Happy Halloween!

Yay!  I think I am most excited about Halloween this year because we have our own house to decorate and from which to give out candy.  Am I weird for being excited about giving out candy?  And yes, I got the good stuff, all name brands: Snickers, Three Musketeers, Milky Ways, Twix, M&Ms, Starbursts, Skittles, Hershey Kisses, and Reese's Cups.  No Brach's or sugar-free at our house.  :)  I may have gone crazy, but we are giving out 2 pieces; I don't want to be the stingy house who says only take one.


Raaaaar John has taken over Anne's post while she is giving out candy to the kids.

ANYhoo, Harvey cowers in fear of the doorbell, and does not know what to make of Halloween with all these people coming to his door.  Several of the girls have even admired his "costume" (yes, he is still wearing his jacket for the itching).  We have gotten a few comments about how good our pumpkins are-- mostly from a large bunch of parents who came up to the door.  One mom asked if we did them ourselves, a dad was on the side looking jealous, and his other half's expression said, "You've got to be kidding me, don't even think about it for our house."  And there was another couple out in the road who were lingering and staring at the pumpkins, too.  See? I told you we were awesome.  :)

So the sociologist / nerd in me says that next year we are keeping a survey by the front door as the kids come by to track costume popularity and candy consumption.  :)  But for this year, we are going on my memory in order to determine costume winners.

COSTUME CATEGORIES:
Best Female:  Small-to-mid-sized duckie.  She wins mostly because her costume had "wings" that covered her hands like mittens and rendered her unable to pick up her candy.  John had to select her pieces for her.
Runner-up (though I'm not sure if we should be encouraging her): Slutty Robin.  Yes, pre-teen girl bought a sexy Robin (as in Batman and) costume, complete with cape, mask, mini-skirt and low-cut neckline.  : /

Best Male: TINY boy, maaaaybe in grade school, dressed up as a garden gnome!  He had the pointy red hat, white sideburns and beard, and suspenders over his flannel shirt.  Ahh! I can't stand it!  Too cute!

Best Group:  They came straggling up, so it was a surprise when they all arrived.  Four kids: Leia came first, then same-sized sibling Luke, then older sibling Darth Vader... wait for it... then Mom came pushing baby in stroller who was wearing Yoda ears!!  How awesome!
Runner ups:  Pair of brothers modeling the age-old competition of Pirates vs Ninjas.

Gonna go eat some candy now.  Just yoinked the last Skittles from the bowl for John to have.  I may have gone overboard on the candy, as the night is winding down and we have a good bit leftover.  Oh well!

Gordon Ramsay's Shephed's Pie

Fact:  I love satellite TV now.  One reason is because we get BBC America.  Yay!  That means great shows like Being Human (vampire, werewolf, & ghost live together and trty to be normal), Top Gear (crazy Brits and cars; Hammond is cute!), and Gordon Ramsay's various cooking shows, most favorite is The F Word (mmm... cooking).  Well, Gordon is a good Scot and tries to get his mother's shepherd's pie recipe into every cooking series that he does; so needless to say, we've seen him make shepherd's pie a few times.  John and I were grocery shopping the other week and he saw minced lamb in the meat aisle!  Instantly, he came back to me and sheepishly (no pun) and asked if we could use the rare opportunity to make shepherd's pie.  So a big win for technology came about when I whipped out my phone and Googled Gordon's recipe so we could get all the ingredients.  :) 

End result is very easy and VERY yummy.  Minced meat is rosemarily delicious and makes your house smell great.  Mashed 'tatoes are fluffy and cheesy.  Overall, it's great for packing on a few pounds before winter.  ;)

Fun Fact: you can only make Shepherd's Pie with lamb.  By definition.  If you use any other meat, it's technically a Cottage Pie.

Shepherd's pie

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 500g (1lb) minced lean lamb
• 1 large onion, finely grated
• 1 large carrot, finely grated
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1-2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp tomato puree (tomato paste)
  
• Handful of thyme sprigs, leaves picked
• 1 sprig of rosemary, needles chopped
• 250ml red wine (8 ounces)
  
• 300ml chicken stock (10 ounces)
  
• 1kg (2lbs) Desiree potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
• 50g (3.5 tbsp) butter
• 2 egg yolks
• Parmesan, for grating
• Olive oil
• Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 180˚C (350F) /gas 4 -and get prepped by watching Gordon prepare this shepherd's pie.

2. Heat the oil in a large pan until hot. Season the mince and fry in the oil over moderate to high heat for 2-3 minutes. Stir the onions and carrot into the mince then grate the garlic in as well. Add the Worcestershire sauce, tomato puree and herbs and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. Pour in the red wine and reduce until almost completely evaporated. Add the chicken stock, bring to the boil and simmer until the sauce has thickened

3. Meanwhile, cook the potatoes in boiling salted water until tender. Drain then return to the hot pan over low heat to dry out briefly. Pass them through a potato ricer then beat in the egg yolks, followed by about 2 tbsp grated Parmesan. Check for seasoning

4. Spoon the mince into the bottom of a large ovenproof dish. Using a large spoon, layer the mashed potato generously on top of the mince, starting from the outside and working your way into the middle. Grate some extra Parmesan over and season. Fluff up the mash potato with a fork to make rough peaks. Bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes, until bubbling and golden brown

And as Gordon would say:  "Shepherd's Pie. Done."

Pumpkins part 2

Soooo... John and I learned something this holiday season: pumpkins do not last as long as you think they will.  Haha.  Needless to say, currently, our first pumpkins are quite moldy (and have been removed to the dumpster recently).   And I am quite proud to say that John was the one who first said that we could / should carve new ones when the first set got gross; I was prepared to just toss them and have no jack-o-lanterns for Halloween night.  We waited as long as possible before carving this second set so that they would definitely last through the weekend.

 

I am easing into Halloween decorations slowly, trying not to go crazy (and poor) all at once, but I did decide to get a pumpkin-carving kit the other day and I think it was worth the whole 4.99 that it cost me!  We did use the patterns provided this time, but more importantly, we used to fine little saws included in the kit.  MUCH easier for details than even our smallest kitchen knife. 

I picked the haunted house design, 2 pumpkins out of 4 on difficulty.  John... picked the only 4 /4 most difficult-est design in the kit: the evil scarecrow.  I got some tiny tea lights for illumination.  Awesome, huh?

V is for...

V is for a very special weekend.  John and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary this weekend.  Just something nice with just the two of us.

Punkins!

Almost on the same level of craziness as me demanding to paint all our bathrooms different colors, the other day I demanded that we carve pumpkins for Halloween since we now have our own house & porch to decorate.  :)  So down to the farmer's market we trudged to pick out our pumpkins.  John said he wanted to make an "ugly" jack-o-lantern, and I had been playing around with patterns online and had found a nifty bat design.

Let's just say that I can't remember ever having carved a pumpkin before... and it is harder than one would think!  Why do we let small children do this?  I mean, wielding unwieldy knives, butchering squash  in the kitchen? Who said this was safe? (John thinks he threw out his wrist from carving his pumpkin)

Our pumpkins looking fabulous the same day we carved them.  I have found conflicting reports about how long they will last, but John has admitted that we can carve new ones next weekend before Halloween if these ones get funky and gross.  Which may be quite probable because our front porch is in direct sunlight and they are getting baked each afternoon.  Already, my bat has lost the tops of his ears due to shrivelage.  :(

There are numerous FABulous designs that seem all the more fabulous now that I know how hard it is to carve a pumpkin.  Spookmaster and The Pumpkin Lady have some good "basic" ones (most are above my skill level!), Zombie Pumpkins ups the ante a bit in regards to detail, and then there are the "extreme pumpkin" contests that go above and beyond anything I've ever seen!  (That second link is from the winner of the Food Network Challenge for Pumpkin Carving... which we coincidentally saw on tv the same night as we carved our own pumpkins, and felt highly intimidated!)

U is for...

U is for Ungodly desires to knit wedding-ring lace!  So for some reason (as I told Lara, it might be because I am an effing masochist) I have had a recent desire to knit some lace.  And if you are going to knit lace, and you already have a stole that has needed to be blocked for like 2yrs, why not go all out an knit something spectacular?  Aha! wedding-ring lace.

Now, if you are knot familiar with the term, wedding-ring lace (Shetland lace or Orenburg shawls if your lingo is regionally-based) is a huge lace shawl that is so fine that you can pull it through your wedding ring.  Usually you knit lace projects on sock-weight yarn and worsted weight needles.  To get it extra-fine, you usually use cobweb yarn- and no, that term is not made up.  Cobweb yarn looks like sewing thread or hair, no joke.  Yea, this is big-boy lace.  For real.  (sigh)  You can now see why I call myself an effing masochist.

I think this idea has been brewing since I saw the above rose shawl from A Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker.  Lara saw the thistle design first, but I am torn between the two (thanks, Yarn Rambles for letting me steal your images!).  But seriously! Wouldn't this idea be just the best thing ever?!!?!! Though I really need to start now so it will be finished before my fifth anniversary (and for visitors to my blog, no, I am not even engaged yet!).  :)

New Toy Semi-Review

So it's been about a month since I became one of the Followers of the Church of Crackberry (ie - bought a Blackberry).  I really blame Verizon and it's tempting offers: they frequently / periodically run a "buy a Blackberry for $50, get a Blackberry free," and about a month ago, Lara was in the market for a new phone and I noticed the ad.  I was getting tired of all the quirks in my old smartphone, and thought it would be a good deal for the two of us.  I mean, $25 for a Blackberry is hard to beat!  However, Verizon hates it's loyal, long-time customers and shut me down because the deal was only for new contracts, and no matter how I finagled it, they would not extend my contract or whatever to make me eligible.  Seriously?!  Why can't I be rewarded like new people?  Apparently years of loyalty mean nothing when you want a damn phone.  Only the people who have recently defected from another carrier get the special deals.  Maybe they should think about keeping the old customers so that THEY won't defect to ANOTHER carrier before they think about trying to steal new people away.... (deep sigh) Anyways, the story ends with Lara and Mom getting a phone for her, but I had to spend more money than I needed to at the time to buy my phone on eBay.  :(  Youngest sibling karma, I say. 

Yes, I got the pink one!  I am so girly.  I justify it by 1) I am a girl and 2) everyone has a silver phone so mine will stand out.

Well, all's well that ends well apparently, as I am hooked to my new Crackberry.  :D  That's not to say it isn't trifling in its own special little way, but I do like it better than my old phone.  Its OS is not as intuitive as Windows, but that's because Blackberry had to make up something different so that they wouldn't get sued by Microsoft.  That's probably my biggest gripe; that, and that I have found less free apps and games.  The Netlfix for Blackberry is far inferior than the Windows version, and I have yet to find a Solitaire that doesn't suck compared to my old one.  :(  For some reason, I have an aversion to paying for apps... even though there is a $5 Blackberry version of Oregon Trail!

The "pluses" are pretty significant though.  The internal antenna is better, so new phone gets better reception - like, "I can get reception in our room at work and don't need to huddle by the window" better reception.  :)   And the screen is set up for viewing better, plus there is no portrait-landscape orientation changes on the screen, so the programs bug out less often.  The internet browser is OK; I am used to running Mozilla on my computer, so anything on my phone will be worse for me until they can get Firefox on phones.  :P  AND, best of all, there's this thing called Blackberry Messenger that works just like AIM between Blackberry owners.  This means that Lara and I can communicate all we want and not rack up texts since it runs off the data plan. Yay!

I did rush out and buy a cover (because I am a clutz), and I think it's a nifty one.  Lara says it makes me both girly and coordinated.  I just know that I like it and it matches my phone.  :)