Recipe #3: Harry Potter Pumpkin Pasties

Delicious, dessert pumpkin ravioli goodness

After butchering a pumpkin especially for the occasion, I knew this week's recipe had to feature pumpkin.  After all, I couldn't let my prized spoon die in vain!  Since my office was having its annual Halloween potluck, I figured I could combine my cooking obligations into one amazing dish.  In perusing my cookbooks, I remembered I had the spectacular book, The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook.  Since it claimed to have recipes for everything from Knickerbocker Glory to Cauldron Cakes, I figured it would have a good recipe for a Hogwart's Express favorite, the pumpkin pastie!

This cookbook is so cool!  It has tons of neat recipes.  Plus, it also tells you the location in the books that each food is mentioned.  It's a fat nerd's dream!

Incredibly excited about the Harry Potter recipe, I snatched all of my ingredients from the cupboard, getting everything out ahead of time and read the recipe over throughly, not wanting to repeat the great cream cheese mistake.  (See my first post for details.)

First, I made my pastry dough.  The recipe called for the dough to be made in a food processor, but as I still do not have one, I simply made the dough in my beloved lime green KitchenAid mixer.  It seemed like a lot of dough while in the bowl, but once it was emptied, it came to one sad little pile in the middle of the wax paper.  It was then that I realized my mistake.  This recipe was supposed to make only SIX pasties.

Crap.

So, instead, I did what any normal person would do, Instead of simply making another batch of dough, I decided to make miniature pasties.  So, instead of a pumpkin turnover, it would be essentially a sweet dessert pumpkin ravioli.

My plan in place, I set about making the filling, also in my amazing KitchenAid mixer.  This recipe, of course assumed that most people (read: people with any sense) would purchase canned pumpkin, but I substituted fresh pumpkin and it worked out fine.  However, I did add extra cinnamon and nutmeg to the recipe, since the filling seemed sort of bland.  Besides, it's the cinnamon and nutmeg that make a pumpkin dish anyway.

I love this mixer.  So, so much.  It's worth its weight in gold at Christmastime.  Plus, it's green!

Next, I rolled out my dough, making sure to roll it out as thinly as I could.  I had to stretch this into a potluck-sized serving, after all!  Next, I had to figure out how to cut out my dough.  The recipe says to cut circles with a saucer.  As I was unsure how to cut dough with a plate, and was making miniature pumpkin pasties anyway, I decided to go with the tried and true method: cookie cutters.  Fortunately, my mother is a huge afficionado of all things Wilton and always goes to their annual tent sale every year.  A year ago, I accompanied here and made the incredibly wise decision to purchase 101 cookie cutters...because you just never know when you'll need those.

Best $6 ever spent!

I cut out the circle and stuffed them full to bursting with pumpkin-spiced goodness.  However, sadly, burst most of them did, no matter how much I crimped the edges with the fork!  Discouraged, I put them on the cookie sheet anyway.  Then, I realized that I was supposed to cut vents in the top of each pastry.  How this is to be accomplished without either tearing apart one's pastry or slicing the little ravioli bundle in half, I am not sure.  Instead, the majority of my raviolis looked like they had received a vicious slash to the face, courtesy of Jacques, the Pastry Ripper.

The untidy pasties which sported baked potato-style jabs rather than fancy vents.  

Having failed presentation, I chose to make sure that the darn things tasted good and sprinkled a mixture of cinnamon sugar on top.

After countless streams of profanity, many dirty dishes and not one, but two annoyed calls to my mother to gripe about how this recipe was "so not worth it," the little pastries came out of the oven golden brown and smelling amazing.  Even though I stretched the recipe, I couldn't resist trying one of these right out of the oven.  It was sooooo worth it.  The crust was flaky and delicious and so full of calories that even Paula Deen would be envious and the filling was gooey and tasted like everything that is amazing about Thanksgiving
dessert.

After calling my mother to take back all of my previous foul words about the pasties, I sat down to enjoy the rest of my delicious pre-bedtime snack, with Cool Whip, of course.

This is probably the only food blog that posts a previous gnawed-on dessert.  What can I say?  It smelled delicious.
I regret nothing.

After that, I packed the rest of the cooled pastries into a container for work.  My coworkers seemed to like the pastries just as much as I did.  After all, this was my container 15 minutes into pot luck....

If this isn't a ringing endorsement of one's dish at a company pot luck, I don't know what is! 

Pre-Recipe #3: Pepitas, A Happy Pumpkin Experience

What time is it?  Pepitas time!

After my latest pumpkin fiasco, I was angry at pumpkins.  I frowned at the pumpkin puree sitting in my fridge.  I scowled at children's jack-o-lanterns.  I definitely glared at canned pumpkin at the grocery store.  I even gave the evil eye to the local Starbucks, home of the Pumpkin Spice Latte.

So, it was with great trepidation that I attempted to do anything with the seeds that I saved from the great pumpkin butchering.  Following the Pioneer Woman's advice on the subject, despite her lies about pumpkin puree, I attempted to make pepitas.

This recipe, like the last, was rated "easy."  However, much to my satisfaction, this recipe lived up to its label.  It was super simple!

As directed, I dried out the pumpkin seeds for at least 24 hours.  Then, I tossed them with a little bit of olive oil.  However, instead of simply salting the seeds, I decided to use my amazing Red Robin seasoning salt!  I seasoned the bejeesus (technical cooking term, meaning "a lot") out of them and then roasted them in the oven for an hour or so.

Action shot!
Reeeeeeeeeed Robin!  YUM!

The results were fantastic!  they came out nice and toasty brown and the seasoning salt gave it a lot of flavor.  Delicious!  They might have made this whole pumpkin experience worth it.

They were so good!  So salty and delicious!

Pre-Recipe #3: In Which Kaitlin Learns Why Everyone Uses Canned Pumpkin

At Farmer's Markets, I tend to lose my mind.  I don't really know what happens.  It's like, the reality of food shopping for things that I need (bread, eggs, peanut butter and Ramen noodles) fades away  and I pretend to be the kind of person who eats artisan cheeses and purchases $13 imported balsamic vinegar.

Why yes, I did need this huge bag of apples and these decorative gourds!

It was under this whole-food hypnosis that I not only purchased a half peck of apples (for myself), but also bought a pie pumpkin.  It was only $2!  It was adorable, it made me think of fall and I could buy an entire pumpkin for the price of about one can!

I picked out a pumpkin-recipe for my cookbook recipe that called for canned pumpkin/pumpkin puree.  I figured I could make my own.  How hard could it be?  Slice.  Roast.  Pulverize.  Easy.

WRONG.

So, in light of my recent pumpkin disaster, I am preparing to share the lessons I have learned.

Lesson #1: Nothing is as Easy As the Pioneer Woman Says

In preparing to make my pumpkin puree, I researched the technique for roasting the pumpkin ahead of time.  The easiest pumpkin puree to make appeared to be the one on the Pioneer Woman's website.  Difficulty "easy"-- my eye!  Which brings me to my next lesson...

Lesson #2: Do Not Begin Butchering a Pumpkin Less Than 2 Hours Before Bedtime

Why?  Because the Pioneer Woman's time estimates give my ability to chop up gourds way too much credit.

Lesson #3: Butchering a Pumpkin Is Hard Work

Since it's been year's since I've carved a pumpkin for Halloween, I had forgotten how hard those stinking pumpkins could be!  I got out my fancy, sharp knives for the job and attempted to slice in, like I did with the watermelon only months before.  False.  Pumpkins are way tougher than watermelons.  I tried assorted methods of sawing, stabbing and slicing.  Eventually, I gave up with all of these fancy methods and just started hacking away like a deranged gourd murderer until my kitchen was covered in tiny pumpkin slivers and I had removed the top of its head.  The pumpkin was split into slices by the aforementioned methods, combined with a heavy dose of thumping the pumpkin on the counter, until it broke.

Note the pumpkin shards from my Jack the Ripper approach to pumpkin carving.

Lesson #4: All Choppers Are Not Created Equal

The Pioneer Woman's instructions tell you to use a food processor to make a puree of the roasted pumpkin pieces.  Since my food processor was $6 at Aldi and has only been used on one occasion-- to chop baby carrots, two at a time, I decided to go with the Plan B listed on the website: the blender.

I scooped out my roasted pumpkin from its skin and dumped it into the Blender.  Nothing happened.  It made a lot of noise, but did not appear to chop anything at all.

Lesson #5: Do Not Stick Things In the Blender That You Do Not Want Pulverized

Because the pumpkin refused to be chopped in the blender, I decided that the whirring blades simply could not reach the pumpkin, which was being pushed up as the blades spun.  I remembered that the blenders on Chopped have a little stick in them, which is used for shoving things down.  Having no fancy blender with a stick, I attempted to make one using a wooden utensil.  This was a poor choice.

This kind of shenanigans never happens to the Pioneer Woman!

Lesson #6: All Choppers Are Not Created Equal Part II

After my first attempt at blending the pumpkin failed and I threw away all of the splinter-y pumpkin non-puree, I tried to mush the pumpkin using a hand mixer, which mostly succeeded at making a stringy, strange mess.

Lesson #7: Liquid Makes Blenders Awesome

After making my pumpkin into what looked like strange yellow-orange hash browns, I decided to just dump the stringy gourd and a whole bunch of water into the blender.  Then...FINALLY...I succeeded at making pumpkin puree.  It was a beautiful golden orange and it was fluffy and perfect-looking.  I actually did a celebratory dance around my kitchen while the blender frothed up the pumpkin puree in all of its creamy glory!  I bagged it up and set it aside to use for my recipe this week.

It's so beautiful!  

And finally, the most important lesson...

Lesson #8: CANNED PUMPKIN IS TOTALLY WORTH IT

Because for an extra few dollars, you can avoid all of this.

Recipe #2: The Soup with the Most Jaunty Name Ever

A delicious chili-taco hybrid of excellence!  

While flipping through my cookbooks and trying to decide which recipe to make, the Easy Slow Cooker Recipes book caught my eye.  This week is very busy at work and the weather is starting to get cooler, so I thought this was the perfect week to bust out the Crock-Pot for the season.  Besides, there is something really gratifying about having one's dinner figured out before leaving for work.  

While flipping through the book, I saw it: Amigos Taco Soup Olé.  

To paraphrase the famous jam company, with a name like Amigos Taco Soup Olé, it has to be good.  

I gathered my ingredients, which mostly involved foraging for cans.  Instead of the two cans of chili beans that the recipe called for, I got a can of chili beans and a can of black beans.  I figured, I may as well mix it up.  My can gathering was going fairly well until I got to the tomatoes.  Thank goodness the ingredients were clearly labeled.  Do you know how many kinds of canned tomato products there are?  TOO MANY.  Seriously?  They're tomatoes.  How are there 30 different canned preparations!?  Despite the canned tomato enigma, I made my way home with my ingredients.

Sometimes you cook fancy foods and sometimes you do a lot of dumping cans into things.

I cooked my ground beef the night before, then I plopped all of the ingredients in the Crock-Pot before heading to work.  Thus, my dinner preparation was completed before dawn... like a champ!

When I came home, what awaited me was the greatest hybrid of chili and tacos the world has perhaps ever seen.  I added the cheese that I left out this morning, for fear of soldering it the side of my Crock-Pot for all eternity.  I also garnished it with chips.  If I had been thinking, I would have diced up some green onions, but I didn't think of it until I was halfway through my bowl.  

It was absolutely magnificent.  My dinner guest and I very much enjoyed it and both cleaned our bowls.  

I defy any judge on Chopped to fault my presentation!  They probably even wouldn't call it "rustic," which is the Food Network term for "I just slopped in there and it was totally on purpose."  This is the same kind of fancifiying that goes on when they call a piece of toast a "crostini," even though we all know it's just toast.

I also had plenty of leftovers, which I divided up to fit into my miniature fridge.  I also realized what a price performer this soup is.  My total cost for ingredients was about $13, including tortilla chips.  I will easily get 5-6 servings out of this dinner.  At just $2.60 per serving, this soup is a much better price performer than that $5 Subway sandwich that I ate yesterday.  This recipe was a winner for convenience, budget and taste!

Not the most attractive presentation of the soup, but the recipe yielded a massive quantity.  The cutest squirrel salt & pepper shakers ever are included for size reference.  

2 recipes down.  50 to go!

Cannelloni with Spinach and Ricotta

As a start to my Adventures in Cookingland, I decided that I should start with something that wouldn't be too time consuming or difficult. Seeing as it is now just after midnight I may have done some minor miscalculations! While looking through my various cookbooks trying to decide what to make, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to create something from my Perfect Italian book. It came to me as a random $5 purchase at Joann Fabrics along with Chicken... Made Simple (which also has a great many fantastic recipes).
Now to get back to my marathon of a meal! In hindsight, I should have done my grocery shopping ahead of time since that would have drastically cut down on the time factor. Regardless, I found myself at my local Pick N Save at about 7 this evening picking out my various ingredients, most of which I did not have at my apartment. I had to do some improvising since they lacked the two specialty cheeses I needed (asiago instead of pecorino and fontina in place of gruyere).
The most exciting part of the prep work for me was being able to make great use of my mini food processor, which hadn't got a lot of usage until now. It made the cannelloni filling super easy to blend and I'm so excited to use it from here on out (thanks Mom and Dad for the awesome gift)! Everything seemed to be going well, although incredibly time consuming since I wasn't familiar with the recipe. The cheese sauce to cover everything caused me the first bit of concern. It required me to melt butter and add flour to it, which when I did so resembled the consistency of scrambled eggs. Then I was to add slightly boiled milk to it and simmer until thick and smooth... It never entirely became smooth! So I just ignored and proceeded!
Covered the stuffed cannelloni with my slightly lumpy cheese sauce and popped it in the over as instructed. 25 minutes later, it did not look like the picture in the book and appeared to need more quality time with the oven! Another 15 minutes later I felt better about it, but it was still lacking the slightly burnt, crispy top. So I decided to use my much under utilized broiler! Result? Delicious perfection! First recipe, done!

Non-Cookbook Caramel Apple Cupcakes

Full disclosure.  This is not from a cookbook and therefore does not count as one of my 52.  However, since my very first official post was a mitigated failure, I decided to brag a little about these cupcakes, which were magnificent.  

Aren't they cute?  I finally used my fall sprinkles!

I needed something delicious to take to my work's department-wide potluck.  Since the windows were open, the cool air was blowing in and the pumpkin spiced candle was lit, I knew I had to make something fall-ish.  I decided on caramel apple cupcakes.  

I had purchased a Pillsbury caramel apple cake mix and the matching frosting on one of my 12 weekly visits to Target.  

I am convinced this is exactly what happens.

But, as always, I digress.  I made the first batch of cupcakes as directed, but for the second batch, I doctored it up a little by adding cinnamon.  I have no idea how much I put into the batter.  I just dumped it in until it "looks right," also known as Mom's method.  The first batch turned out good, but the second batch was AMAZING.  3 of 3 work taste testers agreed.  Stick with the cinnamon.  

I frosted the cupcakes with the prepared frosting and added fall sprinkles.  All in all, easy and adorable cupcakes.  I just love Pillsbury cake mixes!  

Recipe #1: Rich & Cream Cheesy Tortellini

My first recipe for the blog.  Lesson #1: My food photography skills need improvement!

Let me begin this post by pointing out that this was supposed to be entitled, "Rich & Creamy Tortellini."  It's nothing fancy, but it's from the Taste of Home Annual Recipes (2012 Edition) that Santa brought me for Christmas.  Really, it just looked like using simple ingredients like butter, garlic, flour and cream cheese to dress up a normal jar of marinara sauce.  True, I picked the recipe mainly for the simplicity of the ingredients, given its proximity to pay day (only two more days)!  I had everything on hand except the cream cheese and the green onions.

There are tons of really cool recipes in here.  Plus, I like that it has recipes that don't have 23 ingredients, especially during pay week!  Also, it totally doesn't judge you for using canned stuff. Way to be real, Taste of Home.  You know I'm not going to make that marinara from scratch, no matter what Pinterest says.  

Normally, I'm sort of a hectic cook, and I don't get my ingredients all out ahead of time, but since it was my first (real) blog post, I decided to get everything out ahead of time and be really hard core about reading the steps ahead of time.

I minced my garlic, chopped my green onions, melted my butter and thickened my sauce all without incident.  However, this is where everything went awry.  It turns out that I should have actually read the amounts on the ingredient list a little better.  Instead of simply the 4 oz (half package) of cream cheese that the recipe calls for, I put in 8 oz (the entire stinkin' block).  I thought the color looked light, so I tasted it.  It tasted fine....if it was designed to be spread on a sesame seed bagel.

I realized my mistake and tried to correct it by dumping in more marinara sauce and green onions.  That helped a lot, but something still tasted off, so I just dumped in garlic.  That mostly fixed it, but I still wonder what might have been had I done the recipe properly.

Naturally, this sauce is designed to be put on something, namely tortellini.  Instead of buying the fancy refrigerated kind (for $5 a package?  No way!), I used the $0.65 variety from Aldi.  As it turns out, with tortellini, you might get what you pay for.  The sauce, which did turn out okay, was the only good part of the dish, the extra bargain brand Aldi tasted like it was filled with dehydrated spinach powder and sawdust.  Foul.  I probably should have spent the extra $4.  Naturally, I just dumped more sauce on it and ate it anyway.

The tortellini of betrayal.  Not a good Aldi buy!

All in all, it wasn't the triumphant blaze of glory that I had wanted for my first blog post, but it wasn't a complete failure-- I salvaged the sauce after all.

Recipe 1 down.  51 to go.

-Kaitlin

The Inspiration: An Embarrassingly Large Quantity of Boxed Mac & Cheese

Today, while watching my favorite Food Network show Chopped, I cooked another pot of Velveeta Mac & Cheese.  It's cheesy, terribly unhealthy and completely uninspired.  I love these cooking shows and want to learn to be a better cook, but somehow I never seem to find the time.  Even though it's something I really want to do, I just settle for the quick, easy bowl of mac & cheese, be it Velveeta or the Spongebob-shaped Kraft kind.  

I buy all of these fancy, schmancy cookbooks and marvel over their wonderful recipes, but never make anything from them.  Today, I counted.  I have 21 cookbooks!  21---and I have probably used recipes from about 4.  

So, with the help of one of my best friends in the whole world, Linda, she and I have decided to break the cycle.  We are each going to make a recipe a week from our cookbook collection.  That's 104 recipes total! 

By completing this goal, we hope to become better cooks, or at least, to save ourselves from an endlessl string of boxed mac & cheese and Spaghetti-Os.