Good Eats and Trick or Treats

Happy Hallowe'en!

I've gotta say that I have enjoyed the holiday more today than I have for a long time, despite the fact that I did not dress up, nor do I have any children to dress up. My amusement this year came from the little things that are so enjoyable about the season. Tasty treats, children's smiles and the autumn elements.

I started my day off with a steaming cup of pumpkin chai tea from David's Tea. This is an exquisitely flavourful tea that is only available for purchase in the fall, so you have to make sure to stock up for the entire year at this time. It also has cute little pumpkin candies in the loose leaf blend, which makes it the perfect start to an All Hallows Morn.

My next order of business this morning was to bake a sweet treat to take into work (I'm not crazy; I didn't go to the office until the afternoon so it's not like I got up super early or anything...well actually I did but that was for the puppies, not to slave away in the kitchen). I'm a sucker for a good cupcake, so naturally I turned to that department. I have a nice moist chocolate cake recipe that I usually use, but it's not as rich and sweet as I wanted for these cupcakes so I decided to do some surfing to find something else. I'm so glad I did! I found the best chocolate cupcake recipe ever at this blogsite. The cake is fantastic, although to be honest next time I will add a bit of melted semi-sweet chocolate to the mix because it still wasn't as chocolatey as I would have liked. The cupcakes were, however, the moistest, airiest and most delightful cupcakes I have ever made. Scrumptious! I used the cream cheese icing recipe from the same site. I ran into one snare with the icing, however, in that I didn't have orange food colouring and wasn't aware how much yellow would be required for a vibrant orange, so I just didn't have enough on hand. The result is a very pale orange with chocolate piping. Not the greatest first attempt at fancy cupcakes, but I'm pleased enough with the results to post a photo, so they can't be that bad.

My second project of the day was seasoning and roasting the pumpkin seeds from the jack-o'-lantern that I carved yesterday. I had decided that despite the no children factor, I would carve a pumpkin this year. It's something I haven't done since I was in grade school. At first it seemed a bit strange to be sitting in my kitchen alone with a butcher's knife and a large squash, although one of the greatest things about having a blog is that I can justify anything that I do by simply saying: "It's for my blog". And really, it was fun.

The carving went pretty well, as you'll see at the end of this post, although I couldn't remember having such an easy time gutting the thing. Since I was a kid, has a particular group of pumpkin scientists been toiling away to create a Supergourd just for lazy gourmands' Hallowe'en carvings? Or am I just old enough now that what seemed like a lot of work is no more? And what happened to the mere handful of seeds that I can recall salvaging from the thing? This is to say that the inside of my pumpkin was mostly empty except for a veritable bounty of seeds. I hardly had to scoop out any innards, just pull a few stringy pieces and voila! A hollow pumpkin ready for carving! I happen to enjoy roasted pumpkin seeds immensely, so I was pretty stoked with my loot.

I rinsed the seeds of any pumpkin flesh in a colander and set them on two cookie trays to dry overnight. This morning I doused them all in a bit of canola oil (not my favourite choice: next time I think I'll use olive oil or maybe butter; I've seen recipes using egg white as well) and then seasoned them with different spices I found in my cupboard. I decided to quarter the batch of seeds and spice each quadrant with a different flavour: Montreal steak spice, cayenne pepper, curry and za'atar spice. The last one is a Lebanese spice blend that is commonly thyme, sumac and sesame seeds along with a bit of salt, although I bought my blend in Boston and the label doesn't say exactly what is in it, so there could be other flavours there as well. Maybe oregano, but I'm not entirely certain. The roasting results were a pleasing and crunchy snack that admittedly could be improved upon by adding a bit of salt or garlic salt to those spices that didn't already have salt as an ingredient; mainly the curry and cayenne pepper. Their normally bold punch of taste ended up a bit bland without a bit of salt. Regardless, this was a snack that I truly associate with Hallowe'en, and it was much appreciated! 

After work came the hour most anticipated: Trick or Treat Time! The children in the village go out to beg for candy between the hours of 4 and 7pm, so I was ready and waiting with my jack-o'-lantern display outside of the door and my bowl of candy inside. What I was not quite prepared for is that although the kids may knock or ring the bell (or they very well may not), they will quite certainly reach for the handle and let themselves in. Apparently it's the norm here, and I would venture to guess that many aboriginal communities are the same, although for someone coming from The South it's a bit off-putting at first. These were expected visitors, however, so I really couldn't be startled by little witch or vampire heads that peeped in the doorway at me. The puppies, watching from the backyard, were intrigued by the flow of strangely dressed traffic. I offered Nanuq to one boy instead of candy, and he accepted; but of course I couldn't part with my little polar bear. He would have fit in the boy's bag. Reina, not a chance.

The little ghouls and princesses proved to be too overwhelming for my candy stash; I ran out in under two hours. Next year I'll have to buy more than 140 pieces, I suppose. I brought in the pumpkin, turned off the lights and spent the next hour pretending no one was home. This was tough. The doorbell rang a few more times, although I had had the foresight to lock the screen door so the little ones (or not so little; there were more than a few older kids with nary a costume in sight, but I won't complain about that because this is what grown-up people do and I am not a grown-up!) couldn't sneak in and raid the pantry or start a riot.

The final delight of today was unexpected but oh so pretty! The Northern Lights were glowing enticingly so we drove out of town to watch them for awhile against the staid silhouettes of the spruce trees. One beam created a green streak across the entire sky from one horizon to the other. The stars were also vibrant, so the show was quite spectacular. Unfortunately I don't possess a camera of the quality required to capture such things for all infinity, so you'll have to take my word for it.

The last day of October has marked a truly satisfying day here in The North, although I have to end this post with a thought on what Hallowe'en ultimately means to me...

...IT'S LESS THAN TWO MONTHS 'TIL CHRISTMAS!