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How often do you struggle to think of something to have for dinner? Some holidays like Thanksgiving make meal planning easy. When it comes to Halloween, however, you may not have any ideas of what to have that is hearty and nutritious as well as keeping with the Halloween theme. Here is the perfect meal to prepare – Stuffed Intestines.

This recipe is something that you can make any way you want. While there is an ingredient list, the items are simply suggestions. You can make this meal using any dough, vegetables, sauces or spices your family likes. Make this your recipe and your family will ask for it year after year around Halloween.

Vegetable Ingredients

• 1 large can of black olives (You can get two small cans of sliced olives if you don’t want to take the extra time to slice them yourself)
• 2 small white or purple onions (You can also use one medium to large onion)
• 16 ounce bag of frozen corn (Add more or less to suit your family)
• 2 or 3 big sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 can straw mushrooms (Optional)
• 1 can black beans
• Spices (Use the ones your family enjoys)
• Olive oil

“Green Guts” Ingredients

• Non-dairy milk (Here you see flax milk and almond milk)
• Nutritional yeast
• 16 ounce bag of frozen peas

Dough Ingredients

• 1 cup cooked (or canned) chickpeas or garbanzo beans
• 3 cups of all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 1 teaspoon of cumin
• ⅔ cup of margarine or vegetable shortening
• 6 tablespoons of water
• Red and blue food coloring to create veins and arteries

For this recipe, the vegetable mixture was prepared first, then the green filling and finally the dough. Preparing the dish this way allowed the vegetables to cool down some when it was time to handle the stuffed dough. Use the method that seems best to you.

Begin by peeling and chopping up the vegetables – sweet potato, onion, olives and mushrooms – not necessarily in this order. Again, don’t be afraid to make this recipe your own.

Peel and dice the sweet potatoes.

Slice and chop the olives.

Peel off the outer layer of the onion; then dice. Next, slice and chop the mushrooms.

In a large skillet, add olive oil and the onions to lightly sauté them over medium heat. Remove them from the pan and set them aside.

Add a little more oil to the pan and lightly sauté the sweet potatoes until fork tender.

Add the frozen corn to the sautéed sweet potatoes.

Then add the mushrooms and continue cooking over medium heat.

Add the olives to the pan.

Finally add the onions back to the pan along with the can of black beans. Thoroughly combine the ingredients, but don’t let them cook too long. You want them to be somewhat crisp because they will continue to cook in the oven later.

Add the seasonings your family likes. For this recipe we used salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder and Italian seasoning.

If you use the same vegetables as in this recipe, it will look similar to this when all the vegetables have been added. Remove the vegetables from the heat and allow them to cool.

Next, you will want to turn your attention to the “green guts” mixture. There are only three main ingredients – frozen peas, non-dairy milk and seasoning.

Using a food processor, pour the frozen peas into the bowl and add your seasonings. This shows the cumin.

Add nutritional yeast. This can be found in most health food stores.

Pour the non-dairy milk into the food processor and start it up. You can make the green mixture as thin as you would like.

Mix well and refrigerate until the dough is prepared.

Finally, it’s time to make the dough (ingredients at the beginning.)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F while you are making the dough and building your Stuffed Intestines.

Add the chickpeas to the bowl of your food processor and puree them. Remove the cutting blade and switch the processor over to the dough blade.

In a separate bowl, combine sift the flour, salt and cumin and then add it to the pureed chickpea mixture.

Mix this together until the ingredients are combined.

Add margarine (or shortening) to the chickpea and flour mixture and pulse several times to mix it.

Add the water to the mixture and mix until a dough forms a ball and pulls away from the side of the processor bowl.

Remove the dough ball from the processor and place it on a lightly floured surface. Knead the dough for about 3 to 5 minutes.

Separate the dough into four equally sized balls.

After you have four dough balls, roll each one into a long strip that is approximately ⅛ inch thick. It is easier to build each section separately especially if you have limited space.

Add a layer of the vegetable mixture and spread it the length of the dough. Remember to leave enough room to close the dough and create a seam.

Next, add a layer of the “green guts” mixture.

Pull the edges together and pinch to create a seam.

Place it seam down into a ungreased glass casserole dish, looping and turning the sections of tube as it winds down the pan.

Continue the above process and add each section into the casserole dish making a “snake” shape.

Using a new, fine tipped paintbrush, paint arteries and veins onto the intestines using the red and blue food coloring.

When you are finished painting, pop it into the oven for 30 to 40 minutes.

Yuck! I mean Yum! It’s out of the oven and ready to gross out anyone in the house. (Hey kids. It’s even more gross if the guts’ juice trickles out of the corner of your mouth a little bit.)

And here’s how mom prefers her serving…

Whether you want to eat it out of a lunch bag (on a picnic plate) or on your pretty dinner ware, this is a great dish to really get the Halloween crowd going during a family dinner or party.