Halloween is full of spooky treats and dressing up as your favourite scary character, but do you fear the day it arrives and it's not the ghosts that are giving you a fright!
Halloween on Female First
The huge array of Halloween-inspired sugary treats loaded with artificial colourings and flavourings is a nightmare for parents.
Parents feel the pressure to provide these treats to their children with 81% admitting to this in a new survey.
According to An Organix No Junk Challenge Survey of Mums across the UK reveals that 97% of mums think most of the food sold at Halloween contains high levels of artificial colourings and flavourings and that it is full of sugar.
In fact, half of mums are so anxious about what's in the sickly treats they don't even dare to read the terrifying list of E-numbers on the food labels (46%).
And while 20 years ago you might have hoped for a few penny sweets when trick and treating, these days many stores sell large 'swag buckets' for youngsters to carry their huge haul of nasty treats around.
Parents firmly believe that Halloween is a time for children to eat junk food with 72% wish there was a healthy alternative at Halloween to sweets and 'treats'.
In a bid to help parents and children join in with the fun of Halloween, but ditch the junk, Organix has come up with some truly awful treats that are actually good for you. Follow the recipe below to make your very own ghost pizza.
Organix No Junk Ghostly Pizza
In a bid to help parents and children join in with the fun of Halloween, but ditch the junk, Organix has come up with some truly awful treats that are actually good for you. These ghostly No Junk Halloween pizzas are full of healthy ingredients, free from junk and spookily tasty!
Pizza dough and ghostly toppings makes about 10 mini pizzas. Tomato sauce recipe makes 1 small pot (approx 500mls)
- Dough: • 250g self raising flour / plain flour with 3 tsps baking powder • 4 tbsps olive oil • 100mls warm water
- Fabulously simple tomato sauce: • 1 onion • 2 tbsps olive oil • 2 cloves garlic • 1 tin chopped tomatoes • 1 tbsp tomato puree • 1 tbsp dried oregano or mixed herbs
- Ghostly toppings: • Large ball of mozzarella • Some black olives • Some green olive • Some fresh rosemary (optional) • A ghost shaped cutter
Pizza Dough:
1. Put the flour (with baking powder mixed in) into a bowl, and make a well in the centre. Pour in the oil and most of the water, and mix together to form a dough. The dough shouldn't be too sticky - so don't add all the water at once, just add a little more as necessary
2. Give the dough a good knead on a lightly floured surface, folding the dough over on itself and pressing down with the heel of your hand. Keep turning, folding and pressing until the dough is even, smooth and elastic in texture (at least 5-10 minutes). Older children love getting involved making their own pizza - and kneading the dough is one of the best jobs.
3. Cut the dough in half with a sharp knife to create two even balls, divide these again to create four balls and a final time to create eight even balls of dough. Roll each ball out on a lightly floured work surface with a rolling pin into mini round pizza bases, approx. 5mm thick and transfer to the baking sheets. You can roll them directly on to cut up sheets of parchment paper if you like - to make the dough easier to transfer.
No Junk Halloween toppings:
1. Preheat your oven to 230°C / 210°C fan assisted / gas 8. Lightly grease and line two large baking trays
2. Start by making the sauce - finely chop the onion and sauté with the oil in a frying pan over a low heat until soft
3. Crush the garlic and add to the pan for another couple of minutes
4. Add the tin of tomatoes, tomato puree and herbs and continue to sauté for another 10 minutes. The sauce should thicken and intensify
5. You can use the sauce as it is, or blend it until smooth in a blender if you prefer. Spread the sauce liberally over your rolled out pizza bases
6. Carefully cut the large mozzarella balls into 5mm slices across the ball. Gently press on the mozzarella to make it as wide in diameter as possible, then use a ghost shaped cookie cutter to cut ghost shaped slices of mozzarella. If the mozzarella balls aren't big enough, you may need to cut the shape in two sections and place carefully together on the pizza - so that they melt together. Place one or two ghosts on each pizza base depending on the size of your cutter
7. Cut tiny pieces of black olive and place on mozzarella ghosts to create black eyes
8. Cut the green olives in half and place a couple on each pizza. If you have some fresh rosemary, stick four leaves in each side of the olive half to create spider legs (this is optional and not essential but quite fun!)
9. Place the pizzas into the preheated oven for about 10 minutes until the mozzarella has melted and pizza dough is golden and cooked through.
Top tip: The pizza bases and tomato sauce can both be made up in bulk in advance and stored in the fridge for up to 4 days, or frozen for up to 3 months. If freezing the dough, rub in a little olive oil and place in freezer bags. Defrost thoroughly before use, then this recipe can be whipped up in minutes. Allow the dough to come up to room temperature before rolling out. Other vegetables such as roasted peppers or carrot could be added to this sauce and blended in for some extra veggie goodness!
Anna Rosier, Managing Director of Organix, said: "We all want to feed our families well, and we know parents are trying to buy food that is good for their children, but it's incredibly difficult for them to do so. Children are being targeted with foods often high in salt, fat and sugar and the lack of transparent labelling and the complexity of labels is leading to a terrible lack of trust in the food industry, and it's costing us a healthy future for our loved ones."
Anna Rosier says: "If you care about providing good food for your families and you want to help us call on the food industry and government to do more in protecting children's food, please say no to junk in children's food."
No Junk Challenge is a campaign with a long term commitment to help families reclaim healthy eating by saying 'no' to junk and say 'yes' to healthy, natural and simple food for the family. www.organix.com/nojunk.