ghost and ghouls of all kinds

Last weekend Brett and I were blessed with a number of tickets to 6 flags. What better time to use them then Halloween day. Roller coaster in the morning, Fright Fest at night! It was a blast! Bek, Simon and I went earlier and rode a bunch of coasters. Then Brett, Raf, and a few of our exchange students came later just in time to ride a few rides before the Halloween festivities started. Overall a good time and hope to maybe do it again next year.

Along the same Halloween lines, I thought I would share with you all the adorable candy ghosts Brett and I made for a fall party we went to. Growing up I use to make these ghosts every year with my mom and I look forward to continuing that tradition when I have children. Here are the instructions – easiest recipe in the world.

Ingredients:

Candy/Popsicle sticks

White almond bark

Chocolate chips

Layout a sheet of wax paper spayed lightly with nonstick spray

Melt the almond bark according to the instructions on the packages.

Set down a stick and drizzle on some almond bark roughly in the shape of a ghost

Use the back of your spoon to finish shaping it.

Place 3 chocolate chips for eye

Let cool and enjoy.

See, told you it was easy!

I will also throw in a few other pictures

Brett and I with 2 of our exchange students

My man - 5am before he left for a drill weekend

the wonders of pumpkin

Our garden is all planted. It rained forever after we planted it and I was scared that the garden would get rained out. But other than an overwhelming about of weeds, things seem to progressing beautifully.

The evening following our garden planting the girls all went over to Bek's apartment and she made a fantastic parmesan risotto. She put roasted pumpkin, pine nuts, and spinach in it. In America, or at least everywhere that I have been, we tend to only eat pumpkin, and squashes in the fall. Bek has inspired me to work these gourds into my meals more often.

So here I present to you the fantastic risotto that Bek served us and I later recreated for my husband, and a fun little recipe I found for "Pumpkin Pie Squares".

Pumpkin, Spinach, and Pine Nut Risotto

Ingredients:
1 cup Arborio rice
2-3 cup vegetable or chicken stock
½ butternut pumpkin, cubed
1 onion, diced
1 glove garlic, chopped
1 piece ginger, chopped
1/2 c pine-nuts
1 bunch spinach, roughly chopped
1 cup parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Place garlic and ginger in a saucepan with a little olive oil.
2. Add the cubed pumpkin, cooking until soft. Remove and set aside. (I actually cooked this in a separate pan so I could be cooking the rice at the same time)
3. Add onion and a little oil to a fry-pan and saute.
4. Add rice and fry for a further 2-3 minutes with a little butter.
5. Gradually add stock, stirring until absorbed but still moist before adding more stock.
6. While risotto is cooking place pine-nuts on a tray and bake at 350°F for about 5 minutes or until they turn a golden color.
8. When rice is cooked turn off heat and add all remaining ingredients including pumpkin, and parmesan.
9. Leave for 5 minutes before serving.


Pumpkin Pie Squares

yellow/orange squash of some kind - acorn, butternut, pumpkin (we used the other half of the butternut squash from above and ate as dessert)
honey
cinnamon
sugar

1. Cube the squash into bit size pieces.
2. Roll the cubes in honey and a dash of cinnamon until well coated. Spread as a single layer on a foil lined pan.
3. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes - until really soft
4. sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar - serve warm

Rafael with the tiller

the boys working the dirt

Our pretty garden

(pictures stolen from Sim's facebook)

5 minute bread

Five-Minute Artisan Bread

From Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007). Copyright 2007 by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.

Serves 4

* 1-1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (about 1-1/2 packets)
* 1-1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
* 3 cups warm water
* 6-1/2 cups unbleached flour, plus extra for dusting dough
* Cornmeal

In a large plastic resealable container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm (about 100 degrees) water. Using a large spoon, stir in flour, mixing until mixture is uniformly moist with no dry patches. Do not knead. Dough will be wet and loose enough to conform to shape of plastic container. Cover, but not with an airtight lid.

Let dough rise at room temperature, until dough begins to flatten on top or collapse, at least 2 hours and up to 5 hours. (At this point, dough can be refrigerated up to 2 weeks; refrigerated dough is easier to work with than room-temperature dough, so the authors recommend that first-time bakers refrigerate dough overnight or at least 3 hours.)

When ready to bake, sprinkle cornmeal on a pizza peel. Place a broiler pan on bottom rack of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and preheat oven to 450 degrees, preheating baking stone for at least 20 minutes.

Sprinkle a little flour on dough and on your hands. Pull dough up and, using a serrated knife, cut off a grapefruit-size piece (about 1 pound). Working for 30 to 60 seconds (and adding flour as needed to prevent dough from sticking to hands; most dusting flour will fall off, it's not intended to be incorporated into dough), turn dough in hands, gently stretching surface of dough, rotating ball a quarter-turn as you go, creating a rounded top and a bunched bottom. *Touch it as little a possible because you want to keep as much air in it as you can.

Place shaped dough on prepared pizza peel and let rest, uncovered, for 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it in lidded container. (Even one day's storage improves flavor and texture of bread. Dough can also be frozen in 1-pound portions in airtight containers and defrosted overnight in refrigerator prior to baking day.) Dust dough with flour.

Using a serrated knife, slash top of dough in three parallel, 1/4-inch deep cuts (or in a tic-tac-toe pattern). Slide dough onto preheated baking stone. Pour 1 cup hot tap water into broiler pan and quickly close oven door to trap steam. Bake until crust is well-browned and firm to the touch, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven to a wire rack and cool completely.

limoncello jello

Brett and I had some sparkling wine left over from our New Years celebrations last night and I remembered a recipe I had seen a long time ago for wine gelees. Basically, really pretty jello shots made with wine. While looking for that recipe again I stumbled across this fun idea for making orange jello. I made mine with alcohol because that was the whole point of looking for a recipe but these could easily be made with sprite, fruit juice, or even just water.

Cut a couple of oranges in half and remove all the insides making sure not to tear the rind.
I used clementines because that is what we had.
Put the orange halves on a cooking sheet or in muffin trays - to help them stay balanced.

Mix flavored jello with 1/2 cup of boiling water and stir until dissolved.
Add 1 cup wine. (I also have a large bottle of lemonchello in my fridge that Brett and I brought back from Italy so I added a couple of splashes of that - hence the title)

Pour the jello mix into the orange halves and refrigerate until set.

Slice the oranges and there you go.

popovers

Today marks 6 months of Brett and I being married. I thought it would be fun to make something special for breakfast and stumbled across a recipe for popovers. Being me, I then had to go brows for a couple more recipes to compare before starting the cooking process. The recipe I ended up using if from Allrecipes.com but with a couple of twists on my part (of course). They sell popover pans but since I don’t have any I just used large muffin tins. If you have a popover pan by all means, use it instead.

INGREDIENTS
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Grease a 6-cup muffin tin. I sprayed mine with pam.
2. In a medium bowl beat eggs slightly, Beat in flour, milk and salt until just smooth; being careful not to overbeat.
3. Put a dab of butter in the bottom of each muffin tin and set the pan in the oven to preheat for a moment before filling with batter. Be careful because your butter will burn if you leave it in the oven to long.
4. Remove pan from oven and fill cups ½ - ¾ full.
5. Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes. Decrease oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 20 minutes more or until dark brown. (Mine took 17 more minutes) Immediately remove from cups and serve piping hot.

I added about ¼ t onion powder and ½ t Italian seasoning to the flour before mixing in. These popovers turned out perfect and were amazing just by themselves.

A couple of recipes I found make a sweeter version by adding some vanilla and sugar to the mix and then spreading the popover with jam or dipping in cinnamon an sugar. I hope to try that soon and will report on how they turn out.