The Autumnal Equinox Tradition

Traditions are some of my favorite things to learn about. I love knowing what people do, and why. I love seeing the bits of heart put into things, and how these traditions bring people together. 

When we were first married traditions seemed hard. We hadn't been married long enough to have any traditions together. We borrowed traditions from growing up and from what we saw people doing, and tried them out. Some we loved. Some didn't work. 

But one tradition that has stuck around, and that may be one of our favorite traditions now, is our annual Autumnal Equinox Dinner. This dinner tradition started as a spin-off of a tradition Cameron's family had. 

On the Winter Solstice, the Mowers would all get dressed up in their Sunday best and come together for a traditional Christmas meal, as Christmas day they had the traditional New Mexican feast. For the solstice they'd have ham, potatoes, and the whole works. We wanted to carry this on, but as students we weren't likely to be home for the Solstice each year and we wanted this to be a tradition we could do at our house. So we chose the Autumnal Equinox, because it's smack in the middle of the semester and we knew we'd be home the new couple of years and could do this as something special for us. 

A few weeks ago we had our 6th Annual Autumnal Equinox Dinner. 

Last year it fell on Day 2 of the Keeping Up Appearances challenge and I definitely bit off more than I could chew. So this year we tried to keep it a little more simple with the food prep. No crazy melted cake this year! We ended up with some super yummy parts of the meal, some meh parts, but somehow thankfully no Pinstrosities other than me not starting food prep early enough and us starting about 40 minutes later than planned. But that's doable.

Instead of getting the whole meal from Pinterest this year, I decided to mix and match. I turned to our favorite cookbook for the chicken, because every single recipe we try out of the America's Test Kitchen cookbook (with every recipe they've tried from 2001-2014) turns out phenomenal. We've never had anything not turn out. Well, except the time I forgot to make the sauce. That time the meal was meh...but that was my fault. I trust that book over anything I find on Pinterest.

But, I can't throw a party without Pinterest being involved somehow of course! 

Pinterest successes #1 & #2: The Pumpkin Shaped Buffalo Ranch Cheeseball

This one is a double win! While looking for cheese ball ideas (because that in and of itself is becoming an Autumnal Equinox Dinner tradition), I came across a pin for a pumpkin shaped cheese ball. I was sold.

I made the cheese ball from this recipe and tasted it. Super salty and intense! So I added another block of cream cheese, and then threw in more grated cheese to get a better consistency. After that it was just right. I rolled it in finely grated cheddar cheese to get the orange color on the outside and because there were nut allergies in our guests.

Then it came time to shape it. I didn't have rubber bands on hand, but I did have yarn. So I cut three lengths of yarn, and then used each one to tie around the plastic wrapped cheese ball, tying it tight enough that it cut into the cheese to create the divot. When it came time to put the platter together I cut the yarn, took the cheese ball out of the plastic wrap, added in the stem from a bell pepper, and it was ready!

This one was fun because it looks fancy, but is super easy. Our friends thought at first that I'd molded it or spent a long time getting the shape right. So A+ for this pin!!

Pinterest success #3: Curried Carrot Soup

This was one we'd actually made before from a pin we'd found on Pinterest. It's simple to make, but so so so yummy! No pictures from that night, but here's a picture from when we made it before:

Pinterest Success #4: Prickly Pear Lemonade

And by the time this got put together and out to serve, the party was in full swing and my camera was safely stowed away from the kids. But, it looked just like the pictures in the original link. And we "dirtied" it up redneck style with Almond Joy creamer (our grocery store here didn't have plain coconut cream creamer, so we went with the Almond Joy, and that touch of chocolate flavor was yummy)!

And the Pinterest Meh: The Snickerdoodle Pie. 

I was pretty excited about this one. Super excited. Which maybe is why it ended up meh, because I had it built up so much in my head. I even did a series of pigs running around the outside for the crust (because naturally I have a pig cookie cutter, but nothing remotely fall-ish likes leaves or anything). 

First thing that went weird was the amount of filling. It didn't even fill the crust half way. I made a deep dish pie (as always), but normally even regular pie recipes come up higher than that on my deep dishes. I reread the recipe and the comments and it didn't say anything about it puffing up or anything, so I decided to make another batch of the filling to get it to the top of the pie. 

And in the oven it went. But of course because there was double the filling, it took much longer to bake. But the crust didn't burn (wrapped it in foil), and it smelled and looked delicious. Anticipation was high! 

Dinner got over and it was time to cut into the pie (and just now as I am sitting here typing this I realize that I completely spaced getting the whipped cream out for it!). I cut the first slice, pulled it out and it was a pake! For anyone who's not a Drop Dead Diva fan, that's a pie and a cake combined. The filling was cake basically. It didn't taste bad, but it was just kinda meh, and a bit of an odd consistency. I think I was expecting more of a baked custard pie for some reason. No one disliked it, but it looked yummier than it ended up being sadly. 

So I might try tweaking it a little and seeing if I can't come up with my own snickerdoodle pie that's more what we were expecting. We'll see.

But altogether it was a fabulous meal!

Menu:

• Peruvian Garlic Lime Chicken (for a subscription fee you can find the recipe here, or in the cook book, which is totally worth buying!)
• Buffalo Ranch Cheeseball shaped like a pumpkin, served with Smoked Gouda Triscuits, Ritz crackers, and blue corn tortilla chips
• Curried Carrot Soup, served with blue corn tortilla chips to crush over the top
• Oatmeal Rolls (these are Cameron's favorite rolls! I burned the bottoms slightly on accident, but they still weren't bad)
• Fresh corn on the cob from the neighbors fields (a kind neighbor with a field full of corn opened up his fields to all of us, and our friends brought down a basket of steaming fresh corn! It was super yummy!)
• Red Cabbage Slaw (I need to get the recipe for this one from our friends who brought it! It was super yummy!)
• Prickly Pear Lemonade
• Snickerdoodle Pie

The "rule" (or tradition might be a less harsh way to put it), is that the fall decor doesn't come out until the day of the Equinox dinner. It was fun to pull out my wreath, garlands, and table runner again! But then I got an idea and before everyone came Cameron and I ran around the yard and the empty lot across the wash from us and gathered bits of nature for a tablescape. We cut down some of the sunflower stalks to make a table garland for the center. Cameron also found an Osage Orange tree (also known as a hedge apple) and we picked a few to go into the decor (because I think they look so funky and cool! Topping it all off was the gorgeous autumn bouquet my friend Wendy brought. The colors were perfect! It's still on my kitchen table and other than a few flowers we've had to pull out, it's doing beautifully! 

Overall, each portion of the meal and the evening was simple, but when combined all together it was such a nice evening and a yummy meal! We loved the time we had to visit with our friends and celebrate the goodness of life. I can't wait for next year's dinner already!

What is your favorite tradition? How'd it come about?

DIY Geode Cake

Pinstrosipeeps! 

I literally have THE coolest friends. They are so good about sending me pictures that remind them of me, and most of the time they are funny and cute,but every once in a while they speak to my soul. Marquette sent me a Instagram a few weeks back that was like my soul in a cake. And I just HAD to have it. 

Fast forward to one of my other BFF's coming to visit, and we decide that we are going to tackle said project even though it may be way over our head. We fear no fail. 

This is what we decided we wanted to recreate:

Photo and Cake Credit: Charla Chouinard Instgram handle: charkala_

 

Fun fact of the day...I didn't even realize until right this very instant that this was a girl I went to high school with?! What?! Small world! This isn't the first first picture we saw of Geode cakes, but it pulled up when I did a search and was similar colors and super pretty, this was just an idea Marquette had seen and showed me on google when she came to visit. When I did the search of images for this blog post a few days ago, this is one of the first ones that popped up and just happens to be made by someone I know!

 

 

Isn't that fantastic?! So beautiful!  So I went to work, I called around town looking for gold leafing, I went to Michael's and Hobby Lobby looking for edible gold leafing and  priced some of their baking tools, and I even called some places in Salt Lake.

Manny my New Mexico BFF came and we got to work! We went to all our stores to pick everything up, we even went to three different stores to get all the rock candy we needed for this!

As for the gold leafing...I called 5 stores and went to 3 different stores and only found ONE place that had edible gold leafing. Here's the kicker...it was $75.00 for 3 ounces!! WHAT?! So...we went with a gold luster dust and gold faux leafing alternative that we found at Hobby Lobby for about $3 a piece instead. Apparently gold leafing is really only for super fancy occasions...because at my house Thursdays just aren't good enough for $75 cake décor.

 

Here's our stash:

 

 

 

We bought rock candy in light blue, dark blue, white and purple. They were SO yummy, of course we sneaked some during the process!

 

We also had blue and white fondant, generic frosting and rainbow chip cake, and then some of the supplies for the cake itself.

 

The fondant was probably the hardest part, we followed the directions and rolled it out, kneaded it and then we roped the two colors together to create a marbled affect when it is all rolled out.

We baked the cakes beforehand and crumb coated them and then put them in the freezer so they would be easier to work with and not crumble-y. When we had the fondant where we wanted it, we pulled the cakes out of the freezer and threw it on there! Getting a smooth coat on the cake was really difficult. Did I mention this is both of our first foray's into fondant?! Because it was.

 

We used powdered sugar to keep the fondant manageable, you can also use corn starch.

 

Then came the really fun part, decorating!

 

We pulled all the rock candy off the sticks and put them in ziplock baggies and then used the rolling pin to crush them to a more manageable size. The air smelled sweet during the beating part lol

 

We cut out our desired geode cave shape with a small knife, and then covered it in frosting before placing our rock candy.

Lastly we put our "gold leafing" on the cake and threw some luster dust on there for good measure.

 

 

 

 

Here is our final result!

 

Not too shabby for our first fondant cake EVER. It's not perfect by any means, and the more I look at it, the more I tend to find faults, but it's a cake not a Saint, so who cares if it isn't perfect?! It was REALLY sweet, but it was good and it was just really fun getting to do this project with a friend!

Are any of you mavericks with fondant?! What are your secrets?! Share below!

 

Happy Monday all!

 

How to Juice Prickly Pear Cactus Fruit

If you saw our Instagram story today, you know that this week is devoted to Prickly Pears! All across the Southwest the Prickly Pear cactus fruit are either ripe or very rapidly getting there and it's time to harvest and enjoy!

I have quite a few jars of prickly pear juice that I am going to use to make meals with this week. I have sweet recipes, savory recipes, and experiments I want to try out. Prickly Pear is one of my very favorite flavors and my favorite cactus. We've read different processes to getting prickly pear juice from the fruit, worked at it and combined ideas, and have come up with our process that we feel yields the best juice. What makes this the best juice? The intense color and the AMAZING flavor!

Too often we get prickly pear products from restaurants or stores that leave us feeling a little disappointed. It's basically just the prickly pear coloring with a smidgen of flavor. But nothing true to the fruit really. If we're going to eat Prickly Pear, we want it to taste like prickly pear! Because the flavor is like nothing else!

Our process is more labor intensive, but we like the end results much better and find it well worth the effort. So here is what we do!

This is a post I wrote up last year with our process when I went to visit my parents and to restock our Prickly Pear supply.

Bountiful Baskets in their area was offering a 12lb box of red prickly pear fruit that week. I put in an order, but I wasn't really sure that 12lbs would be enough. So my parents went up to the family ranch in the mountains and picked me a bucketful the week before I came down. Now, when I saw a bucketful I really should saw a Bucket Full. This was a 5 gallon bucket packed to the gills, along with a 1/2 gallon bag that wouldn't fit. They called and asked if one bucket was enough. We thought it might be, but if not we could go pick more. I didn't realize how packed they got that bucket though. We definitely didn't need more! 

They put the whole bucket in their freezer to keep these perfectly ripe fruit all ready for me. It took forever to thaw those out, but they sure were pretty!

But then it came time to juice these babies. We've used electric and commercial juicers before, but they gave a watered down juice, and we like ours to be nice and concentrated. Cameron read different techniques and ideas online and we've come up with our own method to get the juice as concentrated as we like it without having to spend hours boiling off water and ending up with minimal juice.

Once I finally got the prickly pears thawed enough, I put some in the big pot and added about 2-3 inches of water. I figured out later in the day that smaller batches worked better than big batches, but by then I was on a roll and didn't take more pictures...so these are pictures of the first big batch. I steamed these until they were completely soft and mash-able.

Next comes the straining, mashing, and more straining. We tried using cheesecloth at first but it let through more fibers than we wanted in our juice, so we use a clean pillowcase (of course I had to use an orange one). After washing and sanitizing a five gallon bucket, we put the pillow case in and slip the edge over the lip of the bucket to hold it on. Well, that's what I did. When there are two of us at home I can help hold the bag while Cameron pours or vice-versa but I was all alone this day and this is the method I came up with to do this flying solo.

Once the pillow case is in place I pour off the juice in the bottom of the pot, trying to not pour off any of the fruit or pulp. Once the juice is out of the way it is really easy to mash the fruit. We just use a potato masher.

You want these as mashed as you can get them. The skins won't mash down too much, but the insides should be pretty much pulp. 

From there carefully (this is very hot prickly pear pulp!!) pour the prickly pear pulp into the pillow cased bucket.

Mmmm, doesn't that look appetizing. 

Now it's time to squeeze. Again, I realized I couldn't do this like we normally do. With two of us one can hold the bag while the other twists and squeezes. With only two hands, I couldn't really do that, and you do need both hands to squeeze the juice out.

So if you're flying solo on this, here's how I figured this out. I went and found a good sturdy broom and tied the bag to the top. This was a little tricky to do without splattering all over the place, but I finally got it. I put the bucket up on a little chair (regular dining room chairs were too tall, but I found a little kids chair and that was the perfect height for the bucket. With the bucket on the floor there were too many splatters going on; having the bucket higher caught more juice and made less of a mess (but you will still get some splatters). I propped the broom up on the corner of the cupboards so that the bag hung into the bucket on it's own.

The prickly pear juice doesn't stain cloth (at least not easy at all...I used a white washcloth to wipe the counter and there's not a speck of color on it after rinsing it out), but I didn't know if it would stain wood and didn't want to find out, so I was careful to quickly wipe up splashes on Mom's nice hickory cupboard doors and protected the chair with an old towel.

From there I needed all hands on deck and the pictures had to stop, but it's pretty easy to explain from here. You will want some gloves on (I just used regular cleaning gloves, but you can go thicker if you want). The spines and glochids get soft in the steaming process and most of them don't make it through the bag, but a few will. The gloves will help protect your fingers from stickers (not 100%, but much better than bare hands). The gloves will also help protect your hands a little from the heat. I wore a pair of gloves and then used another pair out loose as "hot pads".

Once your gloves are on start twisting the bag slowly and squeeze out the air until you get the bag tight around the pulp. From there then just keep the pillowcase twisted up tight and squeeze that pulp as much as you can. You may have to loosen the pillowcase a little and move the pulp around some here and there. You want to get as much of this pulp juice out as you can as it's the concentrated good stuff.

And that's the juicing process! Once I had every single prickly pear juiced I ended up with nearly 5 gallons of juice!! We definitely didn't need to go pick more fruit.

Having two different varieties of prickly pear fruit was fun to try out. The one has a much deeper and more vivid color, and has a stronger flavor, but the other is more naturally sweet and has a mild flavor. I personally prefer the wild prickly pear (the stronger flavor and color), but the cultivated prickly pear was yummy too.

I spent the rest of the evening making 28 half-pint jars of jelly (recipe at the end of this post) before I decided to call it quits for the night and put everything away for the next day. I had one batch set up really good, one batch set up okay, and one batch stayed syrup. Prickly pear jelly seems super temperamental, but luckily if it doesn't set up the syrup is super yummy anyway!

Prickly Pear Jelly Recipe: 

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 c. cactus juice
• 1/2 c. lemon juice
• 1 pkg pectin (we like Surejell)
• 4 c. sugar

Directions:

1. Dissolve the pectin in the lemon juice. 
2. After the pectin is dissolved in lemon juice, stir in the cactus juice. 
3. Bring to a rolling boil. 
4. Add sugar. 
5. When it comes to a rolling boil (stirring occasionally), cook for exactly 3 minutes. 
6. Pour into jars and seal. (You can get sealing instructions here). 

This will fill 5 half pint jars. A single batch sets up really well usually. A double batch is iffy. The chemistry gets off when you double this. I need to work on tweaking this and figuring out the correct proportions for a double batch so that this doesn't have to be made in single batch quantities.

I'm so excited to try out all these new Prickly Pear recipes this week! Stay tuned for fun new recipes!

Tried it Tuesday: The Great 2016 Zucchini Bread Catastrophe

While we have expanded the scope of our blog to more than just "Pinterest Projects Gone Wrong", we definitely don't want to get rid of those all together! We still have them. We know some of you still have them! 

Most of the crazy pins have been debunked...but sometimes, despite best efforts, even these normal pins turn on one of us every now and again. 

Today, we have a Pinstrosity for you from Rachel in the Sonoran Desert!

"There are so many places where I could start this story, but I guess that I'll begin it at the point in which my friend Liz gave me like eight zucchini from a stash she bought from a local non-profit called Produce on Wheels - Without Waste (POWWOW) which sells 60 pounds of produce for $10 each Saturday in rotating locations in Central and Southern Arizona. There are many mass production farms here in Arizona and over the border in Mexico, and POWWOW "rescues" the extra produce from these farms, sells it to individuals, and then uses those funds to supply food for Borderlands Food Bank. This produce is close to expiration, so you have to use it quickly. Liz saddled me with lots of zukes, so I needed to come up with something quick.

Flash backward about a week when, at my work's end-of-year (school teacher, here!) potluck, a colleague made the most delicious zucchini bread EVER. I mean, I had to physically restrain myself from eating too much of it. It had the perfect level of spice, and sweetness, and it was moist and...I could go on.

When Liz gave me the zucchini, I had a certain level of excitement usually reserved when one finds a $10 in the pocket of a pair of paints that just went through the wash. I didn't have my colleague's recipe, so I headed to trusty Pinterest. No one's ever had a pin go bad from Pinterest, right?! ;-)

I looked through a bunch of recipes and found this one. The lady literally calls it the best - even better than her own mother's recipe. I don't know about you, but there are few people who can only come close to recipes my mother (grandmother and aunt, too!) perfected. After reading through everything - even the comments - this seemed fairly fool-proof, as I'm an adept baker (I worked in a bakery for five years in high school and college). 

I double and triple checked the ingredients and method. I tasted the batter, and it tasted delicious! I set my timer for 30 minutes, though the recipe calls for 45, because oven times vary. I wound up resetting the timer for the additional 15 in five-minute intervals. I did the toothpick test, and it came out clean. The bread looked set, there was no jiggling. I thought I had serious success. And I clearly did not anticipate failure because I took no pictures along the process.

I let the bread cool on the counter while I packed up the kiddos and went grocery shopping, daydreaming of the zucchini bread I was going to try to sneak while my kids weren't looking (because, let's be real, it should be called zucchini cake not zucchini bread).

We got home from shopping about the same time as my husband from work, and as he's helping to bring the groceries into the house, he made an off-hand comment being sorry. I thought he meant about not being able to go shopping with us.

What he really meant was the Grand Zucchini Canyon."

That is a straight-up cavern. The ENTIRE center of the bread collapsed on both loaves. It was as hollow as my zucchini-bread-desperate heart. I tasted a piece of the baked, non-deflated portion, and it did taste delicious. 

I have no clue what happened, as I followed the recipe verbatim. I will not let this deter me, though, as I'm on the hunt for a new, fool-proof recipe (please send them my way!).

I'd never had this happen to me either! So I took to Google and found a number of excellent articles about why quick breads may fall in the middle!

For a great "diagnostics" on a zucchini bread that just kept falling, check out this link!

The three main culprits I'm reading about for sinking quick breads are:

1. Too much moisture. 
2. Too much batter in the pan
3. Over mixing the batter. 

1. Too much moisture

This can come from the zucchini itself, or from too much sugar in the recipe! Again, check the link above for a great conversation about this very topic. Try pressing the zucchini between paper towels to reduce water content, and reducing sugar (1 1/2 cups for 2 loves often does the trick). 

2. Too much batter in the pan. 

As the bread rises, it clings to the sides of the pan and then forms the top crust from there. If the rising bread runs out of pan to cling to too early in the baking, it won't have strong enough sides to support the middle an you'll get a bread canyon. 

3. Overmixing. 

Hand mixing or slow mixing until the ingredients are just combined is the way to go. Too much air introduced into the batter makes for uneven rising and can cause a collapse.

But, as Rachel said...even though it's not pretty...they usually still do taste great! You know what I'd do with that cavern? Fill it with a cream cheese or custard filling like that was the point all along. ;) 

Thanks Rachel for sending us your Pinstrosity! 

The Em Life- Macaron Masacre!

I am in no way a baker. Sure I've made my fair share of my mom's chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I would never tout myself as a baker. Cooking in general isn't really my thing. Like at all.

 

When Marquette messaged me that we should try to make Macarons together (even though we live in different states) I was like, "Sure! How hard could it be?" And then I did a YouTube search of French Macarons and was in complete horror. What the heck did I sign up for?!

"These are the hardest cookie to make, by far."

"I've been a baker for 9 years and it took me 5 to get this cookie right."

"Don't be scared if you just get moosh the first few...years. That's normal."

 

What have I done?!

I was also the murderer of this cake...need I remind you. The two on the right are my Pinstrosity. If you haven't read that story, you can do so here, it's one of our earlier escapades.

 

Anyways...as we can see...baking isn't usually my thing. I love the décor part of it, but complex recipes and I just don't mix.

 

So here I am about to make some French Macarons and I realize I've never even tasted one before! This will be interesting.

 

Here goes!

I decide if I'm going to fall, I'm going to fall hard and I go with Martha Stewarts French Macaron recipe. Who would do it better than her am I right?!

I gather all my materials (two Wal-Mart trips and a Hobby Lobby stop later) and I am ready to go.

I decided the only way I am going to make this work is if I do this to the letter! So I do!

 

I have the 1/2'' piping tip, gel food coloring as opposed to liquid, I have the right flour, the parchment paper etc. I am ready.

 

 

I set out my eggs (which is a big deal apparently) Chip helps me crack them perfectly just to get the whites, we whip (with a hand mixer,  don't have a Kitchen Aide or anything, but we follow the timing with a timer and everything).  We pipe them onto the pan with exactness (she suggests 3/4" rounds and go off to the side when removing the piping from the round so as not to create a funny edge), let them set out for 10 minutes hit the pan on the counter to get rid of the air bubbles and put them in the oven.

 



She suggests to set the oven to 375 when you start and then when you put them in lower the temp to 325, we did that. She said to turn half way and I wasn't sure what she meant (did I mention we did this at midnight lol) so I didn't turn them, but now I know she meant turn the pan, so do that, I didn't though.

Ten minutes later I pulled them out and received perfection! I was floored! I jumped up and down yelled and had myself a kitchen dance party. Sorry neighbors, this French Macaron loveliness is too good to no be celebrated!

 

So now I had pulled off the impossible, how about the "easy" part, the filling. I didn't like any of Martha's filling recipes, so I went to the Food Network and picked out their mint white chocolate chip filling and went with that. I made the filling following the instructions and then I needed to color it, I wanted a mint green and tried my best and here was the real Pinstrosity...

 

 

Creature from the Green Lagoon.

 So so bad.

But it tasted like mint white chocolate, so I tried again and got a chartreuse, not what I wanted, but not so awful. We'll make it work. We put them all together and they were so good! Cripsy on the outside, gooey on the inside and just the right size to snack on! I was amped. I had successfully made the hardest cookie. Go team!

 

 

 

Now...any tips on getting my mint green with generic food coloring?? *Yeah right* lol