HAPPY HALLOWEEN, everyone! Be safe and eat lots of candy (preferably Reese’s PB Cups and mini Snickers).
We didn’t get Biscuit into his costume, but I think the crowds enjoyed him anyway!
So weird, yet kinda cool.
Thank you, Lifehacker.
Click here for tasty coffee shop treats like a DIY Pumpkin Spice Latte, Frappuccinos, Cinnamon Coffee Cake, Lemon Pound Cake, Granola, Overnight Steel Cut Oats and more!
Yesterday Edwin shared with you some more neat Halloween links from around the blogosphere. In case you missed it, here are some sweet Halloween/fall treats that we worked on last year:
The Cuter Side Of Halloween – Edwin’s Meringue Ghosts
Brigadeiro, A Sinfully Sweet Brazilian Candy
Perfect Pumpkin Cookies
Eyeball Cupcakes
Creamy Pumpkin Rice Pudding
Halloween is less than a week away! If our Halloween Week left you hungry (pun intended) for more, here are some additional clever Halloween food ideas. Enjoy!
Biscuit is ready for Halloween. What are you planning on making? We’re deciding between baking pumpkin rolls or pumpkin pie cupcakes…
I don’t know why I haven’t figured this out before, but it’s really going to be a life saver for me this year.
Every fall a bunch of cooking magazines come out with articles that boast new ideas for pumpkin pie. I get pretty excited about this because I love pumpkin pie, but then I also feel torn because what if I make it for the holidays and it’s not that good? Then I have bad pie plus no traditional pumpkin pie. And there’s just no way I have time to make full pies with crust before the holidays in addition to making the real thing.
Well, why don’t we eliminate the crust. It’s the most time consuming part and can also be the most variable. The pie filling is really the thing we want to test anyway.
If you have Corningware, and I really hope you do, you can combine all your ingredients, refrigerate it overnight if you don’t have time to bake it then and then the next day put the dish in the oven to bake. You can even serve it in Corningware.
Baking it in a dish instead of crust allows you to try more recipes faster so that you can plan ahead. It’s also a spectacular way to cut out calories. Pumpkin pie filling doesn’t have to be ridiculously fattening, but good crust usually does –
TheCalorieCounter.com lists one slice of crust only that has been prepared from a recipe contains 121 calories and 8 grams of fat. A whole 9″ pie crust contains about 949 calories and 62 grams of fat.
Yeah…
Enjoy more pumpkin pie filling varieties, save your favorite pair of pants!
I thought today’s recipe would be pretty sweet since it uses sweetened condensed milk instead of evaporated milk, however it really wasn’t that sweet. It is spicy, however. If you can’t get enough of pumpkin pie spice, then you’ll definitely enjoy this variety.
Magic Pumpkin Pie
adapted from The Pumpkin Lovers Cook Book
adapted from The Pumpkin Lovers Cook Book
1 15 oz. can pumpkin puree
1 12 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk, not evaporated
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ginger
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
dash of cloves
Blend ingredients together and pour into large Corningware dish. Bake at 375F for 45-50 minutes or until cooked. Cool and refrigerate before serving.
Sometimes I like to browse the lanes of Whole Foods looking at the various grains and whatnot that I’ve never seen; never mind cooked with. (nerd alert) Sometimes it’s really exotic stuff and other times it’s just run-of-the-mill stuff that I never got around to working with. Problem is I tend to buy them and then never get around to cooking with them.
One of the things that’s been sitting in my pantry for quite some time is bulgur wheat; which, by the way, doesn’t have the most appealing name. It’s a wheat grain that’s been steamed, dried then milled (crushed); retaining most of wheat’s nutritional value. It reminds me a bit of couscous, actually, which we’ve cooked with plenty before. Cooking it is incredibly easy.
The well known dish with bulgur wheat is tabbouleh, that famous Middle Eastern fare. I’ve never been a fan, myself, (waaaaaay too much parsley) so I decided to shoot for a savory soup. This, however, did not happen. I don’t know how, but somehow I ended up with a rather rich soup, almost chocolaty. I’m not even sure the paprika had any effect!
So I decided to go with the flow and viola, we have today’s soup recipe. It’s definitely in a different class.
Rich Bulgur and Broccoli Soup
1/4 cup brown rice
1/2 cup bulgur wheat
1 onion; finely chopped
1 head of broccoli; florets chopped
1 cup peas
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
4-5 cups stock/water
olive oil
Preheat oven to 450.
Cook your brown rice per packaging instructions (which is probably bring twice as much stock to a boil, add rice and cover simmered for 30-45 minutes). Set aside.
Add paprika, coriander and cinnamon to one cup of stock and bring to a boil. Remove from heat, add bulgur wheat, stirring to mix and set aside.
Toss the broccoli with thyme, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 3 tablespoons olive oil. Roast in the oven until golden; approximately 25 minutes.
Sweat onions for 20 minutes, add 3 cups stock and bring to a boil. Add all your ingredients and simmer for 20 minutes, adjusting salt to your taste. Enjoy.
Can I interest you in some candy corn in cookie form? When I was a kid I was nuts about candy corn and there was always something extra special about the Halloween themed kind. Those pumpkin shaped just tasted… better. I could inhale those things (and did on many occasions). Snickers never quite stacked up to these suckers.
I’m not much of a candy muncher these days but I definitely get the urge around Halloween time. They really need to start selling them in smaller packages because, quite frankly, it’s very difficult not to inhale a bag of candy corn lying around. I think this may be the one time fun size is a good thing (insert the obvious ran about “fun” size). Fortunately I’m not quite as hooked on cookies and these suckers have the nice visual appeal.
Candy Corn Cookies
If at any time, the dough becomes to difficult to work with, just pop it in the freezer for a bit. You can use just about any sugar or shortbread recipe, but the less sticky your dough, the easier to work with.
If at any time, the dough becomes to difficult to work with, just pop it in the freezer for a bit. You can use just about any sugar or shortbread recipe, but the less sticky your dough, the easier to work with.
Prepare your cookie dough, divide into three portions and color any way you’d like. You can either mix the coloring with your stand mixer or in a plastic bag. Press one of the doughs into the bottom of the pan and follow with the other two. Put in the freezer for two hours or longer if you’d like. Most cookie dough can last quite long in the freezer.
Take a small bread pan (4×8, 5×9, etc), grease and line with with parchment paper. Set aside. Preheat the oven to whatever temperature your recipe calls for.
Remove dough from the pan and cut into thin slices. Most cookies spread a bit during the baking process so thinner you go the less spreading. It’s a judgment call, but start with half an inch and go from there. Cut the slices in opposing 45 degree angles and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Be sure to watch them while baking. Enjoy!
You think I could get Biscuit in a Halloween costume?
Yeah, I didn’t think so either…
