to moderate (350 degrees F/180 degrees Celsius) and continue baking for 45 minutes or until table knife inserted in centre of dish comes out clean. Cool on wire rack. Make or purchase pie crust pastry. Roll thin and cut into circles approx 4" in diameter. Put a spoonful of the cool pumpkin mixture towards one side of the centre of the circle. Fold over the crust into a half-circle and firmly crimp the edges closed. Slice three small slits in the top for venting, place on a greased cookie sheet, and bake only until crust is a light golden-brown. Great served at room-temperature, then you don't have to worry about your guests possibly burning their mouths from the steaming hot pumpkin inside!

Butterbeer

Ingredients:
Makes 2 quarts.
1 cup butterscotch schnapps
7 cups cream soda

Procedure:

Carefully mix just before serving, adding the schnapps to the soda then stirring gently to mix well, or the fizz will dissipate too soon. Butterscotch flavouring is 35% alcohol where the schnapps is only 15% alcohol by volume. There is not much alcohol content in the butterbeer mixture, just enough to make a house-elf tipsy and to give it the warm, buttery aftertaste to the fizzy cream soda. Yum! Make a refill batch using 1 cup schnapps to a whole 2 litre bottle of cream soda, which is ratio of 1 to 8, but people will tasted the difference and complain, so be warned!

Herbology Fruit

Ingredients:
kumquats, blueberries
mango, kiwi
pineapple, papaya
strawberries, plums, grapes

Procedure:
Choose the fruit you like (tropical is excellent - the more unique the better — this is Herbology you know!) and that lend themselves to party-sized portions. Arrange it all artistically on unique garnish, or have your house-elf Leezy arrange it for you. Set up in your Herbology classroom amongst real and artificial plants and enjoy!

Acid Pops

Ingredients:
Sour lollipops
Pop Rocks (whatever flavour you choose)

Procedure:

The combination of the sour taste, already very acidic, with the surprise of the "pops" from the Pop Rocks, makes these just like what Acid Pops ought to be! The lollipops ought to be sticky enough to be rolled in the Pop Rocks, then wrapped in plain wax paper squares. The Pop Rocks immediately start losing their "pop" when in contact with the moisture in the lollipops, so assemble these as close to serving as possible for the best effect.

Herbology Crudites

Ingredients:
white mushrooms
button mushrooms
red, yellow and orange bell peppers
carrots, broccoli
snap peas

Procedure:
Choose the vegetables you like and that lend themselves to party-sized portions. Arrange it all artistically on unique garnish (this is Herbology you know!), or have your house-elf Leezy arrange it for you. Set up in your Herbology classroom amongst real and artificial plants and enjoy!

Cockroach Clusters

Ingredients:
dark chocolate dry chow mein noodles

Procedure:
Melt your chocolate until smooth. Stir in noodles until the mixture is thick enough to hold together. Spoon bite-sized clusters onto wax paper and let harden in the refrigerator. If you want longer-lasting candy, melt 1 stick cooking paraffin per 12 oz of chocolate before adding the noodles. These can be frozen, just thaw before serving.

Cauldron Cakes

Ingredients:

Makes about 3 dozen from a standard cake mix.
Your favourite devils food cake recipe,
made into cupcakes black string licorice.

Procedure:
Bake your cupcakes according to the instructions, without using paper cup liners. Slice off the top of the crown of each cupcake so that when it is turned upside down, it sits flat.
This gives you more of a cauldron shape than a cupcake shape. Cut the black string licorice into small pieces and poke them into the cupcakes as cauldron handles.

Pumpkin Juice
Bake your Halloween jack o'lantern in the oven. (watch the face distort and shrink - it's fun!) Strain your pumpkin, saving the juice separately from the strained pumpkin.
Serve your chilled pumpkin juice to your guests! This takes a good hour or two, depending on the size of your jack o'lantern, so keep checking your pumpkin as it is baking. Use a cookie sheet underneath so you can easily take the hot mushy pumpkin out of the oven and to catch any drippings. If your pumpkin was not carved, cut it in half before baking, otherwise it could explode and make a GIGANTIC mess! You will see that the juice separates from the pumpkin flesh as it starts to bake, so spoon off this juice periodically and save it so it doesn't leak all over your oven.
Once your pumpkin flesh has baked long enough to be good and soft, remove from the oven and let it cool. Scoop the pumpkin flesh from the skin into a strainer with a container underneath. Use a spoon to squeeze out the juice from the pumpkin, so you have as "solid" a puree as possible, which you should save for your Pumpkin Pasties, pumpkin bread, or your favourite pie recipe. Strain your pumpkin after baking, since if you don't, you end up with a very watery pumpkin pie. Freeze your pumpkin and pumpkin juice separately in plastic containers, and they can keep over a year in the freezer quite well. After thawing the pumpkin, you can strain again for even better results (and more pumpkin juice!) since during freezing, the ice crystals were separated from the pumpkin naturally. Try using pumpkin pie spice mixture to flavour your juice, but the flavour will be too strong. You may actually prefer plain, unsweetened pumpkin juice, since it is quite refreshing and tastes a bit like iced tea.