Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos, is Dusty's birthday. We celebrated on Friday night and Chasel and I had made plans to do something to gift her as a birthday present. We brainstormed and came up with the idea of making a cake in the shape of a sugar skull. I thought over this for a week or two and could not figure out a way to make it without it being a huge mess. The morning Chasel and I were to meet up (Saturday) I looked on pinterest. I found a recipe for a rice krispie cake shaped as a sugar skull. I thought that sounded so nice and easy. Plus I had lots of Cheerios. I found a recipe for Cheerio treats which we made first. Then froze in a pan. Once they had hardened, we cut it and shaped it into a skull. We froze it again to harden. Once hardened, we then got to decorating!
Here's the Cheerio treat cake hardened in the pan once we shaped it. We added some melted chocolate chips into the recipe below to add a bit more moisture to hold the cheerios together. Plus, everything is better with a little chocolate!
| CHEERIOS TREATS (AN ALTERNATIVE TO RICE KRISPIES) http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1731,130179-245192,00.html | |
1/4 c. butter
8 cups Cheerios 1 10 oz bag of marshmallows
In large saucepan, melt butter. Add marshmallows and stir until melted and blended with the butter.Remove from heat and add Cheerios. Mix until evenly coated.
Scoop into 13x9x2 greased pan. Cool for an hour or two, cut into small squares and enjoy! This is a "healthier" alternative to the "Rice Krispie Treats". The kids will love these! | |
From the website
Our version!! We covered the whole thing with purple icing. Then used sour rope candy to outline the face, nose and eyes. The eyes are filled with chocolate chips. M&Ms trace around the eyes. Mamba (fruit candy like Starburst) makes up the teeth. Sweet Tarts, Halloween version with skulls and bones, fill in the nose, between the eyes and decorate the chin.
We were very proud of a project and hope Dusty likes it too!
On to Sunday cooking mania! I made more food than I can eat in a week or two so I froze lots. Here's the mumbo-jumbo of what I made:
This is brown rice, black beans, vegan sausage seasoned with Mexican chipotle, tomatoes, and my homemade green salsa. I got a whole BUNCH of tomatoes, both ripe and unripe, small and big, from Jill who couldn't handle how many her garden produced. I left them in my kitchen for another week so they were very ripe; the green ones weren't ripening though so I made a green salsa that turned out awesome! Recipe below:
Green salsa: 1/2 red onion, garlic, green tomatoes, hatch chiles. I sauteed them until everything softened and got all juicy. I then through it into the food processor with the stem from cilantro. I added some fresh leaf cilantro, lemon and lime juice, S & P to the final salsa. Very delicious and fairly mild; I used some chiles I had in the freezer and wasn't sure how spicy they'd be. Great addition to the bean/rice dish.
This is the stuffing of the pumpkins I made for Family Dinner this Sunday. I started with farro (a new grain for me, I like!) and yellow lentils. Cooked them up yesterday as I was hanging with Chasel. Today I sauteed onion, garlic, green chile, fresh thyme and 1 pound frozen chopped collard greens in a big pot. I added 1 cup soy milk and a pinch of nutmeg. I then through in the farro and lentils, added some oregano, S& P. Pretty interesting flavoring going on.
As the lentils and farro had cooked yesterday, I emptied out 4 pumpkins and roasted them till they were pretty soft. Today I added the farrow/lentil mixture into 3 of the pumpkins. I then created a topping made of bread crumbs, nutritional yeast, oregano, thyme, S&P. I sprinkled that on the 3 stuffed pumpkins and set aside. I baked them at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes before serving them.
Here are the three stuffed pumpkins.
Close up!
With the red ripe tomatoes I received from Jill, I made homemade tomato sauce. SUPER EASY! I just sauteed the other 1/2 of the onion with garlic and then threw in the super ripe tomatoes that I chopped up. Once that was cooked down a bit, I put it in the food processor, added some fresh basil, S &P and put it in a jar!
We just happened to have a previously-filled jar of sauce that is now the home of my wonderful sauce!
The next dish I made was a terriyaki vegetable tempeh dish. I had a bit of left over terriyaki sauce from the Asian food I made for Family Dinner a few weeks ago. I also got some ginger from Jill and had some tempeh in the fridge. So what I did was steam the broccoli and green beans. I also had a nice big white squash that looked like a hand with fingers (maybe patty pan?) that I roasted and took the skin off of. I made more of the super addictive homemade teriyaki sauce with soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, agave nectar and ginger. As I was doing all of this, the tempeh was marinating in the leftover teriyaki sauce and fresh ginger. Once I was ready to put it all together, I sauteed onion and garlic, added tempeh mixture and heated that up. The other cooked veggies were added with all the other teriyaki sauce. Once finished, I stirred in the rest of the fresh cilantro. Yum!!!
I decided to try a new grain to go alongside the teriyaki veggie dish. This grain is called Kashi, which is part of the Buckwheat grain family. If you have ever tasted the cereal Kashi, you understand why it's named such. I'm not a big fan of it and probably won't make as much in the future. I am hoping that serving it under the very saturated teriyaki mixture will hide the flavor.
The final piece of play in the kitchen today was a dessert dish. Remember how I roasted 4 pumpkins and only used 3 for the farro/lentil dish? Here is where I put the 4th pumpkin to use. I found this recipe in a collection of fall recipes Oma sent me. This one called for 2 apples, baguette bread and raisins. I used apricots because I couldn't find golden raisins. I also added a cup of raw, unsalted cashews because I bought them for something today but forgot why. I also used 3 apples. The mixture was bigger than what the pumpkin could hold so I'm planning on heating up the leftovers to serve alongside the pumpkin tonight.
Finished product, prior to roasting before serving!
- Prep Time:
- 25 min
- Inactive Prep Time:
- --
- Cook Time:
- 2 hr 20 min
- Level:
- Easy
- Serves:
- 4 to 6 servings
Ingredients
- 1 2-to-3-pound sugar pumpkin
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 cup cubed bread (preferably from a baguette)
- 2 Gala apples, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup golden raisins
- 1 tablespoon rum (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Kosher salt
- Maple syrup, for drizzling
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Slice off and reserve the top 1 1/2 inches of the pumpkin. Scoop out the seeds and stringy pulp.
Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the bread and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 4 minutes; transfer to a bowl. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon butter, the apples, brown sugar and raisins to the skillet and cook until the apples are crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Stir in the rum, vanilla, cinnamon and a pinch of salt. Return the bread to the skillet.
Put the pumpkin in a small baking dish and fill the pumpkin with the apple mixture. Cover with the pumpkin top and add 1 inch of boiling water to the baking dish. Cover loosely with foil and bake until the pumpkin is tender, 2 hours to 2 hours, 30 minutes. Remove the foil and pumpkin top and return the stuffed pumpkin to the oven. Bake until the filling is lightly browned, about 10 more minutes. Transfer to a serving plate and drizzle with maple syrup. To serve, scrape the pumpkin flesh and stir into the apple mixture.
No comments:
Post a Comment