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?

Simple DIY Luau Decorations

Not too long ago I was helping come up with the decorations for another youth stake dance (this seems to be a reoccurring theme in my life, but I sure love it!). This time, the theme was a summer luau. Pulling ideas from Pinterst, past dances, the store, and the closet of old decorations that was passed down from previous youth leaders, we had more decorations than we had time to put up. 

Time. Now there was an interesting part to all of this. 

I was excited for this and headed into town to do my errands, pick up final supplies, and head to the church cultural hall to start decorating. I got all the way to Walmart (because that's our choice around here), 20ish miles away, and discovered that I didn't have a cent on me. My wallet was back at home. 

I couldn't really do anything without it, so back home I went and got the wallet. That was nearly an hour wasted. 

But finally I got the last supplies, got to the church and began unloading my car and searching the closet for any luau supplies (which there were buckets full...literally buckets). About half an hour after I got to the church, our President arrived and I went out to help unload her car, only to discover that I'd let the door close behind us, locking us out. See, being the only one at the church for just a little bit I'd only unlocked the one door long enough to get in and then closed it behind me. We were locked outside with no keys to get back in. Along with the church keys were our car keys and our cell phones. There was no way to get in touch with anyone who could help! 

So I went to a nearby house where I knew a church member lived hoping they'd have keys. And they were gone. We were getting ready to start canvasing the neighborhood when out of the corner of my eye I saw the missionaries leaving a back door of the church. We'd had no idea they were even in there! We dashed over there like crazy ladies (which we might have been getting close to at that point), and they let us in the door so we could get back in and decorate. More time lost. 

So in the end I didn't end up making the palm tree, or the palm leafy backdrop, or a few other things. But you know what...the kids had a great time, they ate almost all the refreshments, and it was a positive activity, so it's okay! 

I did get a few decorations made though! I want to share two of them with you because they are super easy and super cute! 

The first was our tiki pole.

I found this idea on Pinterest, linking back to the Design Sprinkles blog. Not wanting to ruin the paper bags, I used masking tape in a loop on the back of each face part to attach them to the bag. Beign in a hurry, I didn't make all the cool different shapes you see on the original bags, but these did the job well!

I had the idea to drop battery operated lights in them to make it a glowing tiki pole. Great idea, but it didn't work. The bags were too thick. I think next time instead of doing a tiki pole, I'll do tiki heads, luminary style with lunch bags so that they can glow all around the room. How cool would that look?!

We also found that if you stacked more than 4 of these up, it fell. So we ended up with 2 small stacks rather than one large one.

The other quick decoration I want to show you are our mini tiki torch lanterns.

These were a mini version of the lanterns found on the Design Sprinkles blog. I had a stack of 5" squares of scrapbook paper that I used for this. I followed the original instructions (folding in half to get a crease, and then cutting strips evenly around the paper, leaving a margin on top and bottom). Next I wrapped one margin end of the paper around a battery operated tea light and taped it in place. I couldn't find our scotch tape and didn't want a chunk of masking tape visible, so I stapled the tops closed. Not the smoothest look, but it sure did the job fast to use the stapler. These looked really cool out on the tables and glowed nicely!

After the dance we threw away the face parts of the tiki pole, but were able to keep all 6 of the bags for future gift giving, and the paper from all the tiki lanterns. It was all easy to put together and quick clean up!