• 1 witch’s hat
• 1 magic wand (Could even be a wood stick)
• 1 cauldron (or stock pot)
• 1 wooden spoon
• 1 recipe for your favorite soup  with spooky names for all ingredients
• Containers for ingredients (examples include old honey jars, canning pint jars, glass votive candle holders, small drinking glasses.  Choose a few different containers if possible, because the effect is better)

Save out a little of each of the main ingredients and place in containers with assigned names (I made labels for each of mine, but you could even just use a mailing label or similar).  I think it is easier to save out ingredients and just microwave to cook them rather than trying to fish the ingredients out of the soup once it is all done.  Cook the rest of the soup as directed.  Now for the fun part!  Put on your witch’s hat and assume character.  Gather all the children around the Witch (you) and tell them that the witch’s stew is almost ready.  Now call for each ingredient by its spooky name and have each child add one ingredient at a time as you stir with a large wooden spoon.  After all ingredients have been added to the stew, wave your magic wand over the stew and chant the following spell:

“Gobble dee gook
With a wooden spoon
The laugh of a toad
at the height of the moon
Boil and bubble
Dance a jig,
If you eat all this
You’re a polka dot pig”

And believe it or not, that bewitching stew will make your party  one of the most amazing and memorable Halloween bashes you’ve ever had!

Example: Zuppa Toscana

• ground sausage:         rat’s brains
• sliced red potatoes:    sliced troll’s toes
• chopped onion:          mummified toenails
• chicken broth:            gargoyle sweat
• whipping cream:       werewolf saliva (I like to say, “Werewolf saliva collected at the full moon” when I add it to the stew)
• kale:                              swamp weed
• Parmesan cheese:     white wood worms
• salt:                               crushed spiderwebs
• pepper:                         ground beetle legs
• crushed red pepper:  dried fire ants

Other examples of fun names for ingredients:

• toad’s eyes
• sliced vampire heart
• monster brains
• chopped bat whiskers
• swamp slithers
• frozen ghost mist
• fish eggs
• hair from a skunk’s tail
• ogre teeth
• dried spider legs
• (the possibilities are endless!)