October 31st: pumpkinny oatmeal + pumpkin biscotti + Tuscan chicken & pasta

Verdict:
Try Again: oatmeal, biscotti and chicken and pasta

I love Halloween. Maybe my favourite of all the holidays. Candy. Costumes. No pressure. Love it.

We started our day with the first snow fall of the year! Olivia was so excited when she saw the snow: "Snow on my deck. Snow on my BBQ. Snow on the trees. Snow on the ground." (It went much, much longer.)

Then: "I need my snow suit." So, before breakfast, still in pajamas, into her snowsuit she went and outside to have some fun. Meanwhile, I needed to get to work on a Liam-inspired recipe. Another one from Cooking With My Kid: Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal. Based on Liam's advice, I upped the amount of liquid (milk) and flavour (ground ginger, ground cloves, walnuts and raisins), all of which contributed to a delicious (though late) breakfast. While it baked, we had to eat breakfast, so when it was done we were actually not hungry. It was good though.

One of Liam's problems with this recipe was that the pumpkin flesh didn't cook enough. Trying to remedy that, I filled the pumpkin with water and put it in the oven as the oven preheated and as I prepared the filling. I don't know if it made a difference, but thought I should mention it.

We have a lot of leftovers; we'll see how those taste. The flesh at the bottom of the pumpkin cooked quite well. I chunked up some of the leftover flesh that was a little harder, tossed it back in the oven with some water, and used it to make, from October 2010's Chatelaine: Pumpkin-Spice Biscotti. This is very good stuff, and makes a lot. To work with me tomorrow it shall go.

After trick-or-treat-ing, we had for supper the last recipe I am trying from October 2010's Chatelaine: Tuscan Chicken with fresh pasta. The recipe calls for turkey but I used chicken. It also calls for scallopini and I used breasts (which increased the cooking time). And finally, it calls for wine and I used chicken broth. The fresh pasta nests (and I just bought PC brand, nothing fancy) were amazing! I think it was the buttery sauce. I thought the chicken was just okay but Greg loved it. Olivia was not digging the sage leaves.

We'll try all of these recipes again, except, maybe, the oatmeal. We'll see how those leftovers taste and then decide. A good weekend, a good day, and a good night. :)