Dinner in a pumpkin

aka - I lose my mind trying to carve a pumpkin.

Ryan's mom has this fun tradition of making dinner in a pumpkin on Halloween night.  So we have adopted the same little tradition.  The idea is super simple and pretty healthy.

This year at Belvedere Plantation, they had some super fancy pumpkins that are supposed to be amazing flavor wise.  So I got a medium sized pumpkin for our Halloween dinner.

These crazy little pumpkins are super thick - which I didn't know when I tried to quickly pop the top and fill it.  I ended up butchering the damned thing and cussing like a fighter pilot trying to break this thing open.

It is almost funny what things make you so mad you literally cuss - apparently for me it is carving pumpkins - good to know.

Dinner in a pumpkin recipe (more or less):
1 pound of ground beef
1 diced onion
2 T crushed garlic
2 T soy sauce
2 T brown sugar
1 can cream of something soup (or a white sauce - which I like better, but was in no mood today)
2 cups cooked rice
salt and pepper to taste

Brown the ground beef and onions, add garlic, soy, sugar, and cream.  Mix well and then add the rice.  Pack in a cleaned out pumpkin with a face drawn in sharpie.  Bake for about an hour at 350.  Or until the pumpkin flesh is soft.  Scoop some of the pumpkin flesh out with the rice mixture when serving.

St Pattys Day

I love St Patrick's Day.  It is a fun holiday to celebrate and yet it doesn't involve gifts or too many expectations - just fun.

Every year I make my Guinness Chocolate Cake.  I also make corned beef and cabbage, which I love.  But the real star of the day is always the cake. 

It starts with a good cake recipe with buttermilk, coco powder, and Guiness.  After it bakes, you poke holes in it and pour on a soak of Guinness, cocoa, sugar, and vanilla.  Then you turn it over and repeat.  Finally, you cover the whole cake in a chocolate ganache.  It is awesome.

Meredith and Audrey loved it!

First present wrapped

One thing I learned from Flylady is wrap as you buy. Well, of course I am not quite that good, but I did wrap one today - way ahead of my family heritage of mad wrapping on Xmas eve. Hooray for progress.

Decorating for Halloween

Audrey and I read quite a few library books about Halloween at the end of September. In all of them the characters were making decorations for Halloween and putting them around their house. So a few weeks ago, she woke up wanting to make Halloween decorations to decorate our house.

This is the banner that I came up with. It is actually a bit of a banner from Target that had cool lettering and the rest is bits we got at Michaels.

It turned out just fine (I am not a crafty perfectionist on things like this), but I do wish I had done the project on felt instead of foam - what was I thinking. Oh well, it turned out pretty well despite being made of nasty foam - and most importantly, Audrey *loves* it.

Fall thoughts

One thing I love about fall, is the feeling that comes over me to really get my house in order. I love house projects anyway, but fall really gets me feeling harvesty. So in celebration, Audrey and I are going to head to Costco and buy a freezer. I heart food storage.

(Tangentially speaking: I have wanted a freezer for years, but now with Ryan in school and me working full time, we really want to take advantage of healthy partially premade meals and freeze meals when we do could so that we won't have to do cook or eat out nearly as often, but still get healthy and cheaper food. I could go on and on about how excited I am for this purchase, but that is another post for another time.)

And Ryan and I have come up with a new plan to keep our house a little cleaner with him in school and me working. Inspired by flylady, I am going to empty the dishwasher each morning before I leave and Ryan will fill it during the day. Simple and hopefully effective. Now if we could just come up with a similar system for laundry.

On the knitting front, Audrey's sweater is coming along and she almost has two sleeves to go with those shoulders. Also, I have given myself a bribe for passing my PMP course for work - I get to something from my wishlist. I am thinking either the Mason Dixon knitting book or the Holiday Knits book or some beautiful yarn for a sweater for me, I haven't quite decided. I am waiting until I finish to decide. Now if I could only get myself to study...

Xmas shopping complete

You read that right - I am done shopping for presents and even stocking stuffers. Yippee!

The funny thing is that I really enjoy Christmas shopping, but I don't like shopping during the rush - feeling pressure to find the "perfect" thing, waiting in miserable lines and fighting for a parking spot - I will pass on all of that.

Unfortunately I am not finished making Xmas presents - so I spend my extra hours knitting furiously in an attempt to get things done in time. Luckily, that part involves a nice cup of tea and a cookie rather than the other frantics mentioned above.

Oh also, a shout out to Genny - who wrapped all the presents (even hers)! They are now pretty under the tree.

Holiday cookie swap

I love cookies! There is nothing better than a soft gooey warm out of the oven KA cookie with a tall glass of cold milk. So I am trying to organize a cookie swap with my coworkers. I am trying to decide what type of cookie I am going to make. So far my thoughts are: KA chocolate chip cookies (kick-ass is the name William's coworkers gave these delicious favorites), molasses spice crinkles, snickerdoodles, lime meltaways, sugar cookies or russian tea cakes. If you leave a comment, please include your favorite cookies.

And here is the famous Kick-Ass Cookie recipe:

2 c. butter
2 c. b. sugar
2 c. sugar
4 eggs
2 t. vanilla

4 c. flour
1 t. salt
2 1/2 t. powder
2 t. soda

5 c. oats
24 oz choco chips
handful of cocont (about 1 cup or so)
sometimes nuts

cream the top group. mix the middle group - then add to the butter mixture. add the oats and coconut. then the chocolate chips and nuts (if desired).

bake at 375 for 6-8 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet.

the thing about these cookies is the coconut makes them amazingly moist, but they don't keep well unless you freeze them (frozen they last a very long time). a full batch makes so many cookies you could almost eat your body weight in cookies (okay maybe that's just me). also, use the real stuff (butter, vanilla, chocolate, etc) if you want amazing cookies!

Added on 11/27/2007: this link is awesome - it has hundreds of cookies at your fingertips.

VA Holidays in review

It seems that it has been a crazy few weeks since I last updated my blog. We had Christmas first in VA - it was lovely. Audrey is at a really fun age for Christmas. Here is a list of the fun things we did:
1. Went to the National Yule Log/Christmas Tree/Menorrah display in front of the White house. After looking at all this stuff, we had a mini car picnic with hot cocoa, cookies, veggies, and fruit. Then we all headed to the Temple to see the lights. Audrey was out like a light at this point, so we just drove through this year.
2. Stayed over Christmas eve at the in-laws. We had our big dinner and program after visiting the old folks home and passing out candy, while my FIL played the piano (which he does at this home every other Sunday evening and they absolutely love him). Then we watched Muppets Christmas Carol (which is the best rendition around).
3. Opened presents Christmas morning with the family. It was fun to watch Audrey's reactions to everything.
4. Ate Christmas brunch at Westfields Marriot. This is one of my favorite traditions that the in-laws have introduced me to. It is always delicious.
5. Christmas evening when we got to our own home, we opened presents that had been sent to us and that we had for each other. I think we should do this the following day next year because we were all pretty tired at that point.
6. We had a girls night out activity (a broadway play at the Kennedy center) and a boys night out activity (hockey game tickets) a few days later.

Serious Business

Ryan and I decorated our tree again this year, sans Audrey. It is one of my favorite things to do with Ryan because he gets so crazy about it. He has a certain way that trees must be decorated and any deviation from said way, is unthinkable. So of course, I enjoy putting the "balls" (which he says use of the word "balls" instead of "ornaments" should automatically disqualify me from being able to put them up this year) in the wrong spots (big on top, small on the bottom, same colors close together, etc.) just to watch him go crazy about it when he finds them misplaced.

Usually, I move a ball or two into the wrong spot several times throughout the season just to watch Ryan notice them and call out "Oh No! This is all wrong! Amber, did you move this ornament here? It's a good thing I saw this to fix it." or something along those lines. Let the merriment begin.

Homemade

There is something special about homemade things. My sister William made me a couple of coffee mugs that I love and each morning I think about how her perfectly polished little hands formed the handle to be so comfy. We also have a couple of beautiful afgans on our couches from my grandmas. Other than those few exceptions, I think our house is store bought. This is unfortunate, because homemade things have a way of bringing the people you love into your home.

When I was a child, my mom used to ask us to make her something for Christmas, Bday, Mother's Day, etc. I always thought she was a little on the crazy side - nobody wants homemade presents, they are just plain embarrassing. Now I firmly agree with my mom. So, this year, I decided to try to make a gift or two for Christmas. I am not going to say who the "lucky" recipients are (other than Audrey, because I think they read this blog) but it has been (still is) a lot of fun to make their presents. I also want Audrey to know how great homemade presents are, so I am making a scarf for her.

Long story short, if you get a slightly tacky cross-stitch from me in the mail, hang it with pride and please know it was made with love.

Holiday Decorating

I enjoy decorating for the holidays, but only to a certain point. I like a few cute chachkies that are holiday appropriate, but too many feels cluttered. So this year I was surprised to realize that, aside from the tree, my entire holiday decorating took only 30 minutes to complete. I am listing them for my own personal benefit to know what to do next year without having to spend an hour rifling through the boxes to make sure I didn't miss anything (kind of a checklist for the future).

Things I did this year:
-put up our 2 advent calendars (felt trees with mini ornaments) one in the entry and one above the fireplace in the library
-three stockings on the fireplace mantel
-the "Ho Ho Ho" candles that William gave me last year on the right side of the fireplace
-the nutcrackers and the nutcracker book on the left side of the mantel
-the candy dish on the ledge in the kitchen
-the evergreen candle in front of the silver plate in the library
-evergreen garland around the stair rails with a red bow on the end of the banisters
-snowflake candle in entry bathroom with snowflake hand-towels
-got out the Christmas mugs in the cupboard - for hot cocoa
-the fudge container on the book shelf
-wreath on the front door

Things I would like to eventually add to my decorating list:
-Nice wreath over fireplace (I almost bought an actual pine wreath at costco yesterday - but my frugal sensibilities kept me from it)
-Replace 2 advent calendars with one that we actually really love
-Holiday bedding for my bedroom - flannel holiday sheets (or just a solid red or green) and a holiday quilt and pillow shams
-Holiday rug for the entry
-Wreaths for back doors