Halloween Pumpkin Carving

October 21, 2015October 20, 20152 Comments

One of my all time favorite fall time activities is pumpkin carving. I can remember carving pumpkins ever since I was a wee little one. My whole family gets really into it each year and we end up buying a ton of pumpkins just to carve. We use the Pumpkin Masters carving patterns to make our jack-o-lanterns. These patterns really make our otherwise plain pumpkins into great pumpkin masterpieces. I think I would still be doing the two triangle eyes and zig-zag mouth if I didn’t have these patterns to go of off (not that there is anything wrong with a classic pumpkin!) My family has a stockpile of older carving stencils because some of the best patterns are in their older books.

My mom stuck to a witch theme this year

This past weekend, Rose and I made a trip up to New Hampshire in part to see the gorgeous fall foliage but also in a bigger part to carve pumpkins! My mom had about 12 pumpkins waiting for us when we arrived. Here are the lovely and spooky jack-o-lanterns that we made:

My creations for this year

It was so hard to choose which pattern to use because my family has so many good ones!

Rose’s creations!

Now hopefully they will just last until Halloween…

Tell us: do you like to carve pumpkins for Halloween?

Do you use the carving patterns or free hand it?

Which is your favorite pumpkin we carved?? (don’t worry, you won’t offend anyone 🙂 )

Pumpkin Spice Peanut Butter

October 3, 2015October 3, 20168 Comments

You guys it’s happening. Everything is turning up pumpkin spice. It is barely just the beginning of fall and I’ve already heard the infamous PSL muttered a thousand times. Personally, I ain’t a fan but hey, I get it. I get the need to put pumpkin spice and everything nice into everything once fall comes around. I mean have you read the title of this post… guilty as charged!

No, but for reals, it ain’t fall into you have your first delicious bite of pumpkin spice. For me it was this peanut butter that also has some real pumpkin and sea salt thrown in to give a perfectly delicious salty and sweet taste.

It isn’t really fall into you buy ALL the candles from Bath and Body Works either. Oops… sorry bank account. I can’t let fall pass without my whole apartment smelling like ‘autumn’ or ‘vanilla pumpkin cupcake’.

BUT I digress.. back to this pumpkiny pumpkin spice peanut butter. It is so perfect dolloped onto your morning bowl of oatmeal or enjoyed with a banana or apple as a snack. Or, let’s be real, just straight from the jar. So grab a spoon and dig in!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup peanuts
2 Tablespoons pumpkin
1.5 teaspoons coconut sugar
1.5 teaspoons pumpkin spice
1 teaspoon salt

Procedure:

Roast the peanuts at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes, flipping halfway through. You want the peanuts to be toasty brown but not burnt.
Once the peanuts are cooled from the oven, put in the food processor and grind until smooth. This could take anywhere between 4 and 10 minutes. It depends on how smooth of a texture of peanut butter you want.
Add the rest of the ingredients to the food processor and grind until blended.
Make sure to store your peanut butter in an air-tight container in the fridge and eat within a few weeks.

Just as a side note – this peanut butter is very adaptable to how you like your peanut butters – if you like more salt add more salt! If you want it more pumpkiny add more pumpkin! It’s totally up to you! I liked the peanuts to be the dominant flavor so I didn’t add as much as the other ingredients.

There you have it – a tasty fall treat to welcome fall with open arms (and mouths)! Ain’t nothing like some pumpkin spice and everything nice.

Follow Us Around: Apple Picking

September 23, 2015September 23, 20156 Comments

It’s is officially fall!! Phew, now I don’t look so silly with all my fall and Halloween decorations up, or adding pumpkin spice to my oatmeal every morning, or burning fall candles…

Am I the only one who starts fall a few weeks early?? Once September hits, the summer is pretty much over and hello leaves/acorns/pumpkins galore. We even got our first apple cider doughnut before the first real day of fall and I was not the least bit mad.

Over the weekend Rose and I had a Skidmore in Boston get together with fellow graduates that live in the area. The event was to go apple picking at Drew Farm, so naturally we signed up right away and showed up early and eager to go a picking.

The apples were definitely ripe and ready to be picked, at least the mcintosh apples, which, let’s be honest, are the best. We had no trouble filling our bag to the brim. We also might have sampled an apple or two whilst picking.

Once we decided we couldn’t fit any more apples in our bag, we headed back to where the Skidmore group was located and got to enjoy some apple cider doughnuts and apple cider. It was just glorious. I haven’t had an apple cider doughnut or apple cider in a really long time… too long. I forgot what I was missing! Needless to say that probably won’t be my only doughnut of the season.

Now we have a huge bowl full of yummy apples that are begging to be made into a pie or tart or something sweet. And now that it is officially fall I can bake one without any shame or celebrating the changing season too early!

Look at all those gourds! We were so tempted to by some little pumpkins at the farm but decided we best wait so they don’t just sit and rot in our hot apartment.. soon though, soon my little pumpkins.

Happy fall everyone!

Pumpkin Carving

October 24, 2014October 24, 2014Leave a comment

This past weekend we spent at my house in Hanover, New Hampshire visiting my parents. One of the main reasons we decided to go home was so we could carve some pumpkins. My mom and I always get really into carving pumpkins every year and always have a great time doing it.

Ever since I remember we have always used these kits to punch out a stencil onto the pumpkin, which you then carve out. They make amazing designs and always turn out really cool (even if you accidentally cut off your witches finger). Since we have been doing them for years we have an over-abundance of old kits and patterns to choose from. It probably took each of us the longest to actually choose which design we wanted to carve than to actually carve it out.

Since it was our first pumpkins of the year, no one wanted to start with the hardest one. My mom chose to do some skulls for her first one, Rose picked a zombie coming out of the ground, and I chose someone coming out of a coffin.

My mom graciously had already scooped out all the goop inside the pumpkins, so we got to poking our designs right away. This part is the most annoying, and can hurt your hand after a while, but we powered through it. With a quick fill up on wine, we then each started carving. Here are the finished pumpkins!

We picked up the pumpkin carving again on Saturday night after dinner. This time we each picked out two patterns to do. There must have been a witch vibe because both Rose and my mom chose a witch design to start off the night with. I did a Frankenstein one.

For our third pumpkins, my Mom did Dracula, Rose did another zombie type one, and I did a skull and lizard. We were joking the whole time because my mom said some years she likes to do a theme, for instance all Witches, so we were trying to see if anyone had a theme to their pumpkins. Rose was the only one we could see, she had a hand theme. All of her pumpkins were focused on hands, I mean one of them was even called Jazz hands. We started making some hand puns after that.

Once everyone was finished with their last pumpkin we lined them all up and lit them all. They all looked so cool together. Now hopefully they will make it until Halloween night so we can put them out on the porch for all the trick or treaters to see.

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Tag: pumpkins

Halloween Pumpkin Carving

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Pumpkin Spice Peanut Butter

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Follow Us Around: Apple Picking

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Pumpkin Carving

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