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How to Make Pumpkin Seeds: Year 2

October 29, 2010 by 9 Delicious Comments
How to Make Pumpkin Seeds: Year 2

Last year I was a little late (mid-November) on the bandwagon when I posted How to Make Pumpkin Seeds: Year I, so I figured this year I’d try to post before Halloween.

My family looks forward each year to buying our pumpkins from one of the local pumpkin patches. You arrive, get a wheelbarrow and leisurely stroll around the pumpkin rows looking for the perfect pumpkin. I always buy a couple extra just for the seeds. My kids run around in utter delight trying to carry the largest pumpkin they can find. Depending on the patch, they may have hay bales and tractors set up for kids to play on. The owners of the patch we went to this year was giving tractor rides and had created a free corn maze for the kids.

We bought two big pumpkins for my wife and I, and three small pumpkins for our kids, and then a few of those really really small pumpkins just for the heck of it–actually, the kids seemed to be rather attached to them, and it was impossible to resist.

This past Monday, we hollowed out the pumpkins and let the kids carve theirs, so I’m sure the pumpkins will be overly shriveled come Halloween day, oh well. From the 5 hollowed out pumpkins I ended up with 6 cups of fresh pumpkin seeds–perfect for three different batches. Now, I’m the type of guy who rarely orders the same thing at a restaurant each time I visit because I like to experience different foods and flavors. So although I’ve already created pumpkin seed recipes that I like, I couldn’t resist whipping up some new ones either.

This year I’ve created three new recipes: Chipotle Ranch, Sugar ‘n Spice, and Lemon Picante. The Lemon Picante has become my new favorite.
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Filed Under: Recipes, Snacks Tagged With: , , ,

The Best Halloween Candy — No, Seriously.

October 22, 2010 by 3 Delicious Comments
The Best Halloween Candy — No, Seriously.

I’ve gotta’ say, Halloween is a dangerous holiday. It’s too easy to buy candy long before October 31st; it’s even easier to justify buying it early when you say to yourself, “Oh, I’ll stick it in the top cupboard and save it until then…”

Yeah right.

I don’t know of anybody who has ever successfully done that. Before too long, it just starts gnawing away at you because you know it’s there… eat me, eat me, eat me… *sigh* … Two years ago I bought my Halloween candy on October 31st, Halloween Day. I went to the store to find nearly empty shelves and ended up coming back with the stuff nobody wants: stale pumpkin peeps, Sunmaid raisins, and a mini-size candybar mix. Mini size. Really? Halloween is about packing in the goodies, not skimping on treats that you don’t even have to chew before swallowing.

So this year I decided to–yep, you guessed it–buy my goodies early. I bought them two weeks ago during a “weak moment” on aisle 5. Needless to say, I’m going to have to buy more. Dangit. At least there is one huge benefit to buying your Halloween candy early; besides having to buy and eat twice the amount of candy for Halloween, you get the best of the best. No stale pumpkin peeps for me this year.

So this year I’ve rounded up a list of the 10 best Halloween candies (I cheated and added more than one candy to some numbers), that if I had to buy twice this month, I wouldn’t complain.

In no particular order, behold the list…
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Filed Under: Kitchen Sink, Lists (Top 10 & Such) Tagged With: , ,

Does Food Packaging Make You Overeat?

October 21, 2010 by Leave a Comment
Does Food Packaging Make You Overeat?

I came across an article today on Psychology Today that was pretty interesting. It’s basically a quick summary of a study done by Adriana Madzharov and Lauren Block in the October, 2010 issue of the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

Here’s a snippet of the article.

Many snack foods show a picture of what the product looks like. A box of chocolate chip cookies will show sample cookies on the front. A bag of pretzels will show pictures of the pretzels. A box of crackers will show the crackers.

The studies in this paper make three main points…

First, the number of items on the front of the package affects people’s judgments of how much food is inside the package…

Second, when given the chance to actually eat, people ate more food from packages with many items pictured on it than from packages with few items pictured on it.

Third, this effect was strongest…

Visit That Package Made Me Overeat to read more.

Filed Under: Juicy Chatter, Kitchen Yarns Tagged With: ,

One More Summer Has Come and Gone

September 22, 2010 by 5 Delicious Comments
One More Summer Has Come and Gone

Today marks the first day of Fall. It’s official. With that, I’ve now launched The Cooking Dish’s fall design. A special thanks to Glen Moyes for his brilliant design work.

Now that summer is over, I’ll be back to a more regular posting schedule. Every summer I have great plans for this blog. This summer was no different I planned on focusing on a billion—yeah, that’s right… a billion—ways to make incredible smoothies and post them on the blog, but I never got around to it. Do I regret it? No, not really, although I missed all of you. Even though I made smoothies nearly every night and often for breakfast, it felt good to take a break from the ordinary schedule.

This summer I spent some excellent time with family and friends, which was a lot of fun. It was a good summer for me, despite working long hours at my FTJ. We took lots of trips and spent a lot of time bonding–awwwww. Let me share with you some of our good times…

Pictures after the break.
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Filed Under: Chris in Real Life, Family Tagged With: , ,

15 Melon Head Fruit Carvings

September 15, 2010 by 1 Delicious Comment
15 Melon Head Fruit Carvings

It’s sad to think summer is finally coming to an end. It’s also sad that the best watermelons I’ve had all summer long were among the last I’ll have this year. At least I’m ending on a high note, right?

Over the summer, I’ve been experimenting with different ways to cut watermelon. I’ve had a blast as I’ve chopped them away, bit by bit. In hindsight, I probably should have taken a few pictures to share with you. Oh well, maybe next time. As I cut up my latest watermelon for the kids and smoothies, I ended up playing around and cutting faces into the slices, and that’s when it hit me–there had to be somebody out there who has carved a melon head.

So today, I bring you a collection of 15+ melon heads, carved by random people in random places. I’ve tried to credit original sources (as far as I can tell), but the nature of the internet is that it’s nearly impossible to track picture sources down. I’d love to keep adding to this list, so if you know of any others, let me know!
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Filed Under: Kitchen Sink, Lists (Top 10 & Such) Tagged With: , ,

How to Make Lemon Poppy Seed Bread (with Glaze!)

June 4, 2010 by 6 Delicious Comments
How to Make Lemon Poppy Seed Bread (with Glaze!)

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted a recipe, and I think it’s high time I do so again.

Contrary to popular belief I’ve actually been doing a lot of cooking lately. In fact, I’ve been doing so much cooking that I’ve accumulated a gazillion and a half recipes to share with you. Some I’ve found online, others I’ve created from the depths of my inner self–and that can get pretty scary.

Some of the recipes I’ve found are from other blogs that I follow, and today’s lemon bread recipe is an adaptation from the ever popular and addicting blog called Cookie Madness, written by Anna.

I’ve made this lemon bread a few times and this last time around I added the poppy seeds, which I absolutely love–and it’s not because they supposedly make you test positive for doping. Is that even true?

A few tips when making this bread:

  1. Do not pack your flour. You want your flour to be loose so that the bread isn’t overly dense.
  2. Although bread is super delicious right out of the oven, I prefer this bread after it’s cooled down and the flavors have had a chance to mix together.
  3. I’ve tried this bread plain and also topped with a lemon glaze, a chocolate glaze, and a regular glaze. I prefer the lemon glaze.

Alright, that’s enough mumbo jumbo for one post. Let’s get baking. As always, there’s a printable recipe at the bottom of this post. The pictures in this post are a combination of the different times I’ve made this recipe.
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Filed Under: Breads, Recipes Tagged With: , ,