Happy Halloween!

Yay! Pumpkin time. Miles is in town for Halloween, so yesterday we had a good day of pumpkin carving, watching halloween themed movies and toasting up the seeds.

Toasted pumpkin seeds are super easy to make. Wash all the pulp off and pat dry(-ish). Toss with cayenne, arbol pepper, garlic salt, and olive oil. Spread them out in one layer on a piece of parchment on a cookie sheet. Bake at 300 degrees for 20-30 minutes. Delicious!

Pumpkin Muffins Redux

This time with chocolate chips. These turned out incredible. I used the same recipe as before replacing the cranberries with chocolate chips and decreasing the nutmeg and allspice. I'm not a big fan of big chucks of chocolate in my muffins, so I chopped up the chips. The result is the whole muffin has a nice chocolate-y flavor to it. This is a recipe you have got to try.

Cranberry Chocolate Walnut Pumpkin Muffins
Makes 12

3/4 c brown sugar
1/4 c canola oil
2 eggs
1 c pumpkin puree
1/4 c water
1 1/2 c flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp ginger
1/2 1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 1/8 tsp allspice
1/4 t salt
1/4 c dried cranberries chopped chocolate chips, with an extra 1/8 c for garnish
1/4 c roughly chopped walnuts, with an extra 1/8 c for garnish

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease muffin pan.
2. Mix sugar, oil, eggs. Add pumpkin and water. In separate bowl mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt. Add wet mixture and stir in cranberries chocolate chips and walnuts.
3. Divide batter among 12 cups, filling about 3/4 full. Garnish each with more cranberries chocolate chips and walnuts. Bake for 20 minutes.

These beets are slammin'

Yum, beets. They are so easy to prepare and hard to mess up. You can stick them in salads or on pizza or make a simple bruschetta.

For most meals, you need 1-2 beets. You'd be surprised how much you get from one beet. I always overestimate how many beets I need, this time included. So consider yourself warned.

Start with a delicious looking bunch of beets. Wash and scrub them and cut off the stalks, leaving about an inch of stem. Cover in tin foil and throw in a 400 degree oven. They'll take anywhere between 45 to 90 minutes to cook depending on the size. Once you can stick a knife in them with little resistance, they're done!

Let them cool and the skin should come right off. I use vinyl gloves to keep it all a little more contained. Then chop them up! For the bruschetta, I cubed the beets, but you could easily slice them instead.

Heat up a nice baguette and slice on the bias. Toss some arugula in oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Assemble your bruschetta! Spread a healthy serving of goat cheese on your bread slices, top with beets and arugula, and enjoy.

Om nom nom.

House of the Rising Sun on Ukulele

'House of the Rising Sun' by The Animals

Another ukulele cover. This one is really simple, those E's are tricky though. I'll get ya, you little bastards, I'll get you.

My doting audience:
He looks at me as if to say, "Encore! Encore!" It's all for you, little buddy. Don't worry. I'll never stop the rock.

Next up: Beet Bruschetta! Nom.

B-Nut Soup

As promised, I made butternut squash soup last night. It came out different than I expected. I wanted one of those super creamy and rich soups, but I was using two different recipes as a base and neglected to opt for adding half and half. The result was still pretty good, it just had a little more texture than I expected.

The crispy sage leaves were a really wonderful touch, nice and crunchy with a great burst of flavor. They were so easy to make and they could add some good fall flavor to any number of dishes. I went ahead and garnished it with a dollop of sour cream to get some of that creaminess I felt was missing.

Butternut Squash and Apple Soup
Makes 4 bowls

2 Tbsp canola oil
2 lbs butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1 in cubes
2 Gala apples, chopped
6 baby carrots, chopped
1 large yellow onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp salt
3 cups vegetable broth

1 Tbsp butter
12 sage leaves (3 per bowl, make just before serving)
sour cream to taste

1. Heat oil in saucepot over medium heat. Add squash, apples, carrots, onion and garlic and cook until almost tender. Stir in spices. Cook and stir 2 minutes.
2. Add broth. Heat to a boil. Cook over low heat 10 minutes or until squash is tender.
3. Place cooked squash mixture in food processor, using a slotted spoon. Cover and blend until smooth, adding enough cooking liquid to make soup of desired consistency.
4. Heat butter in small skillet. Add sage and cook until crisp. Remove and drain on paper towels. Reserve butter in skillet. Divide soup among 4 bowls. Drizzle each with sage butter and garnish with fried sage leaves and a dollop of sour cream.

Next time I would definitely add some heavy cream to smooth out the texture a bit, but all and all, I'd consider it a success.

Puzzle Time

My folks came into town a few weeks ago and, for entertainment, we decided on a 3000 piece puzzle. Since Chad and I have two little critters that like to nom on things they shouldn't be nomming on, this had to be a quick operation. We brought the puzzle home mid-day Saturday and finished Tuesday night. Not too shabby.

I thought it would make a nice reasonably inexpensive wall hanging, so I went ahead and bought some puzzle glue. I probably should have realized it at the time, but you don't really need a special glue for a puzzle. Plus, it came with an annoying sponge spout that ripped off in short measure. If you've got a puzzle that needs gluing, I recommend getting some Mod Podge and a paint brush. It's a hell of a lot faster and you get much better coverage.

Once it was all glued, I mounted it on a tri-fold foam board which was super easy to glue on and cut down, but it's much more prone to buckling than particle board would have been. Then we slapped it up with some mirror mounts and now we've got a nice 48" x 32" map to decorate our bedroom!

Cranberry Walnut Pumpkin Muffins!

Fall is setting in. All the leaves outside are turning. So that means time for pumpkin everything! I made some cranberry walnut muffins this morning. I based this recipe off of a Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin recipe I found.

They turned out really nice, very fluffy with a good spice to them. Next time, I may decide to up the walnuts. I've got a bunch of pumpkin puree left, so more pumpkin-y recipes to come!

Cranberry Walnut Pumpkin Muffins
Makes 12

3/4 c brown sugar
1/4 c canola oil
2 eggs
1 c pumpkin puree
1/4 c water
1 1/2 c flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 t salt
1/4 c dried cranberries, with an extra 1/8 c for garnish
1/4 c roughly chopped walnuts, with an extra 1/8 c for garnish

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease muffin pan.
2. Mix sugar, oil, eggs. Add pumpkin and water. In separate bowl mix together the baking flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt. Add wet mixture and stir in cranberries and walnuts.
3. Divide batter among 12 cups, filling about 3/4 full. Garnish each with more cranberries and walnuts. Bake for 20 minutes.

Up next: butternut squash soup! Yum.