Halloween Is Almost Here: Gougere Ghosts

I am busy cleaning the house in preparation not only for a party, but a weekend house guest! It has been a busy day, and the little professional mess makers we employ are in full swing, which makes for one grumpy mommy. After realizing that keeping up with them by myself today was just not going to happen I sat down and looked at my "Recipes to Try" and got busy in the kitchen. Nothing like baking a brownie truffle pie to get you feeling happier!
Anyway, while I was looking through the recipes I found one of the recipes we are going to make for Saturdays 4th Annual D&D Halloween Party. I wasn't in the mood to post what I had planned on posting today, so I decided I would share this recipe with you instead! This recipe comes from Kitchen Daily and sounded so yummy, fun, and easy! Perfect for your next Halloween party!


Ghost Gougeres

1 cup water

1 stick unsalted butter, cut up (1/2 cup butter = 1 stick)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup all-purpose flour

4 large eggs

1 cup grated Gruyere cheese (4 oz)

black sesame seeds (for eyes)

1.Preheat oven to 400 F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a heavy saucepan bring water, butter, and salt to a boil, stirring to help melt butter. Add flour all at once and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until mixture forms a dough. Continue beating over medium-low heat until dough is smooth and pulls away from sides and bottom of pan, about 2 minutes.

3. Remove pan from heat and let cool 2 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time with the wooden spoon or an electric mixer, beating after each addition until batter is smooth again. Beat in the grated cheese.

4. Transfer dough to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain tube. Pipe "ghosts" onto lined baking sheet so that they are about 1-inch wide at base and 3 inches long, tapering to a point at top (they will be about 1/2-inch thick).

5. Press two black sesame seed eyes onto each ghost and bake in upper and lower thirds of oven, switching positions halfway through, until golden and crisp, about 25 minutes.

Read more: http://www.kitchendaily.com/recipe/gougere-ghosts-149776#ixzz13h4qvFg7

I can't wait for October to be over! This has been such a crazy busy month that I have hardly had time to sit down and do something I REALLY want to do.
Anyway, I guess I am off to the kitchen to sweep and mop!

Halloween Continues: Mummy Face Pizzas!

Last year I was in charge if dinner on Halloween and I decided to make everything Halloween themed. We had monster toes, breadstick bones, bug juice, and some Mummy pizzas! My oldest thought it was so much fun! He especially liked the pizzas though, because he is a pizza junkie! They were so easy to make that I thought they would be a great addition to this weeks Halloween recipes! These little guys can be made ahead and frozen for fright night, but they are so easy I recommend just making them!

Mummy Face Pizzas
1- 6 count package of English Muffins
Your Favorite Pizza Sauce
12 Sticks mozerella string cheese
1 Can sliced olives

1. Heat oven to 400ºF.

2. Spread english muffin halves with sauce. Pull cheese into thin strips; place in random criss-crosses on tops of bagels to resemble mummy bandages. Trim ends with kitchen shears. Add olives for the eyes.

3. Place on baking sheet. Bake 10 min. or until muffins are crisp and cheese is melted.

These would be great to have a child help with, they will love pulling the string cheese apart!

Halloween: Edible Jack-o-Lanterns

This weekend is Halloween! Halloween is a big deal in my family. My little sister was born on Halloween, and my mom has always gone all out for Halloween. She does so many crafty things and makes all kinds of fun meals. Because she is so into Halloween I decided I would do a whole week of fun Halloween recipes!
This first one comes from the blog of one of my Husband's cousins. I stole it, with permission, it's always fun to see what other people are doing! The idea came to her as she was flipping through a Halloween magazine: stuffed orange peppers with Spaghetti and cut them up like Jack-O-lanterns. Here is her take on the idea!

7 orange peppers

1 cup brown rice

1 package mushrooms, sliced

1/2 onion, diced

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp Parmesan cheese

2 tbsp shredded mozzarella cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat Oven to 350 degrees. Cook rice according to directions

2. Hollow out and cut peppers like jack-o-lanterns, make sure you reserve the tops! You can't make a proper jack-o-lantern without a stem.

2. In a sauce pan, melt the butter. Add onion and cook until translucent. Add the soy sauce and mushrooms, cook until tender.
3. Turn off heat. Add Parmesan cheese and mozzarella cheese.
4. Mix vegetable and cheese mixture with cooked rice, stuff into peppers.
5. Place on baking sheet, cook at 350 degrees for ten to fifteen minutes, until peppers are tender.

Don't these sound fantastic! And they look so much fun! I imagine you could mix just about any veggie in with the rice mixture and it would be just as good! I'm thinking of trying these with some spinach added, as it is hard to get my kids to eat the green veggies unless they are mixed in with other yummy things!

Beggars Purses- A creative Crepe Presentation

I love to throw parties. Getting friends and family together and having good food, games, music, and conversation is one of the most wonderful things! I'm always looking for a reason to throw a party, be it a birthday, just a game night, or even a party to celebrate cheese (our third annual cheese party is coming up in march!).
When it comes to parties I am all about the food. You can't have a great party if people are hungry! I love to make a least one dish I make look especially cool, it tend to jump start conversation and make for a pretty presentation.
Enter the beggars purse.
The hardest thing about these is roasting the peppers, but they turn out so yummy and beautiful it is worth the time! I borrowed the steps on roasting the peppers and the pictures that accompany them from Allrecipes.com


Beggars Purse

One recipe Chive Crepe Batter
1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, chopped
3.5 oz Goat cheese
4 Bell peppers
3 tablespoons olive oil
One long fresh chive or green onion for each crepe

1. Pre-heat your oven's broiler. Coat each pepper evenly with oil. A pastry brush is a useful tool to use when coating the peppers, but fingers will work in a pinch if a pastry brush is not on hand. Make sure to coat inside the folds of each pepper.

2. Arrange the peppers on a baking sheet and place the baking sheet on the highest rack in your oven.

3. Keep a watchful eye on the peppers to ensure that they do not become too scorched. When dark splotches begin to appear on the peppers, remove the baking sheet from the oven and carefully turn each pepper over.

4. The peppers will be very hot, so use tongs or some other kitchen utensil to do this. Once all of the peppers are turned, return the sheet to the oven.

5. When the tops of the peppers begin to darken again, remove them from the oven and place them into a bowl large enough to accommodate all of the peppers. Cover the bowl. It is important that the peppers are in an air-tight container for this step of the process in order for them to be steamed. The trapped hot peppers generate the steam necessary to loosen their skins.

6. Once the peppers are cool enough to handle (probably about 15 to 20 minutes), pull the stems out of each pepper.

7. Hold one end of the pepper down on a flat surface and gently peel the skin off of each pepper. The skin should slide off fairly easily.

8. Lift each pepper up and hold it with one hand, while using your other hand to squeeze down the pepper's length. The bulk of the seeds and pulp should drop out the bottom when this motion is completed.

9. With the backside of the knife, slit open the side of each pepper and spread them out (ribbed side up) on your work surface. With the dull side of your knife, scrape off any of the ribs or membrane that remains in the pepper.

10. Dice up the roasted peppers and return to the bowl, add the chopped tomatoes and goat cheese, stir well

11. Place about two tablespoons of the pepper mixture in the center of a crepe, gather up the sides to make a "purse"(see picture), and tie together with a chive or green onion. Repeat for each crepe.

Sorry For the Hiatus- Shake & Bake Tomatoes

October is a crazy month for my family! So many birthdays and our anniversary, and Halloween events! And then you add in midterms, and fall breaks, and it just gets more busy! I am so sorry I haven't posted anything recently, I have been meaning to! I will try to be better! Please forgive me!

Today I am going to share one of my Husband's (the Recovering Meat-a-holic Dad) recipes. This recipe came about by accident when we did not have any breadcrumbs around, but had some shake and bake mix (which is vegetarian)! I hope you enjoy it as much as we do! we might have to make this tonight with some of the tomatoes and parsley we harvested at the University Sill Garden yesterday!

Shake & Bake Tomatoes

2 Tablespoons butter
1 Clove garlic, chopped
1/2 cup of shake and bake (we use the chicken shake and bake usually, don't know how the others are)
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh parsley
1/4 cup of mexican cheese blend
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
4-5 roma tomatoes, halved

Directions:
1. Arrange oven rack in upper third of oven, preheat to 425F
2. Line broiling pan or cookie sheet with foil
3. In a large skillet melt butter over medium heat, add garlic and cook, stirring until fragrant (1 minute or so)
4. Remove skillet from heat, stir in shake and bake, parsley, cheese, and seasonings until well mixed.
5. place tomato halves cut side up on prepared cookie sheet and top with the shake and bake mixture.
6. Roast 15 minutes or until tomatoes are heated through and topping is slightly browned.

These make an excellent appetiser for parties as they are pretty quick to make! The time we have made them they have been very much enjoyed by everyone!

On another note: I have been thinking about starting a vegetarian group through Meet-up for Salt Lake City. There are over 100 people who are waiting for such a group, and I think it would be a great way to spread the word about my site a little more. The only problem is that it costs money to be the host of the group. It's about $12 a month. I would love to do it, but I am not sure I can really afford that right now. If you are a vegetarian in the Salt Lake area would you please comment and let me know if you would be willing to come to events if I started a vegetarian meet-up.

World Vegetarian Day Party

Last night was our world vegetarian day celebration! We had so much yummy food! Not as many people showed up as we would have liked, but we had some good times and enjoyed the food. Everyone had a different favorite it seemed! Here are just a few pictures from last night. I'll be giving out the recipes for all the food over the next week, so be on the lookout if you see something you particularly like!

Below are the wonderfully delicious shake and bake tomatoes that my husband made. They are his own recipe, and were one of our guests, Jeremy's, favorite.
These are our Roasted Pepper Beggar's Purses. We used the Chive Crepes recipe and filled them with a super yummy filling! Details on the filling will be coming later this week!

Next we have our yummy couscous cups. I got the idea from the blog Cooking With My Kid but we made them mini and changed a few ingredients. They were fabulous!
One of the night's favorites though were the mixed berry crepes, I am excited to share this recipe later! The crepes, filling, and berries can all be in your freezer for a quick and beautiful dessert that can be made for unexpected guests. They will think you were expecting them the whole time.

I hope you all enjoyed seeing some "Food Porn" and I hope you will come back to the blog soon to find more delicious recipes!

I love Parties

Today is a crazy busy day for our house! Tonight is our big shindig celebrating my upcoming website and World Vegetarian day. I've got most of the cooking done, thanks to wonderful freezable recipes, but there is still a lot of prep work and finishing work to do! Everything from the freezer is thawing in the fridge, in preparation for baking tonight. I'm trying to hunt down a mini cupcake pan, and clean, and make a last minute grocery list of things to pick up. I still need some sort of dessert and beverage...
So what does this all mean? No real post today, but tomorrow there will be a great post, and LOTS of pictures!
If you live in Salt Lake we would love for you to drop by tonight! We will have lots of food for everyone to try, nd everyone is welcome!