Tonight we carved jack o lanterns, also called Pumpkin Moonshines according to a sweet picture book of the same name. Our kitty Moonshine was not impressed.
Happy Halloween!
Score Squash Now For Fun Autumn Scarred Squash
Last year I saw Jamie Oliver post an amazing Halloween display with scarred squash. I booked marked the idea in my mind and am now scoring all our volunteer squash plants. All you need is a sharp knife blade or skewer and a young winter squash. Without removing the pumpkin, butternut, or other variety squash from the plant, score a design lightly into the skin of the squash.
Then, let the plant grow. It will weep a little liquid in the first twenty four hours and then begin to form a brownish scar. As the squash continues to ripen and change color, the scar will balloon slightly but stay brown.
This intervention could potentially weaken or draw disease to the fruit but thus far our scarred squash are growing just the same as the non-scarred fruit on the same plants.
The possibilities for these decorations are endless. We've drawn shapes, jack-o-lantern faces, initials, and messages that we'll show off later in the season. And the best part is that the scarred squash will still be edible!
Are you already thinking about autumn? If you're looking for a few gardening ideas, try signing up for my Fall Gardening class where we'll talk about autumn crops, cover cropping, and season extension.
Haunted Halloween Candy
The season of Excessive Consumption is upon us, preceded by the month of Meaningful Worries and followed up with the weeks of Staggering Stuff.
Usually my anxiety about winter holidays holds off until mid November but this year, Halloween candy is haunting me.
Off the bat (Halloween pun?), let me be clear that I believe a day or two of sugary indulgence is not the end of the world for my girl Lil. We serve healthy food on a regular basis and sweets really are 'sometimes foods' in our home.
Besides, we temper the candy feasting with creative and educational pursuits like costume design and creation, making decorations, picking and carving pumpkins, and roasting seeds. There's a lot more to Halloween than one night of trick-or-treating.
Meaningful Worries
However, I am increasingly concerned not only with the locality and quality of ingredients but the treatment of labor used to plant, harvest and process foodstuffs. Sugar and chocolate, components of many candies, are conventionally made with notorious disregard for farm workers.
I choose to purchase fair trade labeled coffee, baking chocolate, sugar, and spices for our home kitchen. Though no food label is perfect, the fair trade standards give me some security that my family is not benefiting from the destruction of another.
If I were to hand out a fair trade chocolate bar (just one mini size piece) to the hundreds of beggars who visit our neighborhood, I could easily spend over $100. Lil is tired of the organic lollipops we usually give away, wanting something more mainstream. She has rejected my non-candy suggestions. Our compromise this year may be food-dye laden, but at least made in North America, Smarties.
Staggering Stuff
Moving on to the next ghoul: the candy haul Lil brings home. In previous years, the excitement of costumes and decorations at a few houses was enough to thrill her. I can see in her glistening-like-a-candy-wrapper eyes that this year, she expects to fill her basket.
Like I said before, I'm not afraid of an evening's sugar buzz. Between her distaste for anything containing nuts or having too chewy or sticky a texture, she dismisses much of her beggar's night haul without prompting.
But what do we do with the rejected haul? Alex and I certainly don't want to consume all the additives in common candies. Plus, when I eat sweets, I feel a sugar high and dip faster than a bat darts through our alley.
We could pass the excess candy off to Alex's office, but he frequently complains about the high level of obesity in his workplace. Donating to a food pantry makes me feel equally guilty. No one should eat this stuff.
Do we throw it away? That seems like a senseless waste of all the resources necessary to grow, process, and package the junk.
I have no solutions to the creepy side of Halloween candy. Are you haunted too? To show that I'm not a complete treatophobe, take a listen to one of my favorite songs of late, Sweet Tooth performed by David Rawlings and Gillian Welch.
Sews Like She Cooks
I realized when seaming Lil's Halloween costume (she is Super Kitten, a hero of her own creation) that the way I approach sewing is much like I cook. Here's how:
1) I eschew patterns and recipes. Patterns are expensive, I don't like to be told what to do, and I rarely follow the rules precisely.
2) I rely on prior experience and existing garments to guide my designs. I spend a lot of time staring and thinking about what pieces need to go inside out and curve in 3d. Likewise, my mind is constantly trying to recreate restaurant dishes.
3) I measure as I go, just like I taste as I cook. This is a tedious habit but it ensures that the fit or saltiness is perfect.
4) I make do with what I have. So the tail has light pink thread instead of a matching white - I grabbed the closest match in my stash instead of running out for new thread. I am always more likely to substitute an ingredient in a dish than go to the store for a single item.
5) I make mistakes. The shimmery sheer fabric Lil chose was a huge pain to work with but now I know that for the future. In cooking, I don't always achieve what I had in mind, but again every failure teaches me something new.
Do you sew like you cook? Or am I the only one sewing costumes at all anymore?
added to Simple Lives Thursdays
Jar Jack-o-lanterns
When I saw this idea combining three of my favorite things (canning jars, pumpkins, and Halloween), I knew we had to make jar jack-o-lanterns.
I dug out a stash of not-acceptable-for-canning jars (ones without a brand name) and our acrylic paints.
Lil, her friend, and I each painted three jars in shades of orange. The girls played while I painted the top black and let them dry. About an hour later, we painted black faces over the orange.
Lil lined up our jar jack-o-lanterns as the sun set. Tea light candles brought the scary and sweet faces to life.
New England Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
Don't throw away (or compost) the innards of your pie or jack-o-lantern pumpkins! Amongst the tricky pith are treats, delicious seeds! By the way, a serrated grapefruit spoon is my favorite tool for scooping pumpkin flesh.
Soak the pumpkin innards in water for a bit and then separate seeds from stringy pulp by hand.
Rinse the seeds in clear water again until they are completely free of orange goop. Strain through a sieve to remove most of the water.
Place seeds in a shallow layer on a cookie sheet pan. Sprinkle them with soy sauce and Old Bay. For this batch of seeds from 8 pie pumpkins, I used about a teaspoon of each.
Roast in a 300 degree oven for about an hour, turning every 15 minutes.
Let cool and enjoy! Unlike candy treats, home roasted pumpkin seeds are a good source of protein, fiber, and zinc.
Keep leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a year.
NB: You can save raw (un-roasted) seeds for planting next year by removing them from the pith and placing on a coffee filter to dry completely. Most pumpkins are non-hybridized, meaning they will readily grow and produce fruit from seed. Store thoroughly dry seeds in a paper envelope and direct sow in June for ripe pumpkins near Halloween time.
This post was added to Hearth and Soul Volume 19.
Happy Halloween!
We carved pumpkins on Tuesday night. Lil's tiny pumpkin was a huge pain because the walls are so thin. But look how cute it is!
Lil wanted to be a ghost this year. I didn't see any reason to be fancier than the cut up thrift store sheet.
When we adopted Hawise from the Capital Area Humane Society, her name was Hot Dog. I saw a hot dog costume and knew she had to have it. Apparently, wearing a costume is doggie torture to her. She is also not a fan of the standing still for picture taking....
Not to be undressed, Devie had to be costumed in this witchy outfit. She does not mind costumes one bit. This photo shows off her recently diagnosed luxating lens - notice how the eye reflections don't match?
May your Halloween is spooktastic!