Don't let Halloween creep up before cooking up some ghostly fun with your little ghouls and goblins.

Go all out at every meal for a monster mash of wicked fun.

Start with ghost-shaped pancakes with raisin eyes and a big chocolate chip smile. Or pour the pancake batter into long, thin lines and form the strips into a spider web.

A little imagination can transform ordinary foodstuff into wacky faces or scary bugs.

Slice a bell pepper lengthwise to form the outline of a face. Sliced black olives double as eyes and a tomato wedge becomes a mouth. Give the face a good shock of lettuce hair and a drizzle of dressing, and this salad is sure to elicit shrieks of delight.

Or turn those black olives into terrifying spiders. A jumbo olive sliced lengthwise and placed cut side down becomes the body, with eight thin slices serving as legs.

Place sliced green olives with pimentos atop deviled eggs. They'll look like eyes, giving the hard-cooked eggs added personality.

Turn mounds of mashed potatoes into ghosts. All they need are black pepper eyes.

Baby carrots become severed fingers with the addition of slivered almonds.

Pigs in a blanket can easily be mummy-fied by rolling biscuits or crescents rolls into a long thin strip before wrapping the hot dogs or sausages. Two dots of mustard serve as eyes and a sliver of ketchup the mouth.

It doesn't take much to turn Halloween into a sweet treat. Kids can dress up cookies and cupcakes with colored icing and use jelly beans, candy corn, black licorice, M&M's and peanuts and raisins to create their own creatures.

And ice cream cones are perfect as hats for popcorn balls or rice cereal treats. After that, they'll just need chocolate chips eyes and licorice mouths.

Modesto Bee staff writer Sharon K. Ghag can be reached at sghag@modbee.com or (209) 578-2340.

Severed Finger Sugar Cookies

Makes about 24 cookies

• Ingredients:

1 pouch (17.5-ounce) Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix

1 egg

¼ cup raw slivered almonds

¼ cup seedless strawberry jam

7 drops red food color

• Instructions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with cooking parchment paper.

In medium bowl, mix cookie mix and egg, using fork or spatula, until well mixed and texture of sand or bread crumbs. Squeeze handful of dough crumbs together tightly to form small log or "finger." Score top of log with butter knife to shape the knuckle, then press 1 slivered almond at one end to make the fingernail. Repeat to use up dough. Refrigerate 30 minutes. Bake 15 minutes. Cool completely. In small bowl, mix jam and food color. Trim base of "finger" with fork to give it a severed look. Dip base of finger into jam.

This recipe is from www.bettycrocker.com.

Taco monster mouths

Serves 6

• Ingredients:

2 plum tomatoes, cut length-wise into 3 pieces

12 large pimiento-stuffed green olives

3 slices (½ ounce each) American cheese

6 Old El Paso Stand 'N Stuff Taco Shells

½ pound lean (at least 80 percent) ground beef

2 tablespoons Old El Paso 40 percent less sodium taco seasoning mix

¼ cup water

Shredded lettuce, if desired

• Instructions:

Cut each tomato lengthwise into 3 pieces. Remaining inside of tomato may be chopped for additional taco filling, if desired.

Cut slit into 1 side of each olive to make a flat side. Cut each of the slices of cheese in half vertically in a zigzag line to look like teeth.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Arrange taco shells on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 5 to 7 minutes or until hot. Meanwhile, in 10-inch skillet, cook ground beef over medium-high heat 5 to 7 minutes, stirring frequently, until thoroughly cooked; drain. Stir in taco seasoning mix and water. Reduce heat to medium; cook about 5 minutes, stirring frequently until water has evaporated.

To assemble, fill tacos with desired fillings so that meat is on the top. Placing each taco on its side on serving plate, insert 1 tomato slice into meat filling to look like tongue. Place 1 cheese slice with zigzag edge toward meat along top side of taco between the shell and the filling. Place 2 olives, flat sides down, to look like eyes on top of shell.

This recipe is from www.bettycrocker.com.

Creepy Crawly Cake Truffles

Makes 4 dozen or 24 (2 cake pop) servings)

• Ingredients:

1 package white cake mix

1 teaspoon McCormick Pure Orange Extract

½ teaspoon McCormick Yellow Food Color

¼ teaspoon McCormick Red Food Color

1 cup marshmallow creme

White confectionery coating wafers, such as Wilton White Candy Melts

Black confectionery coating wafers

Semi-sweet baking chocolate

Assorted candies for decorating

• Instructions:

Prepare cake mix as directed on package, adding orange extract and food colors. Bake as directed on package for 13-by-9-inch baking pan. Cool completely on wire rack. Crumble cake into large bowl. Add marshmallow creme; mix until well blended. Shape into 1-inch balls. Refrigerate 2 hours.

Melt coating wafers or chocolate as directed on package. Using a fork, dip 1 cake ball at a time into the confectionery coating or melted chocolate. Tap back of fork 2 or 3 times against edge of dish to allow excess to drip off. Place cake balls on wax paper-lined tray. Decorate as desired. See Page D-2 for decorating suggestions.

• Spider: Coat in black coating or melted chocolate. Add black string licorice for legs and red candy-coated pieces for eyes.

• Ghosts: Coat in white coating to resemble ghosts. Add cut black jelly beans for eyes and mouth.

• Vampire bats: Coat in black coating or melted chocolate. Use red candy-coated pieces for eyes, white tips of candy corns for fangs and cut up licorice wheels for wings and ears.

This recipe is from McCormick.

Cookie bones

Makes 4 dozen cookies

• Ingredients:

1 pouch Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix

1/3 cup butter, softened

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 egg

24 pretzel rods, broken in half

3 cups white vanilla baking chips (18 ounces)

• Instructions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In medium bowl, stir cookie mix, butter, flour and egg until soft dough forms. Place dough in refrigerator to chill slightly, about 30 minutes.

Roll dough into 96 half-tablespoon-size balls. Press and roll 1 dough ball around both ends of each pretzel to form bone shape; repeat with remaining dough and pretzels. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 6 to 8 minutes or until edges of cookie are light golden brown. Cool completely on cooling racks, about 15 minutes.

In small microwavable bowl, microwave baking chips uncovered on high in 30-second increments until melted when stirred. Dip each cookie into coating. Place on cooling racks until set, about 15 minutes.

Vanilla-flavored candy coating (almond bark) can be used instead of white vanilla baking chips.

This recipe is from "Betty Crocker: The Big Book of Cookies" (Wiley, $19.99).