Halloween Cheese and Cracker Appetizer - Spicy Spiders Hors d'Oeuvres

I played Halloween theme Bunco the other night with my mommy group and I could not decide what to bring. As I procrastinated, all the other girls started to announce what they were bringing and it was all sweets and desserts. 

I challenged myself to come up with a creepy and creative Halloween theme hors d'oeuvres.  I also did not want to leave the house to complete this project, so I was lucky that I had a Costco size bag of olives (now I have to figure out what to do with the rest) and everything else on hand!

I also came up with this pumpkin theme appetizer, but more on that, later...

The Spicy Spider was born from ingredients I had on hand, but you could do many variations of this, making it on bread, or any different cracker. Using a pre-made orange cheddar cheese spread would be even more festive and easier than making your own cheese mixture, or you could make a vegan cheese.... The bottom line is you need olives and something sticky to hold the olive spider in place on a cracker.

Here's what you NEED:
crackers
spreadable cheese (I made my own, recipe to follow)
olives (whole, extra large or sliced - I prefer them whole because I like to control the size, but I did this with sliced)
roasted red peppers

My Homeade Cheese Ingredients:
I used Tillamook Garlic Chili Sharp Cheddar and Horizon Organic Cream Cheese.

1 block cream cheese
8 oz cheddar or interesting, spicy orange cheese, shredded
small jar of roasted red peppers or small red pepper roasted
optional:
chili pepper
??? you decide ???

Cheese Instructions:

Blend ingredients in food processor on pulse until it is mixed. You do not need to pulverized this. I like to see chunks of peppers and small pieces of cheddar Just a scrape the food processor and mix on pulse until it is blended nicely.

Assembly Instructions:
For the spiders to sit on, I made a mini-cheese ball. I scooped a small ball of cheese onto each cracker. You could use a deep spoon or a melon baller, perhaps.

I used a deep tablespoon and a regular small spoon to create my cheese balls.

I went rather large for the ball. These are time consuming, so I used a large cracker and a fairly large cheese ball on each so each hors d'oeuvre would be enjoyed and savored in several bites.



Then, I used thinly sliced olives, cut open with a little chunk taken out for the legs, each side of the olive for the 2 body portions and a roasted red pepper for the "hourglass". I gently poked each leg into the sticky cheese ball.



Everything is pressed into the cream cheese ball and served! I assembled these 1 hour prior to leaving for my event so the crackers didn't get soggy.

Check out all of my Halloween Food.