Thanksgiving Feast: Do it Right

Okay, so we’ve been gone for…a week. But we have plenty reason why! My family came in and it was a very excellent, fun, way-too-fast vacation for all of us here in Boulder. But you’re not here to listen to my excuses about family and not being able to post. You’re here to see food. And since we’re just getting back to full-time blogging, I’ll post a nice light array of food.

Thanksgiving was wonderful. When is it not? Don’t answer that, yes I know the turkey could light the house on fire. Family, food, sunset walks, and good tv. WHAT CAN GO WRONG? Don’t answer that. But seriously, everything went well for us and we had an amazing time (kittens included). So, my parents and brother came in for the week and we had a 9-person Thanksgiving. It was beautiful and great and just LOOK AT IT ALL.

Mum’s homemade cranberry sauce, from stewed cranberries and sugar

Baked yams with shaved almonds on top

Mashed potatoes (of course)

Martinelli’s…Thanksgiving Classic

TURKEY. We didn’t eat it, but others did

My beautiful plate…you can see salmon (wild caught) as my meat in addition to a roll, mushrooms, and brussel sprouts (as well as other food covered already)

You will always find amazing salads at Marga’s house

Plate all clean! Well except for the avocado Kai dropped on the floor

One of the two pies we had. This one was a bakery-made Peach-Raspberry (yum) and Megan made a top-notch pumpkin pie that I wish still existed

So that really covers it for Thanksgiving food…except for the stuffing and gravy and other alcohol served. Everyone had a good stuffed time. How was yours?

You know it…BONUS KITTY PIC

Nov062012

Get Yo Autumn On: Whole-Wheat Banana PUMPKIN Bread

Oh yes I said it…pumpkin. I’ve made tons of banana breads, but now it was time to introduce the beloved fall vegetable, pumpkin. How many times do you think I can say pumpkin in this paragraph? Anyways, this pumpkin banana bread is one, absolutely delicious, two, easy to make, and three, doesn’t leave you feeling guilty. It uses a bit of brown sugar and honey to sweeten things up, as well as the banana and pumpkin that go along with it. I found this recipe here and varied it a bit, put more cinnamon in it, more honey, typical stuff for me. Alrighty, get ready.

Ingredients:

WET
1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons honey
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1 banana
2 tablespoons orange juice (weird)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
DRY
1.5 cups whole-wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon

This is the pumpkin puree I use. You can find it…ANYWHERE right now

Okay, looks like a long list but it doesn’t take long to prepare.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 55-70 minutes

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
REAL simple here. Mix all the wet ingredients together

Then, you mix in the dry ingredients like the flour, baking soda, etc. Just look up at the ingredient list above, I organized it for you (it was really hard).

Spoon it all into the buttered or oiled baking tin and place into oven!

Bake for 55-75 minutes. Test it in the middle with a fork or a toothpick to make sure it’s cooked all the way through.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we will! I’m bringing this over to my aunt’s and cousins’ to watch the Election Night coverage as we bite our fingernails. Now that I think about it, I probably baked this to subconsciously soothe myself. Don’t forget to VOTE tomorrow. Please.

BONUS KITTY PIC

Oct292012

Yes, That’s a Beautiful Pumpkin–But Don’t Throw Out the Seeds!

Yikes, what a long title. Anyways, I’m here to bring you something that could be possibly even more amazing than carving a pumpkin…its seeds. As some of my friends may know (cough LENA), I absolutely love pumpkin seeds. In fact, I love them so much I can eat a whole container of them (sorry, Esther). The flavor of it, the grittiness, the amount of protein in the middle. There’s no downside (at least for me, but Chris doesn’t like how long it can stay in his mouth).

Indeed, it’s a great protein source. Did you know that one ounce of pumpkin seeds can give you 9.35 grams of protein? Not bad! Well said, Watto. And it is so easy it’s not even funny. We carved our pumpkins with paring knives (that was the hard part) and then I gutted them. I have memories of my dad letting my brother and I draw faces on our pumpkins, he would cut it, then let me do all the dirty work of grabbing its seeds and goo. And I loved it. So of course, I was the one to do it this time. But I was not going to throw them out, oh no! I collected all the seeds from the two pumpkins and prepared them. All in all, it took about an hour. However, 40 minutes of that was cooking time. The rest is easy.

What You Need:

Raw pumpkin seeds
Melted butter (or oil)
Salt

First, set the oven to 350 degrees.

Next, get all the guts of your pumpkin(s) and place them in a strainer. This will take the most work. Have a light flow of water running over the strainer as you pick the seeds from the gunk and place the gunk in the sink.

Once you have all the seeds by themselves, place them into a small mixing bowl.

Place the melted butter into the bowl with the seeds (I used about 3/4 of a tablespoon) and mix around.

Then, shake plenty of salt into the bowl and mix again.

Spread out all the pumpkin seeds as flat as you can on a baking sheet. Then place in the oven from 20-40 minutes (depending on your oven and how many seeds you have) or until golden brown.

And that’s it! Serve and enjoy. I won’t be able to stop munching.

(Nymeria loved eating all the bits of pumpkin dropped on the floor)

Sep042012

Who celebrated Labor Day? We Did!

So what’s it actually mean to celebrate Labor Day? It means to keep a tradition from 1882 alive, by recognizing the hard work and dedication of everyone in this fine country that works for nearly every other day of the year. Or that’s what it more-or-less meant when it was founded.

Now, it’s just another reason for people to “party” in whatever sense of that word they want to follow. Back home, I thought a lot more stores closed on Labor Day but I never count so it’s hard to tell. So much for not working on Labor Day… everyone in Target was working, and they have a lot of employees. Everyone in the grocery was working too. Maybe it’s that people, businesses, and the economy in general can’t really take a day off like it could have when our genera financial situations were doing better. We managed to take off because neither of us have actual jobs right now. But we did put our work in on Labor Day doing our general chores around the house. Cleaning the house, cleaning the litter boxes, changing a light bulb, you know, the little things. We did, also, decided to celebrate a little with some family.

Around 5:30 p.m., Alana made some guacamole with avocados that were 3 for $1. Good deal. She also made homemade chips, but flour tortillas do not make chips as well as corn tortillas. So remember that. On the way to Marga’s (her aunt) in North Boulder (Nobo), we stopped at the grocery store (Safeway) and bought some big-brand chips, a pineapple (for grilling), and some fish. When we got to the fishmonger’s counter, I looked for a fresh (non-frozen or thawed) and wild-caught (not farmed raised) piece of fish. The choices were salmon, sole, halibut, and swordfish. Swordfish was on sale, it’s one of the meatiest and fishiest fish, so that was an easy choice. Good for grilling. So is salmon, but I’ve had enough grilled salmon for a lifetime. We headed over to Marga’s house, and we were the first ones there.

Her new house, which as you can imagine has already seen tons of work, is looking great so far. There’s still a lot to be done, but the progress is really amazing for one person, with a handful of helpers that show up from time to time to contribute, i.e., Michael, us, Megan, Ben, Fred, who knows. When we got there it looked like there was already enough food prepared for eight people but we were just expecting everyone mentioned above, minus Michael, plus Fred’s brother who is visiting from Utah. Well, Fred and his brother had a fantasy football draft, so they couldn’t quite make it, leaving ALL that food for us! What a pity.

Our Lovely Feast

The feast, which was shared by the five (Megan, Ben (Alana’s cousins), Marga, Alana, and I) of us (a friend stopped over but was too full to eat), included: a beautifully presented salad with walnuts, avocado, mixed tomatoes, and blackberries… the chips and guacamole… corn on the cob, boiled in a pot… burgers with feta cheese stuffed into them… homemade potato salad…from Whole Foods (Marga’s would’ve been better)… grilled swordfish steaks… grilled pineapple… grilled peaches… and some pink wine, Rosé?

Marga’s Beautiful Salad

We were all stuffed, I had been eating since Alana started making the guacamole so I was pretty full. We brushed the cats (not the kittens and wow do they make ours seem like toys) and chatted about school starting, Ben’s soccer coaching, our job situation, etc. It was an awesome time and we were so glad that, despite moving to a new place, we had great family to spend our holiday with, even if we aren’t the biggest fans of Labor Day.

I hope you all enjoyed a nice holiday as well, and for all of our international viewers, I’d love to hear if you have your own version of Labor Day where you’re from. Please share!