There was always something magical about Halloween. More so than Easter or Christmas or any birthday. It has always been and still is my favorite holiday. I guess there are probably some socialist undertones that probably play their part in my enjoyment of the celebration, but those aside, I think I figured out at a young age that Halloween was a good gauge of personality. The crabby old neighbours who were always mean would NEVER give out candy. The only night of the year their lights were off, and they weren’t snooping on neighbourhood activities. The nicer ones would decorate, and take genuine pleasure from seeing kids in their costumes. There’s something to be said about Halloween, and the fact that people give for nothing tangible in return.

I was in grade 4 during the Halloween shown above, and I honestly can never remember having a store-bought costume. I was pretty pissed off about it when I was slightly older than in the picture above, particularly as the quality of my costumes deteriorated rapidly. (I distinctly remember going as a lamp one year. My mom painted my face yellow and it was brutal all around).

Now I appreciate the kitchyness of homemade costumes, and I miss coming up with ideas and executing them. Some of the best times in my undergrad were spent with my three other girls, cutting and pasting cardboard to clothing. To be perfectly honest, of the pictures above, only the first one was from a Halloween night, where the four of us went as different cereal box characters. The middle one was from “Fake Prom” and the third one was from a departmental party where I was Hook…the girl, complete with talking parrot.

Today walking home after work, I saw all the kids on campus dressed up, and it made me nostalgic. On a happier note, my nephew was a dinosaur this year, and I can’t wait to see pictures! Happy Halloween!

With this new blog, I’ve been trying to write on a regular basis, but I’ve been pretty busy. Here’s the twist: I’ve been busy at nothing. I guess that’s sort of an oxymoron, but it seems to fit my current situation. When I think of the word busy, it has this meaningful connotation to it. Like being busy should entail a specific and tangible output. From my perspective, it doesn’t seem to be the case.

Of course, this isn’t true so much as it is a byproduct of working and schooling nonstop towards a goal that I couldn’t even really conceptualize. And now that I’m done, and I’m working full time (I guess) at a job that is tiding me over for the time being, but leaves me lacking any distinct sense of purpose, I feel like I’m in this bizarre limbo.

When I say “it isn’t true”, I recognize of course that in this period, I’m at least able to spend more time with friends and family. I’ve been able to go apple picking, and bake and apply for jobs -although this too seems to be without much of a point, considering I haven’t been hired yet!).

I’ve been reading too. Quite a bit. Recently: Paula Todd’s A Quiet Courage, and I’m going to read Secret Between Us by Daniel Poloquin, but not before I’ve finished Kurt Vonnegut’s Armageddon in Retrospect which is wonderful in its own right. I particularly like this quote:

“And how should we behave during this Apocalypse? We should be unusually kind to one another, certainly. But we should also stop being so serious. Jokes help a lot. And get a dog, if you don’t already have one.”

Even Vonnegut agrees with me.

Good things as of late:
1) Spam blocker installed. No more deleting 400 comments.
2) Finally got my Macleans subscription (months later).
3) Sound of Music last night was spectacular.
4) Booked for Mexico & 2 months from now, we’ll be in paradise!

Is there anything better than Williams Sonoma? When I walk in, time and space come to an abrupt halt. Admittedly, I try to avoid it entirely, because I can easily spend hours in there. I am mesmerized by things like thousand dollar espresso machines and portable cupcake holders. I know that most of the products are ridiculously overpriced, and down the street, you can get an almost identical flat icing spatula for a third of the cost… but everything in there is just so beautiful.

I almost caved when I saw these decorative pie crust cutters, but I thought I could make my own leaves with a small knife. The result -although not very successful -is shown above. This was my pre-Thanksgiving test pie, and I’m thinking I might be ambitious and attempt a turkey instead of a leaf today.

I’m using this award-winning recipe that I found on The Canadian Baker, replacing margarine with the butter and this time, no spices (by request).

PIE

Filling:
8 apples about 3 lbs (1.5 kg)
3/4 cup granulated sugar (175 mL)
2 tbsp cornstarch (25 mL)
1 tsp cinnamon (5 mL)
pinch each ground nutmeg and salt
2 tbsp margarine, softened (25 mL)

Peel and core apples; cut into 1/4-inch thick slices and place in large bowl. In small bowl, toss together sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt; add to apples and toss to coat.

Double-Crust Sour Cream Pastry (see below)
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp coarse sugar

Pastry:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (625 mL)
1/2 tsp salt (2 mL)
1 cup margarine, cubed (125 mL)
1/4 cup ice water (50 mL)
3 tbsp sour cream (50 mL)

In bowl, whisk flour with salt. Using pastry blender, cut in butter and lard until mixture resembles fine crumbs with a few larger pieces.

In small bowl, whisk water with sour cream; drizzle over dry ingredients, stirring briskly with fork until ragged dough forms. Divide in half; press into discs. Wrap each in plastic wrap; refrigerate until chilled, about 30 minutes. (Make Ahead: Refrigerate for up to 3 days.)

On lightly floured surface, roll out half of the pastry to generous 1/8-inch (3 mm) thickness; fit into 9-inch pie plate. Trim to leave 3/4-inch (2 cm) overhang; fold under and flute edge. Scrape filling into pie shell; dot with margarine.

Roll out remaining pastry. Whisk egg yolk with 1 tbsp water; brush over pastry rim. Fit pastry over filling; trim to leave 3/4-inch (2 cm) overhang. Fold overhang under bottom pastry rim; seal and flute edge. Brush egg mixture over pastry. Cut steam vents in top; sprinkle with coarse sugar.

Bake in bottom third of 450 F (230 C) oven for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 F (180 C); bake for 65 minutes or until bottom is bubbling and thickened. Let cool on rack. (Make Ahead: Set aside for up to 24 hours.) Makes 8 servings.

Source: Canadian Living Magazine, October 2007.

I have an embarrassingly large collection of cards. Thank you cards, birthday cards, Christmas cards… This picture doesn’t do justice to the extent of my hoarding. They take up a large percentage of “Memories” in my filing bin, but I can’t bring myself to cut down on the ones that I have.

I know that most people tend to keep cards for a couple of days – one week maximum, then throw them out. I am not one of those people. This is infuriating for the people who know me, and especially for those who can’t relate. I don’t consider myself a packrat, but R., who doesn’t keep much, thinks this is insane.

I had a fairly brutal interview today. It was a position for a broadcast associate, and afterwards, they gave me a 3 page quiz on Canadian history, politics and business. Not fun. Have you ever seen Reality Bites? There’s this great montage of Lelaina being interviewed and walked out of a series of offices. One of her interviewers asks her to define irony, and she stumbles painfully in nervousness at the complete randomness of the question.

Well that was me today. And it’s FAR more painful than it looks on screen.

I got home, and -true to form -watched Reality Bites while eating cookies topped with coolwhip, until I realized… I am one drug addiction and (potentially) one psychic-phone call away from hitting rock bottom a-la Lelaina.

So I got up, cleaned my room and filed some cards, and was actually thankful to have kept all the notes that people have sent me over the years. Sometimes they’re nice to have when I desperately need a reminder that life isn’t as cruel as it seems.

The two seem to go together very well. It has been said that some of the best bakers are those with cold hands, especially when it comes to making dough. I am not a big fan of the winter. It doesn’t do much for me; I get cold easily and -other than skating every so often -I don’t take part in winter sports. From my perspective, the only redeeming quality to the cold front we’ve had recently, is that cooling baked goods is much quicker & easier. Perfect timing too, because I decided to bake some treats for my sister’s baby shower on Sunday.

The muffins above use spelt flour and bananas. They’re a creation by, believe it or not, Gwyneth Paltrow. Her new website (which has been panned by critics), delivered this cute little recipe to my inbox, and I figured I’d give it a shot.

Banana Nut Muffins
Ingredients:
3 medium ripe bananas
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup brown rice syrup
1 tbsp. vanilla extract.
1/2 cup barley flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup walnuts
2 tsp. fine sea salt
6 tbsp. canola or sunflower oil
1 cup whole spelt flour
1/2 cup white spelt flour
(Makes 1 dozen muffins)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C) and roast the walnuts for approx. 7 minutes, then finely chop.
2. Sift the flours and baking soda into a medium-sized bowl, add the salt.
3. Puree the bananas in a food processor and add the remaining liquid ingredients, mix well.
4. Make a well in the flour and pour in the wet mixture (scraping the processor bowl well) and fold together until the flour is moistened. Add the walnuts and raisins and fold just a few more times to incorporate. Don’t over mix.
5. Line muffin tin with papers or brush with oil. Distribute batter evenly among cups.
6. Bake approximately 25 minutes, or until a toothpick tests clean. Let cool.

I used a few substitutions, and omitted the walnuts entirely, but they still turned out great. The real surprise was that R loved them. They’re relatively healthy, and were gone in 2 days.

I made chocolate chip cookies too. A lot less healthy, but so delicious! I took the recipe from Big Fat Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie (but only used 1 cup of chocolate chips) and I used some techniques from the NYTimes recipe Quest for the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie. Notably, letting the dough rest in the fridge for a day before baking. Trust me, the wait is worth it.

These lemon squares are low fat, and pretty good. I think I messed up the crust though, because I used 1 cup milk + 1 tbsp lemon juice to “fake” the buttermilk. If I make it again, I would probably just use a different crust entirely. I took the recipe from Baking Bites

I also (finally) made my date squares. To be honest, I took this from a baking cookbook a long time ago, but I forget which one it was.

Oat Crust + Topping
1 1/4 all purpose flour
1 cup oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt

Date Filling
10 oz. pitted dates, chopped (I would use more, maybe 12-14 oz)
3/4 cup water
2 tbsp. brown sugar

1. Preheat oven to 375 F, grease or line a 9×9 inch pan.
2. Prepare crust and topping. In a large bowl, with hands, mix flour, oats, sugar, butter, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Transfer 2 cups of mixture to baking pan. Reserve the rest. Press mixture evenly onto bottom of pan to form a crust. Bake 10 minutes. Cool completely in pan on wire rack.
3. While crust is cooling, prepare filling. In saucepan, combine dates, water and brown sugar. Cook over medium heat stirring frequently until mixture thickens and all water is absorbed (6-8 minutes).
Spoon filling into bowl and refrigerate until cool, about 30 minutes.
4. When filling is cool, spread filling over crust. Top with reserved crumb mixture. Bake until topping is golden. 35-40 minutes. Let cool.
5. Cut 4 strips x 3 strips (Makes 12 bars).

These are crumbly but delicious. I’ll probably have to make more, because I’d like to keep a couple for us to eat this week.

Happy Friday everyone!