My family and I prepared and enjoyed a jack o’ lantern themed meal. Each course had a jack o’ lantern face and all but one course had pumpkin.

Appetizer: Pumpkin cheese ball with crackers, carrots, and sugar snap peas

I did not use a recipe for this. I took 4 oz of cream cheese and added some herbs, black pepper and some shredded sharp cheddar. I put the mixture in a piece of plastic wrap and used my hands to form a pumpkin shape. Then, I attached more shredded cheese to the outside of the pumpkin shape. My Mom decorated it with a sugar snap pea, black olives, and carrot.

Main: Potato-onion blintzes and roasted pumpkin with cinnamon

For the potato blintzes I mostly used the recipe from Sunset Menus & Recipes for Vegetarian Cooking 1981 page 56. But you can use any savory crepe recipe and filling. Our filling includes sauteed onions, homemade mashed potatoes, sharp cheddar cheese, salt, and pepper. We decorated with sour cream and roasted pumpkin seeds.

Dessert: No-Bake Pumpkin Cheesecake with dark chocolate features, puffed pastry with Ben and Jerry’s pumpkin cheesecake ice cream

We used individual graham cracker shells for the no-bake pumpkin cheesecake. The faces were made with melted dark chocolate piped on parchment paper. We let them set in the refrigerator. I cut pumpkin shapes out of puffed pastry, scored with a knife (did not go deep enough), then sprinkled with pumpkin pie spice before baking. The pumpkin cheesecake ice cream went great with the puffed pastry.