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Sunday, November 21, 2010

Deathly Hallows Pt. I

baddest witches on the block

Some of the Famiree went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Thursday. Nicole drew the dark mark on me, Terren and Devin. As you can see, Terren and I were the most badass witches at the premiere. Order of the Phoenix got nothing on us.

We were quite pleased with the film. I was afraid that the beginning would be too boring since they spend so much time wandering around in the woods - but the advantage of watching it over reading it is the beautiful European landscape. Hoooooly turd. It was so pretty. ANYWAYS NOT TO GIVE ANYTHING AWAY - although I can't imagine anyone who hasn't read the last book or seen the movie yet, I'll just say that the audience was emotionally spent when the film ended. AND THEN we went to Big Nick's to fill that emotional void with fried things.


AHHHCAN'TWAITTILLTHENEXTONE

he's back

Thursday, November 4, 2010

butternut squash muffins/cupcakes


awhile back we got some butternut squashes in our csa. i found a fantastic looking recipe from tastespotting again for butternut squash cupcakes. i made them, forgetting to add the dry ingredients. big oops. plus our ovens didn't really work (see undercooked eggplant parm) so they turned out to be something like squashy custard..
cheapskate that i am, i saved the dry ingredients with plans to someday get another squash and successfully make them.
the time has come! got two butternut squashes in our last csa. (it was the last one ever, sad.) not to toot my own horn or anything, but they were SO EFFING GOOD. we forwent the frosting and instead used leftover cinnamon butter from the pumpkin pancakes.

here's the recipe, via korean american mommy


Butternut Squash Cupcakes
Ingredients
Adapted from MarthaStewart.com
1 Large Butternut Squash (about 1-2/3 cups to 2 cups)
4 Large Eggs
1 Cup Granulated Sugar (you can add more for a sweeter cupcake)
1 Cup Softened Butter
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pumpkin Spice
1/4 tsp Nutmeg
1/2 tsp Ground Ginger
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 Cups Flour

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400º degrees. Wash, dry and cut the squash in half length wise and remove seeds and place on a baking sheet. Brush on some extra virgin olive oil. Bake for about an hour. Check to see if the squash is done by piercing it with a fork.
2. Scoop the squash out, allow to cool and puree in your food processor. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda & powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and pumpkin spice and set aside.
4. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, eggs and butter. Add the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth. Then whisk in the butternut squash puree.
5. Prepare your muffin pan and add the batter a little over halfway. Bake at 350º for 18 minutes. Insert a toothpick in the center and check to see if it comes out clean.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

JAPANESE CANDIES.



1. the flan candies were ok at first, but then i realized that they had a not-as-pleasant after taste
2. the milky crayons, well, they're just the how you'd expect them to be BUT THEY HAVE STICKERS
3. the milky candy bar was nomnom.

PUMPKIN PANCAKES aka heaven in pancake form

Terren made us pumpkin pancakes yesterday. They were amazing. Photos sort of speak for themselves. Here's the recipe she used for the pancakes! Some tips: you can make your own pumpkin puree (just mash up the cooked insides of a pumpkin!) and your own buttermilk (one tablespoon vinegar to one cup milk). Also, double or triple the recipe. If you have giant famiree. Or just if you enjoy eating. And get someone great at flipping pancakes (Nicole) to do the actual cooking.
I made some candied walnuts to put on top. They are really easy to make and extremely tasty. All you do is put some walnuts in a pan with sugar. I used brown sugar and some ground cinnamon and cloves. You stir it until the sugar magically starts to liquify. Yooni is better at it than I am... a lot of the sugar didn't quite adhere to the walnuts. Still tasty though.
Round two. Hi pumpkin!
THEN Nicole and Terren made cinnamon butter to go with it! All you do is mix cinnamon, sugar and brown sugar in melty butter and refrigerate it so it congeals again.
They also made vanilla maple syrup by adding vanilla extract to maple syrup. Oh we fancy, huh?

Aaaand we got some pumpkin seeds out of the deal! We roasted them in the oven later with olive oil and salt a variety of different seasonings (cumin, "country herbs", chili powder, soy sauce).

The Great Vegetable Concoction

Last week was the motherlode of vegetables. It was the last week of CSA (crying), we had groceries from Chinatown, and the veggies we nabbed from Hewitt's harvest dinner. We had SO MANY greens we needed to eat. So Nicole and I decided to use as many as possible.

SO MUCH KALE WTF
MAGIC HAPPENS
Oh, normal amount of kale.
TASTY.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

stuffed acorn squash


We still had a bunch of acorn squash from our CSA, so we sort of improvised this autumn-y recipe from here. Make sure when you scoop out the insides of the squash that you save the seeds for later because they'll be yummy. We used leftover rice and added celery, onions, pomegranate seeds, chicken, garlic and some cilantro on top. You can basically add whatever you want to the rice and it will be fun.