Halloween Yums!

Pumpkin Pancakes

Yesterday Gracie and I had pancakes for dinner. But not just any pancakes, they were PUMPKIN. And I'm not taking about the mix you can buy pre-made. I did that last year. Total waste and they weren't even that good. Thanks to my good friends at Macaroni Kid, I am going to keep this easy recipe around for a long time.

Spider Pizza!

We hosted a little Halloween party for some little people today. There wasn't much Halloween going on so I ampted it up with some super scary spider pizza! Again, Macaroni Kid came through for me on this one!

Sausage and Apple Kebabs

What a perfect treat for the seasons! Super easy to make. Super fun to eat and super tasty - especially for kids!

I got this recipe out of a recent edition of Real Simple. It's a great way to use up all of those apples you have sitting around, too. (I know you went to the farm and picked too many! We all do. It's too much fun.)

I'm not sure what kind of apples we had but they worked fine. And I don't have maple syrup in the house but I do have Aunt Jemima Reduced Sugar syrup which also worked just fine. We made the 'taters and peas, too. Except I don't use milk and butter, just some of the cooking water and salt and pepper (much to the dismay of the rest of my family).

I do wish I had made a nice salad to go on the side. It needed a little something else....

Slow Cooker Barbeque Pork Sandwiches

I am a big fan of pulled pork. It's so easy to make in the slow cooker and often comes out moist and delicious, plus there are extras for the freezer!

I have a go-to recipe called Slow Cooker Dr. Pepper BBQ Pork (comment if you want the recipe) but I decided to try something different last night. It was GREAT! Such nice flavoring and the perfect amount of sauce. (Read: not too drippy.)

It was super easy and because I wasn't home for dinner, my husband and toddler had a nice meal without me. That, of course, also means I didn't get a good picture of it. But I think you all know what pulled pork looks like.

I opted to not make the slaw that is also in the recipe and instead served it with a side of locally grown, organic broccoli that I steamed for just a few minutes in the microwave. (I like my veggies to have a little crunch left in them. No need to cook out all of the nutrients!)

I also totally regret not serving this with pickles. It would have been delicious!

Here is the fabulous recipe from Real Simple.

Squash Lasagna and Salmon

Squash Lasagna

Sorry for the double post here, you guys. I forgot to take pics of dinner from last night. (what?!) Such a fail!

Anyway, the Squash Lasagna has amazing potential and was over all quite good. I'd do it a little differently next time, though. It calls for frozen squash puree. I didn't buy this because I have a whole peck of frozen squash and zucchini in the freezer. I figured I would thaw that, throw them in the blender and puree them myself. Well, my blender stinks (just bought a new one yesterday, thank you very much!) so I had some puree and some big solid chunks. I figured this wouldn't matter but the large pieces ended up being quite bitter. I don't know why. I'll definitely make this again but with puree all the way... or fresh vegetables.

What may surprise you is that it is a slow cooker recipe and a really easy one at that. Thank you Real Simple for making it delicious! Here is a link to the recipe.

Salmon

Tonight's salmon turned into tilapia. We eat a lot of salmon and talapia in this house and the main recipe is interchangeable. We usually do it on the grill but tonight I put it all in a baking dish and tested that out. For the grill you would make foil packets for individual servings. I like it better this way because you get more juices which is fabulous when you serve it over rice!

Here is what our dinner entailed of tonight. You can do this with any fish and any vegetables. That's how we roll! It is such a healthy dish and an easy way to add fish into your diet. It's also great it you have a lot of vegetables in the house you need to use before they go bad!

Ingredients:

2 tilapia fillets
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
broccoli
cauliflower
cabbage
Old Bay Seasoning
Mrs. Dash Sun Dried Tomato seasons
brown rice

Preheat over to 400
Spray baking dish with cooking spray and  put fish in the bottom
Cover with vegetables
Season (make sure some gets on the fish, too!)
Cook for 15 minutes or until the fish is flaky

Serve over rice and enjoy!

This week's menu

Translation:

M - squash lasagna

T - salmon

W - sausage and apple kabobs with maple syrup

Th - BBQ pork sandwiches

F - pumpkin pancakes

S - Louisiana red beans and rice

Su - wild rice, mushroom and chicken soup

Pumpkin Seeds (and Gumbo for Soup'r Sunday)

Everyone should be able to roast pumpkin seeds, right? Easy as can be! Why even look it up? Well, I learned last year that you can't just do it. All of that time and labor freeing the seeds from the pulp just to get roasted seeds that weren't edible. YUCK!

I learned a trick this year and maybe all of you know it but, I must share.... when you are getting the guts out of the pumpkin, put it into a bowl of water. THAT, my friends, is the trick. It keeps the pulp from drying onto the seeds and helps separate the seeds from the dreaded sticky stuff

After you have a bowl of just (mostly) seeds, put them in a colander and run the seeds under warm water. Get your hands in there to make sure all of the pulp is really out of there.

Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray (or drizzle with olive oil), spread the seeds in a single layer. Spray some more (or stir the seeds around the cover in olive oil) and then add some salt.

Cook at 350 for 25 minutes. VOILA! Perfectly roasted pumpkin seeds!

And as for what we are having tonight... check out this supercrazy easy Gumbo recipe from Cooking Light. They use all frozen and pre-chopped vegetables and pre-cooked meats which makes for a very easy and fast meal.

Because I had most things fresh in the house, I baked the chicken and boiled the sausage (local and organic!) and cut my own vegetables (some local/organic, some not). I doubled the recipe (for freezing, as always) and added half a pound of shrimp.

Yumminess!

Roasted Butternut Squash Risotto with Sugared Walnuts

Guess what we had for dinner tonight? Squash!

More squash? What? Well, we get a lot of it in our CSA delivery and we need to make the most of it! Tonight I used this great recipe from Cooking Light called Roasted Butternut Squash with Sugared Walnuts. (I was tempted to not sugar the walnuts to cut out some fat and sugar but I am so glad I did. YUM!)

I made the squash and walnuts earlier in the day. It was a real time saver!

Getting ready!

And then, after much risotto stirring, we ended up with this truly delicious dish!