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?

Kett Files: Strawberry Jams

Over the weekend the community has been inundated with flats of strawberries from a truck that wrecked. So many strawberries!! 

My cousin's wife and I decided to take advantage of the free fruit and had a canning day together yesterday. We figured between the two of us, and with our kids having each other to play with, we could get through 5 flats. That seemed doable. 

10 hours later....we were beat, the kids were going crazy, we'd had take and bake pizza for dinner, and every single jar both houses were used up. 

And, we only got through 3 of the 5 flats. Whew! 

But we're super excited for what we were able to get done! We did tried and true strawberry jam but decided we didn't want 5 flats worth of just plain strawberry jam and wanted to try some different variations. Some worked, some didn't. 

Batches 1 & 2: Strawberry Jam. 

These did did pretty straightforward, following the instructions out of the Sure Jell packet. They turned out great, sealed, and set up beautifully. 

Batch 3: Strawberry Blueberry Jam

For this batch we followed the directions for Mixed Berry Jam off the Sure Jell packet. These turned out, sealed, and set up! 

Batch 4: Strawberry Raspberry Jam.

Same as Batch 3. But oh boy this one smells heavenly!! I can't wait to crack into it! 

At this point I went home and grabbed my Victorio Strainer and some Prickly Pear Juice. We were done cutting the strawberries into little pieces and mashing them by hand. We thought we'd try the strainer, even though I don't have the berry filter for it. Mashing the strawberries went SO much faster! But then we realized...we didn't know whether to treat the strawberry pulp as juice or as mashed berries. So for the first few recipes we treated it as mashed berries, and now we're thinking we should have treated it more like juice. 

Batch 5: Strawberry Lemon Marmalade

We got this recipe out of the Ball Blue Book for canning. It wasn't hard to put together, but somewhere we did something wrong (maybe the strawberry pulp?) because these didn't set up at all. So we have strawberry lemon marmalade syrup! 

Batch 6: Strawberry Prickly Pear Jam

I have Prickly Pear juice that I canned on my shelves at home. I LOVE prickly pear jelly and thought it would be fun to try seeing if we could make Prickly Pear Strawberry jelly work. A quick search online didn't yield a recipe so we decided to just wing it. For this batch we decided to try doing half of the original Prickly Pear Jelly recipe and half of the Strawberry Jelly recipe. It didn't work. Well, at least it didn't turn into jelly or jam. It's syrup. But it's really yummy! 

Batch 7: Strawberry Syrup

This one was the most involved recipe of all of them! This recipe was also out of the Ball Blue Book. We were sure glad that the husbands were home by then and they could field the kids because it took both of us working to get this done in any decent time. Jackie stirred the syrup concoction trying to get it to the right temperature while I worked on squeezing the cooked strawberry pulp through a flour sack (we get the Blue Bird Flour sacks specifically for the cloth sack it comes in) to get the juice out. It took forever on both ends! Finally we got it done, but it was an ordeal! It tastes good, but not as flavorful as we hoped. 

Batch 8: Strawberry Jam

This batch was with the strawberry pulp and we treated it as mashed fruit and tried to make jam. We're thinking we should have treated it like juice again and made jelly, as none of these jars set up either. 

Batch 9: Strawberry Prickly Pear Jelly

Finally we were down to the last bit of strawberry pulp. It wasn't enough to make plain strawberry jelly or jam, and we were just done. So I decided to try one more experimental batch. And this one worked!! 

1 3/4 c. strawberry pulp (it was slightly more than 3/4 but not quite a full cup either)

2 1/4 c. prickly pear juice

1/4 c. lemon juice

1 pkg sure jell pectin

6 1/2 c. sugar

1 tsp butter

Combine the pulp, cactus juice, and lemon juice. Stir in the pectin. Heat to a rolling boil. Add sugar. Heat to a rolling boil (adding butter if the mixture becomes foamy), and boil for 3 minutes exactly. Pour into prepared jars and seal.

This one set up beautifully and is SO yummy! I love the combination of the flavors. 

So lessons learned:

• Use pulp as juice, not mashed fruit. 
• 1 flat of strawberries yielded about 3 batches of jam. 
• Syrup isn't worth the time and energy, lol. 
• Canning is WAY more fun and easy with a canning buddy. Especially if they have kids and you have kids and the kids can help keep each other company. 
• The crockpot was perfect for keeping the seals/lids warm and ready! Jackie was a genius!! 
• Being a domestic goddess is so totally not my thing, bahaha. But I already knew that. 

So today I'm going to slice up my remaining strawberries and put them in the dehydrator, and Jackie is working on individually freezing a flat of strawberries for smoothies. And then we think we're done. We thought we did a lot, and then I saw people who had 20-30 flats of strawberries that they are working through. Holy cow! I'm happy with our work though and can't wait to taste each variety. 

Flashback to the Strawberries

You know there's a problem with a pin when you have enough submissions to make not one, not two, but 3 posts about it. This one is just problematic. Today we have two more submission to add to the pile of pin disappointment.

The Original Pin

http://www.theworldwidegourmet.com/recipes/dried-strawberries-ruscalleda/

You know what's coming, don't you.

The Pinstrosities

http://momminitup.com/culinary-fun/pinterest-lies/

These are just about the closest I've seen to actually getting this pin down. But they still aren't the twizzler-esque bites of heaven they appear to be in the original pin. 

Emily, the submitter of the 1st photo said, "So after having intended to make these for a year or two, I finally got around to trying them last night. After more than two hours of baking, I opened my oven to find this. They taste worse than they look. I don’t know why I was surprised – the description should have tipped me off. Better than Twizzlers? There is no such thing."

Melissa, submitter of the 2nd photo, said, "I wanted to try a post that would help me with my sweet cravings, so I found these directions for how to dry strawberries.I followed the directions, slicing the strawberries into two or three slices.  I preheated the oven and threw the pan in when it hit 210 degrees.  To save on cleaning, I put a piece of parchment paper on the baking sheet. At two hours, I noticed the one side was getting dark, so I flipped the over.  At three hours, they were still pretty moist!  The really thin ones were almost dry, but the edges were getting black.  I decided to keep them in for longer so I checked them every 15 minutes. After 4 hours, I threw in the towel and took them out.  They are really dark, the really thin ones are almost completely shriveled, and the fatter ones are still somewhat moist. The good news is that, although they look pretty awful, and I wouldn't exactly call them 'dry', they do taste really good!  I just don't think they're going to keep as long as if they were really dried all the way. Oh well!"

It has been suggested to use lemon juice on the strawberries to help them keep their color and not turn into a nasty brown mess.

Some of our commenters on our previous posts said that theirs looked horrendous, but if you could just get past that and try them, that they were pretty good.

And then there was this comment from Britters on our most recent dehydrated strawberry post that just made me smile: "This might mean a whole new level of Pinterest fails, but has anyone tried dehydrating in your car? Or if you live on a Red Neck estate, one of the abandoned cars? There will be smells, but on a hot day cars can be great for low temperature baking/dehydrating projects."  I have a friend in the Phoenix valley who has actually baked cookies in her car while she was in the store shopping. She just put them in the back window and went inside and came out when she was done to hot fresh cookies. I thought it was a genius way to turn awful weather into a win!

"Easy" Chocolate Strawberries

I love a nice juicy, sweet, chocolate dipped strawberry! They are SO yummy. But, they can be a mess to make (oh darn, you have to lick chocolate off your fingers). I don't know about the rest of the world, but it seems like here in America we're all about finding easier ways to get things done. Call it efficiency, laziness, ingenuity, weirdness, whatever. With our craze for easy, it was no wonder that this pin took Pinterest by storm:

The Original Pin:

http://www.jcrochoux.com/collection/Temporaire

The caption on this one usually goes something like this: "Easy chocolate dipped strawberries using an ice cube tray!"

Seems easy. Ice cube tray. Add strawberries and chocolate. Freeze/cool. Eat. Repeat. Nechama saw this pin and, even though the site it linked to didn't have written instructions, she figured the pictures explained it well enough:

Here is her run of this project:

So I've been eyeing this pin for a while. I LOVE chocolate covered strawberries. But its always such a pain to dip them, and then they drip...

Anyway, when I saw this pin, I knew I had to try it. There were no instructions, but it seemed easy enough, right? WRONG. I started by washing my strawberries and outing them in the ice cube tray. (I only filled half a tray in case it was a GCT 5)

Then I melted my chocolate in the microwave. 

I then proceeded to dump it on the strawberries and smooth it, as shown.

I stuck them in the freezer and waited for about 15 minutes until I was sure they had hardened. I popped them out and got this:

The Pinstrosity

I'd rate this as a 3 - it didn't do what it was supposed to, but it still tasted great. My tip for anyone attempting this:

Add oil/butter/margarine to the chocolate mixture. Even with smoothing, it did not drip down enough. It needs to be liquidy!

Chocolate. Check. Strawberries. Check. But...just not quite how it was supposed to turn out. I got looking around online for the source of the top photos in the pin Nechama used and found their original web home. Nechama ended up following the instructions on the blog, without actually even seeing the original blog. Good job Nechama!

I have a few suggestions for this project for any of you who want to try it.
1. If you are going to use the method above, definitely add shortening to your melted chocolate. If it is thinner, it will run down into the tray better and cover the strawberries. Just add a fingerfull at a time, it doesn't take a ton of shortening to do the job.
2. Another approach you could take is to fill each compartment of the ice cube tray about 1/3 of the way full of melted chocolate, then add your strawberries, then top with chocolate.
3. Let me pull up the original photo and I'll point out something I noticed with it.

See the groove in the chocolate on the bottom? I think this is a chocolate candy bar. This may be a commercial product and not a DIY project picture, but I think you can still get the same effect. Fill the ice cube tray compartments 1/3 of the way full of melted chocolate. Add strawberries. Add more melted chocolate to just cover the top of the strawberry. Top with a chocolate bar.

To me the photo actually looks more like someone chopped the top off the strawberry to make it flat, dipped it in chocolate (you can stab the top of the strawberry with a fork to make it easy), and then put the dipped berries on a chocolate bar to cool. Why do I think this? Look at the front two strawberries. Their sides are "glued" together with chocolate. That wouldn't happen in an ice cube tray.

Whatever method you choose to make these though...it's chocolate and it's strawberries. Just with those two words it's hard not to have a win!

Don't forget to check back in at noon for today's Use It Up project post!

Sunday Surprise: Pin-Progress "Gardening Project"

Greetings!

It's Sunday-- again! I know that it's bound to happen again, as the days fly past, but seriously, another week gone? How can it be?

I have two posts in progress for you little pin-lovers, and I kicked both of them back a few weeks so that I could tell you about the Pinterest-inspired gardening project that I just started. Since this project actually alive, I'd actively like to prevent it becoming a Pinstrosity. What on earth could this gardening project be? Well, make sure you're sitting down... 

I'm attempting to grow my own green onions. 

Ha ha ha, I know, this seems lame. It couldn't be less of a "project"-- it's more of a stick little plants in water and hope for the best. But, hear me out. I have a black thumb, so for me, green onion growing really is a project. I'm telling myself that I'm working up to a real vegetable garden, and everybody's gotta start somewhere (baby steps, Rachel, baby steps). 

You may remember this from the Everlasting Green Onions post, but who doesn't like an extra throw back day for the week? This also seemed like the perfect time to post about this since we're doing the Use It Up Challenge! 

The Original Pin: One Simple Way to Free Green Onions

http://thekrazycouponlady.com/at-home/ill-never-pay-again-one-simple-way-to-free-green-onions/

The Pin-Progress Project: Day 1

Day 1. Sorry, this photo is more blurry than I'd realized.

You're lookin' at Baby Step #1 toward having my own veggie garden. Yay green onions! My mom bought the orchid for The Nest (our house) for Christmas, and it needed water at the same time that I was getting my green onion project together. I figured that they can hang out. I dunno, I don't understand plants. Maybe they need friends? I've heard they like it when you play them music, so we've been watching Harry Potter while I clean the kitchen.

Carrying on, I found myself one of the quintessential Pinterest staples: a mason-ish jar and followed The Krazy Coupon Lady's simple instructions (summarized below):

1. Don't throw out the white parts of the green onion when you're done cutting them up.

2. Put them in some water.

3. Put them in the light.

4. Wait and hope for the best. (I added this myself, but it's implied with anything that you have to encourage to keep living.)

By Day 4, I thought that my black thumb was starting to rear it's ugly head. Some of the onions were starting to look dead and drooped over the edge of the jar. The ends of the green ones were shriveling. Could I really have done something wrong in the steps between don't throw them out and add some water?!

Day 4. 

We persevered, and good news! Here's how we are looking at Day 7 (one whole week!). The new shoots have taken off and are growin' like weeds. I'm going to have to find a better place for them to live, because I think they're going to outgrow the cute little shelf we have them on. 

Day 7.

Have any of you attempted to grow green onions before? What do you think, would you try it yourself? I'm always open to tips and tricks. Also, if you can think of anything else that's easy to re-grow, let me know.

I hope each and every one of you has a great week.

Internet-high five,

Rachel 

Sunday Surprise! (zucchini Snacks)

Surprise! It's Sunday AND there is a Pinstrosity post! Could it be? Is this real life? Yes, yes it is.

First of all, I think a belated cheers for Marquette and Emilee is in order! Did you get in on the Day of Epicness?!? Holy cow, talk about a blogging accomplishment. These two ladies are incredible. I'm still so honored to have been invited to join them.

Have you all seen Despicable Me? The moment that keeps coming to my mind is the tea party scene, in which Gru's character says "And now, we will make the clinking noise. Clink!"

So, here's to you Emilee and Marquette. Clink! And here's to you wonderful readers. Clink!

www.savespendsplurge.com

Now-- onto the rest of your Sunday Pinstrosity post! I thought I would tell you this week about a couple of Pin Wins that I've had in my kitchen recently. What kind of pin wins, you ask? Zucchini wins. Why zucchini? Because I had a whole bushel of it that needed to travel into our tummies and not the trash can.

There is a great grocery store near my house called MeKong Asian Market. I buy my tea, some seasoning, and miscellaneous produce there. I was able to scoop up six ginormous zucchini there for something like $3 or $4. They were in great shape and kept for an impressive amount of time in our fridge, so I turned to Pinterest for some new ways to enjoy zucchini.

Let me tell you all about the delicious discoveries I made on my zu-quest-inni:

Wit and Aroma-Inspired Zucchini Pizza

The Original Pin 

Look at that pizza!!! Beautiful!!!

To be completely fair, the only resemblance between Wit&Aroma's pizza and the one that I made is that they are both called "Zucchini Pizza". Now, I would love to attempt the original recipe at some point. But, for the time being, here's what I made for us to eat (and now to share with you):

The Pin Spin

Clearly, our pizzas look (and I'm sure taste) nothing alike. But, none-the-less-- can I just say, my pizza turned out to be DELICIOUS!

You'll notice that there is only zucchini on half of this pizza. You can thank my skeptical boyfriend and self doubt for that-- as I was concerned that it would taste weird. Why I questioned zucchini as a topping idea, I don't know, because this was awesome! I may make another one this week.

My version was really simple:

1. Obtain low sodium crust, low sodium sauce, zucchini, and fresh mozzarella cheese.
2. Assemble pizza with the aforementioned items. Cut the zucchini as thin as you like.
3. Bake in the oven for the suggested amount of time on the pizza crust package.
4. Remove the pizza from the oven and let it cool down a bit.
5. Enjoy and allow your taste buds to thank you.

Seriously. That's it! Boyfriend suggested putting a little oil onto the zucchini to prevent it from drying out-- but I didn't feel like it was necessary. I think next time, I will sprinkle a bit of romano cheese onto the pizza once it's out of the oven.

YUM-O!

Lunges and Lace Zucchini Pizza Bites

Naturally, once I used the search terms "zucchini" + "pizza"-- you can imagine what I found next:

The Original Pin

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivE6S4V4kNcCcjVITxx0JoK4othOUQ8B83dzd-R3UN5CuT0t2OJCOyUdNMhX1b4h6QDiF7_JD-Ozo3KZxWmGUE-qQRxb25wCfea_sxSziKGHrCDG11sNNr-Qn5uAIeAn-rCrl7xyhvRsQ/s1600/2013+-+1.jpg

Why hadn't I thought of this before? Seriously! Nicole over at Lunges and Lace wrote a post about these surprisingly delicious little snacks here.

The Pin Win

Here's what I learned about this recipe:

• Perhaps the most "difficult" part of this process is getting the right amount of pizza sauce on each slice of zucchini. Going from WAY TOO MUCH to not nearly enough was incredibly easy. I think there were only one or two of my zucc-izzas that had the perfect ratio of ingredients. However, I'm not dissuaded in the least. Next time, I will whip out an actual measuring spoon if I have to.

See? The cheese to sauce to veggie ratio is totally off. This here is a science, friends.

• In Nicole's instructions, she said that she had these little guys in the oven for 7 - 8 minutes. Whoa nelly! That certainly was not the case for me. I had to obsessively watch them in the oven so they didn't over cook (much like Marquette did in the Mozzarella Chee'se Bits post). I think that I yanked them out of the oven after about three minutes (and part of the time the oven was open). I didn't want the zucchini to become soggy and overcooked. There were slightly raw still when I removed them from the oven, perhaps that had something to do with the short baking time.

I was obsessively watching these. OBSESSIVELY.

• I'm 100% not recommending these as a replacement for pizza, if you are a lover of bread (which I am). What I mean to say is-- no one is going to eat these and think to themselves "Wow. These taste just like pizza. I'll never need to mess with that crust-ness again." Definitely not going to happen-- since you can still taste the zucchini when these are cooked. But, if you like zucchini and you like pizza, these are a delightful snack. The boyfriend even gave them a thumbs up.
• Since Rob (the thumbs up giving boyfriend) must keep his salt intake REALLY low, so these were an awesome low sodium snack. You'd be surprised how much the sodium stacks up, even when you're trying to make a pizza at home, with low sodium ingredients.

Katie's Perfect Zucchini Bread

What would this post be if I didn't include zucchini bread? I have been calling this "zucchini loaf" since it's very, very sweet. Eating this for breakfast was like eating non-iced, breakfast cake. I was over the moon!

The Original Pin

Look at that photography! Beautiful food photos always grab my attention first.

The Pin Win

Little heart shaped zucchini loaves! Just in time for Valentine's Day!

This recipe made six heart shaped loaves and a small bread pan (C'mon, you know I don't know the measurements of it) full. We were scarfing this tasty treat down for days on end. Mmm-mm-mmm!

What I learned about this recipe:

• My Ninja food processor is AMAZING for this recipe. I popped the zucchini into it and blended it until it was the consistency of apple sauce. I measured out two cups of the puree (instead of just shredded zucchini) and I was really pleased with the results. I forgot to take a photo, sorry!
• The next time I attempt this recipe, I may end up fiddling with the temperature. The bottom of the loaves were slightly browner than I would have preferred. They were completely edible and not even remotely burned, that is just a personal preference that I have (see photo below).
• This recipe deserves walnuts. Without a doubt in my mind, the next go I have at this will include walnuts.

Let's take a moment to discuss how cute this pan is. Can you see the indents left on the bottom of each of the loaves? I LOVE this pan, why didn't I buy a second one?! I found this at Ross: Dress for Less for only $6.99!

Well, I've made myself sufficiently hungry in writing this. Another trip to Mekong Market for zucchini is certainly in my imminent future.

Have any of you tried these recipes before? If so, what did you think? Is there anything that you do differently? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Enjoy your day of rest!

Your faithful min-strositeer,

Rachel

Tips and Tricks from Our Halloween Party

With the Frankenstorm raging on the east coast, we thought we'd give you a Frankenpost...are you ready for this?

Last night was our Halloween Party extravaganza. It turned out well and we had a lot of fun with our friends and family. When we decided to do this party we naturally started pinning ideas and recipes. We tried out pins, tweaked pins, got rid of pins, and then created some of our own ideas. We'd like to share some of those with you and some tricks and tips that we figured out along the way. 

The Original Pin

http://day2daywithhollyj.blogspot.com/2010/10/magical-color-changing-drinks.html

We were pretty excited about these. We had Sprite, clear Koolaid, and water as our party beverages so that the color change could be noticed. The night before the party Cameron and I set out all the cups on the counter and dropped in the food coloring. We tried for just one drop a cup (the instructions called for 2-3 drops, but that just seemed like more than necessary), but a few got 2-4. I figured that would be enough time to dry, and it was...for the red and the yellow. The blue and the green hadn't dried out yet by the time the party started. So lesson number one...prepare these cups probably at least 2 days in advance so the food coloring has time to dry out all the way. 

Then when the party started going, I got filling the cups with ice and people wanted to come help...but I knew they'd look in the cup and see a "dirty spot" and think the cup wasn't good so I finally just had to pick one or two people to help ice up cups so the surprise wasn't spoiled for everyone. With the ice in the cups, you can't see the food coloring spot on the bottom. We started to take drink orders and bring them their cup, but the drinks started changing color so fast that by the time we handed them the drink the color was already changing...so lesson number two: just ice the cups and let people pour their own drinks. We got the drinks served and watching everyone's reactions was fun. It was a hit with everyone, adults, college kids, teens, etc. 

The Original Pin

http://kirstycolquhoun.blogspot.com/2011/10/day-137-witches-broomsticks.html

Witchs' broomsticks.

Our Version:

 Em followed the directions and very carefully tried to poke holes in the Reese's mini cups with a carving fork, but the cups kept splitting. So she got creative and just made small indentations and then stuck the pretzel sticks to the Reese's cups with orange frosting. In the end she added orange frosting to all of them because we liked the look of it better than just the plain broom. They're not identical to the original site, but we made them work and they were a hit. We probably could have warmed up the carving fork and it may have made better holes without breaking the Reese's, but this ended up working just fine. 

The Original Pin

http://barbschram.blogspot.com/2009/07/witch-way-justrite-way.html

These actually were really easy to make. Em got all the supplies listed on the site and put these cute cookies together. They came out just right. The most annoying part? Unwrapping all those kisses. 

Our Version:

The Original Pin:

http://feedingfourlittlemonkeys.blogspot.com/2008/10/veggie-skeleton.html

One of our friends wanted to bring something, so we assigned them the skeleton veggie platter. 

Our Version:

This looks really cute until people dig in, then it just looks like an odd assortment of veggies. But...it was a huge hit...I've never seen a veggie tray eaten as fast as this one was. 

The Original Pin

http://icanhas.cheezburger.com/noms

I looked through page after page after page of myfoodlooksfunny.com and never did find this picture, but every link I've found online takes me to that site...so it's probably there somewhere. 

I know...this is gross...but it makes me laugh so hard.  

Our Version:

We just had to go off the picture for this one...but there really isn't much to explain. The instructions would go something like this. 

1. Carve a small pumpkin (pie pumpkins are the perfect size). 

2. Prepare/buy your favorite guacamole. 

3. Arrange so it looks like the pumpkin is vomiting the guac. 

Those are the steps we followed at least. My guacamole isn't normally very creamy or green...I like more chunky guac...so I tweaked my normal recipe for my family who likes creamy guac...but then it was pretty much white and red from the sour cream and tomatoes/salsa. So I added some green and yellow food coloring to help it out. 

The only tip I can really think of for this one is to choose your container wisely. I didn't really have a platter/dish that was quite the right size and shape, so the pumpkin head kept sinking into the guac as there was only room for it to sit on the edge. So the mouth was kinda hidden, lessening the vomitting look a little. A cake pan or cookie pan would have worked better (but by the time we were putting this together people were showing up, so we just left it at this). 

The Original Pin

http://www.bhg.com/recipe/chicken/chicken-lady-fingers-with-romanian-romesco-dipping-sauce/

Chicken Lady Fingers with Romanian Romesco Dipping Sauce. Well..that's what the inspiration was. This one ended up being our most tweaked Pinterest inspired food item. First off...we didn't want to try and buy enough chicken to serve as many people as were coming...that was just going to be too much. So we nixed the chicken fingers and decided to go with bread sticks instead (this recipe was easy and super super yummy). Even though we changed the chicken to bread, we knew we wanted to try that sauce. Em bought the supplies and we put it together and it made about 1 cup of sauce. There was no way that was going to stretch to feed the crowd. It tasted yummy...but it just wasn't going to be enough. Not having enough supplies to make multiple more batches of the same sauce, we looked through the cupboards improvised. 

Our Version:

We ended up throwing in 2 cups of canned tomatoes (ours were whole and packed in water...but it didn't matter in the end because they got blended up), 4 oz. cream cheese, 1 TBS red pepper flakes, about 1 TBS minced onion, and about 1 1/2 tsp. Italian Seasoning. We blended that up, warmed it up on the stove and served it hot with the bread sticks. Yum yum yum!

The Original Pin

http://www.familyfreshmeals.com/2012/09/the-perfect-fall-cheese-ball.html

This cheese ball was easy and SOOOO YUMMY!!!! I think it was the first thing to completely disappear off the table. Just follow the directions and you're set to go. I can't think of anything I'd change with this or any tips that aren't given in the recipe. 

Our Version:

We served ours with the remaining chips and then Wheat Thins. 

The Original Pin

http://cookiesandcups.com/cream-cheese-filled-snickerdoodles/

I have been DYING to try these out and they lived up to the weeks of anticipation. They were so yummy. I tried this with the Snickerdoodle recipe given on the site and with my cousin's Snickerdoodle recipe (which I love) and they both tasted the same, but they looked different. The cookies from my cousins recipe looked like the cookies in the picture above, but the cookies from the website I followed came out way more puffy. Neither was better or worse...they were just different in shape. 

Our Version:

I do have something to say about making these. If you're wanting a fast and easy cookie to make for a lot of people...this probably isn't the one you want to make. It is a little time consuming. I was glad when the filling ran out and I could quit the whole process. But...they were scrumptious and worth the work. I'm just warning you that these don't throw together fast and easy like sugar cookies or chocolate chip cookies. 

On the tier above the Snickerdoodles are mostly-regular brownies. I was one egg short of the 4 the recipe called for, so I substituted 1/4 c. of plain yogurt. The brownies stayed soft (and slightly gooey), but they tasted great!

The Original Pin

http://catchmyparty.com/photos/495699

While looking for the marshmallows I thought we had (to make the party favors we didn't end up having time to make) I found a mostly full bag of dum-dums in the cupboard. I was just going to stick them in a bowl, but then we remembered a pin we'd seen and decided to make a dum-dum topiary. I rummaged through my craft supplies and found 1 Styrofoam ball and started stabbing the dum-dums in it. Well...I ran out of dum-dums before I ran out of Styrofoam ball. So I found a small bowl and we had a half topiary instead. 

Looking back I should have tied a ribbon around the top of the bowl and put a bow on it...but this served the purpose just fine.You'd think this would be a really easy thing to throw together, but it didn't take too long before I had a hard time stabbing the dum-dum sticks in and not hitting another sucker's stick. It took some work to get some of those in...I can't imagine how impossible it'd start to get near the end had I had enough dum-dums to fill the whole Styrofoam ball. So if you're going to make this...get 2 bags of dum-dums and be prepared for some frustration as you try to get all the sticks to align. 

Our decorations were a mix of pinspiraions, creations of our own, and items pulled from our own personal stashes. 

For the front porch:

The Original Pin

http://craftsredesigned.blogspot.com/search/label/Halloween

Our Version:

The hardest part? Getting the tea-lights lit. I didn't have one of the handy dandy furnace lighters...so we pinned 3 clothespins together, and stuck a match on the end. We then lit that match with another match (since there wasn't time to light the match, then stick it in the clothespin) and we lit the candles that way. We tried lighting the candles and sliding them down...but that didn't work. They looked really cute lit up on the porch. We had 10 of these all lit up (but I didn't think to get a picture once it got dark...we were too busy enjoying the party). 

Then I also pulled out these from my stash from last year's Halloween party:

My sister sent me a picture of these on Facebook last year and I put them together with shoes from the thrift store, spray glue, glitter, and stuffed stockings. I used a spatula to push the leg ends under the little crack so it would look like they really were sticking out from under the house. 

Decorations inside the house:

From bottom to top:

Bloody Candles: Pinspired Project.

Dried Corn: WalMart

Troll (by the corn): Gift from Cameron's brother from his time in Norway.

 Black and White Photos: Photos my Great-Grandfather (Em's Grandfather) took.

Quidditch Photo: Personal photo project. 

Boots: From a local thrift/antique/consignment store. 

Framed Leaf: Melted Crayon Project

Yucca Ball: DIY

Metal Kaleidoscope: Gift from a friend. 

Em had the white candles already, so we bought two red tapers and dripped the wax as they burned onto the white candles. From this idea: http://www.marthastewart.com/272746/creepy-candles

More detail on the boots. I saw these in the store for $10 and had to have them. They are WAY to small for my Sasquatch sized feet, but I knew they'd make a fun table decoration. 

 

From left to right...

Witch's wreath: DIY from last year 

Mummy head topiary and Ghost: DIY from last year 

Necktie Garland: DIY from last year

Leaves: Walmart. I put them in an orange vase we found in the house when we moved in. The vase is being held up in a bowl we got for our wedding by 4 dried ears of corn. 

Halloween Silhouettes hung on a ribbon with clothes pins: DIY from last year

And then over the food table I had this:

Inspired by: http://jenikaslensblog.com/anatomy-of-a-halloween-party

A Batmobile...bahahaha, I'm so punny. I used bats from last year's porch decorations and 3 different sizes of embroidery hoops to make this bat chandelier/mobile. It cast some fun shadows at night with the light on. 

And then finally...our costumes. We were both pretty excited about our costumes. We kept them a secret from each other...it made it more exciting to not know (and mine had to be a secret or it just wouldn't have been as effective...you'll see). Last year I set up my photo booth, but the room we set it up in still smells slightly of mouse death...so we opted out of the booth and just took pictures in front of a small blank wall. Not as pretty of pictures, but hey...who cares? We don't need pretty photo booth pictures to remember how much fun we had. 

 Emilee and Chip as Tron and Quorra. I thought they did an EXCELLENT job at making their costumes. They looked super. The reflective tape they used looked awesome in the normal light, but the flash from the camera just really made it shine. 

 I made Cameron a Gentleman Pirate costume. I found the coat at a thrift store in town. It was a little torn up and plain, so I mended the tears, sewed on a collar, found awesome pirate buttons at one of the fabric shops in town and sewed them onto the sleeves, collar, and sides. I put together his pirate hat using this tutorial, and then made the sash from fabric from my scrap bag. He just wore the pants and shirt from last year's costume (tucking the troll tail in a pocket so it wouldn't show). Me? I was Emilee. And it was awesome. She had no idea. I told her I was going to be a pirate along with Cameron...had to throw her off somehow. We were hanging out one day and while she went to run some errands I raided her closet for clothes,jewelry, and the hair flower so I'd be authentic. I added the belt, the leggings, and even made a little hedgehog to go on my wrist in honor of Emilee's pet hedgehog. It took an entire can of red hair coloring to get my hair that color...but it was perfect. The look on Em's face when she realized I'd dressed up as her was hilarious. 

We had to get a picture of Em and I with her "normal hair", and not the black wig. 

So there you have it. Our Frankenpost of our Halloween Party. I hope some of our tips helped and that this helped give you ideas for any last minute party planning you're doing today! We sure had a great time and hope that you have a fun and safe Halloween.