10.25.2009

Carving Fun


Some of the fabulous jack o' lanterns made at the pumpkin carving party this afternoon. (Some had been taken home already at this point...)
I think my cousins had a good first experience with American Halloween traditions. I had roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pie, artichoke dip, hummus, carrot sticks, caramel apples, and mulled cider. Cheryl brought apple crisp. So, it was a lot of the traditional fall treats.
The process of the pumpkin carving was explained and the kids set to the task as if they'd been doing it all their lives. Even Angeles ended up making one after her husband drew the guidelines of a lovely cat profile.
A good time was had by all (and I figured out that 14 is the maximum number of guests I may have at my house when the outside is not a good overflow option.)

Thanks for blessing my house with your presence, all!

7 comments:

Dr. Phil (Physics) said...

The cat is Excellent!

Dr. Phil

Anonymous said...

Oh so fun! Wish I could've been the 15th person to test your house capacity theory! *HUG*

Random Michelle K said...

How'd the pie turn out?!

Anne C. said...

OK. The filling was good, but I wasn't happy with the crust. Need to figure out if it was my failing (probably) or the recipe.

Random Michelle K said...

Do you own "Cookwise" by Shirley O'Cohriror (sp) It's a fabulous book and she talks about how the ingredients in pie crust work.

A secret I read somewhere--especially if you're using butter in your crust--is to place the crust in the freezer, so it doesn't melt before it bakes.

Anne C. said...

I do own that book.
I used an America's test kitchen recipe and they're usually pretty scientific. They called for putting it in the freezer, but currently my freezer is full, so I put it in the fridge instead.
I also messed up a little on the amount of water I put in (here in arid CO, I should have assumed more water up front) but I didn't catch the error until after I had tried to ball up the dough. Ultimately, I had enough moisture, but had handled it more than I would prefer.

WendyB_09 said...

One of the cooking shows I was watching a while back used a shot of vodka for the perfect pie crust. It looked lovely and handled beautifully when they were working with it.

And...the dingo made me do it.
(dingo of course being the word verification this roung)