We don't have seasons here in Florida, but we make do with festivities. Halloween is here, it's coming up Sunday, and I woke up this week and the first thought in my head 24/7 was omg holy eff..what the heck..sunday! and went into full time panic mode. And a lot of it was geared toward the fact that omg..SUNDAY! and we have NO pumpkin, no baking smells in the air, and with no car..NO way to get that stuff until Saturday..and trying to find a pumpkin the day before Halloween is like trying to get the #1 selling toy for Christmas on Christmas Eve.
I have a friend I met at the bus stop for our kids, her name is Michelle, she and her family are going through rough patches, but I think she's cool as heck. Yesterday she came through for me in a big way. She became my chauffeur. She took me to Amscot to get a cash advance cause bills just screwed me over for my festivities. She took me to Publix to get a pumpkin and baking goods. (we have no pumpkin patches here, just church lawns and ridiculously overpriced pumpkins) I walked out of publix with a $5.99 pumpkin that's HUGE and beautiful. And a cart full of things like bittersweet chocolate and cheese.
Soon as I got home from shopping, I set to work. Cleaned up the kitchen, put the pumpkin on the table at the ready for carving, and started baking. I picked out two recipes that come from one of my favorite magazines All You (GREAT source for coupons BTW if you are a fanatic like me) that changed to three recipes when I decided dinner would be festive as well. Baked one cake, which requires a day of being in the fridge, then started on another, when OMG I don't have a 9 inch cake pan! and I can't substitute because it HAS to be round. So Michelle came through again..and brought me a pan to borrow. I took a break because it was 5pm, and I had to worry about dinner, rather than dessert. I made the cutest quesadillas. Jack O'Lanteren style. I altered the recipe a lot because it calls for cheese that my kid would barf at. The spicy one.. Pepper-jack cheese. that's all the recipe consisted of, so I omitted that one, and substituted with Monterrey Jack and Cheddar. For the adults I added Steak/Chicken. The results were yummy.
You can't really see it that well, the camera lighting situation sucked.
After dinner, I commenced with the baking. And the Carving commenced as well at the table. When I had my hands on the seeds, I baked the seeds. And finished up the night with a HUGE mess, but a baked cake, and baked seeds, and full bellies of Jack O'Lanterns. Plus a cake in the fridge ready for me to finish today.
These are called Candy Corn Wedges. They are supposed to resemble Candy Corn. They came out great, the icing was HARD to put on, it was very messy, so it didn't look good as the picture, but my hubby was VERY impressed, wants me to make more like that.
Here's some pictures of our carving.
The Chicken and Candy helping out.
Collecting all the seeds for mommy.
He wanted a pirate, but they were WAY too complex to do with kitchen tools and a printer. So we settled on a skull head.
Here's the results of my handiwork in the kitchen.
My messy work. These pictures were BEFORE I did the icing on the Candy Corn Wedges too..so it was even worse by the time I finished. I didn't want to take pictures of that:) My pumpkin seeds were in the middle picture.
(pictures of my cake in the fridge to come in about 5 hours).
I plan to do some sugar cookies (the Pillsbury kind, i'm tired of cleaning!) and when Stephen gets home from school, let him decorate them with the leftover orange/yellow/white icing that I have.
It was a satisfying day. I'm ready to bake some more.
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