Quote of the Day after Thanksgiving 11/25/11

"I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land."

-Jon Stewart

Happy Turkey Shopping Hangover Day!

Quote of the Day 11/14/11

Thanksgiving is coming: only 10 days away! It's time for a little turkey inspiration!

"I love Thanksgiving turkey... it's the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts."

-Arnold Schwarzenegger (Thomas' personal idol)

Bourbon Pumpkin Pie Milkshakes

For those of you wanting to make your own seasonal milkshakes (as seen in those delicious photos in the previous posts), here is the recipe that The Hungry People followed. The original recipe can be found here on the How Sweet It Is blog.

Bourbon Pumpkin Pie Milkshakes

- 2 cups vanilla ice cream

- 1/2 cup milk

- 1/4 cup cream or half-and-half

- 1 tbsp vanilla extract

- 2/3 cup pureed pumpkin

- 1/2 tbsp pumpkin spice [or you can substitute nutmeg & cinnamon like ATHP]

- 2 to 3 oz of bourbon

- sprinkles for decorating the glass rims [ATHP used turbinado sugar]

Mix up all those lovely ingredients (minus the sprinkles) in a blender and garnish with a beautiful sugar rim! Enjoy!

And thank you to Sydney for hosting our Pumpkin Extravaganza.

Westbrook Brewery

We drank a lot of beers. Some were better than others. But they were all, for the most part, delicious.

Here are the reviews from Christine:

Coffee Stout: "It kind of kicks you in the face with coffee flavor."
White Thai: "Christine had no comment"
Vanilla Tree: "So goooood! Very sweet, but not overwhelming. Awesome"
Citrus Ninja: The only IPA Sydney will ever drink.
Habenero Stout: AFTERRRBURRRRN
Saison: "Light, refreshing, no after taste. Easy to drink a lot of"
Imperial Stout: "A stout. Hooray."

These reviews were written while/after consuming mass quantities of alcohol, hence their brevity and strangeness.

PumpkinPalooza Part 1

 Bourbon and Pumpkin Spice Milkshakes!

 Fezzik is a fan.

Pumpkin Ravioli Recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

For The Filling:

• 1 Two To Three Pound Pumpkin
• 1 Tbsp Butter
• 1 Onion
• 2 Garlic Cloves
• 2 tsp Ground Sage, or 6-7 leaves fresh sage, chopped
• 2 Tbsp Honey
• 4 oz Goat Chevre
• Salt & Pepper, to taste

For The Pasta:

• 2¼ cups Flour
• ⅓ cup Water
• 2 Eggs
• Tablespoon Olive Oil
• Pinch of Salt

DIRECTIONS: 

Filling:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Farenheit. Quarter pumpkin and remove all seeds (set these aside and you can toast them!)Place pumpkin face down on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 30-60 minutes, or until a dull knife pierces the flesh easily (the skin may still be tough). When pumpkin is cooked, be sure to let it cool some so you don't burn yourself!

2. Meanwhile, pour yourself a cup of tea or glass of wine, and get started on prep work. Dice the onion finely, mince the garlic.

3. Cook onions and butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. When Onions just start too look clearish, add sage, garlic and honey. Remove from heat

4. Using a large spoon, remove the flesh of the pumpkin from the skin. Mash pumpkin with a fork (or toss it in a food processor)and stir into the onion mixture.

5. While mixture is still slightly warm, stir in Goat Chevre and mix until everything looks creamy and delicious. Add Salt and pepper to taste. Cover and set aside.

Pasta:

6. Combine flour, water, eggs, olive oil and salt in a medium bowl and stir with a wooden spoon until it becomes too solid to stir.

7. Remove dough from bowl and knead on a clean, floured surface for a few minutes, until the dough has a smooth texture. You can use a pasta machine, or simply roll your dough with a rolling pin either way you want your dough to be thin enough that you can see the shape of your hand through it when you hold it.

Putting it all together:

8. Working on a floured surface, Start with two pieces of pasta, one slightly longer than the other. Using a spoon, place small dollops of filling in rows on the smaller piece of pasta - leave about 3/4" between drops of filling.

9. Starting at one side, gently lay the larger piece of pasta over the other, pushing it down onto the bottom piece of pasta in between each of the lumps of filling (if the pasta is too dry and won't stick, use a pastry brush and water to moisten it slightly). There is a bit of a learning curve here, but don't worry because this ravioli is always well received, even if it looks ridiculous!

10. Cut the ravioli apart from each other with a sharp knife, to be extra sure they'll stay together, and for a decorative touch, use a fork (or one of those fancy ravioli rollers) to crimp the edges

11. Put the ravioli in boiling water and remove with a slotted spoon as they begin to float.

 For the sauce, Sean and I went a little crazy. We browned some butter and sage and added some Alfredo sauce and these sundried tomato and garlic chicken sausages. It was pretty decadent.

 The final product, aka Pumpkin Overload

And then we carved some pumpkins.

 Pumpkin Carvings.

Of course, Ron Swanson has to make an appearance on the ATHP blog.


Happy (belated) Halloween!

Quote of the Day 11/8/11

Today's food quote is something I found a long time ago written on the wall of an airport Food Court (CLE, to be exact). I like it enough to ignore the fact that I don't really like Virginia Woolf. And the fact that she killed herself. I mean, who commits suicide by drowning? 
Obviously, she never read All The Hungry People.