Roasted Halloween Pumpkin Seeds

*from a recipe at Food.com

Ingredients:

• 
  1 1/2 cups pumpkin seeds
• 2 teaspoons melted butter (olive oil or vegetable oil work well) or 2teaspoons melted oil (olive oil or vegetable oil work well)
• salt (This is all I used)
• garlic powder (optional)
• cayenne pepper (optional)
• seasoning salt (optional)
• cajun seasoning (optional)

Directions:

1. 1
   Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
2. 2
   While it's OK to leave some strings and pulp on your seeds (it adds flavor) clean off any major chunks.
3. 3
   Toss pumpkin seeds in a bowl with the melted butter or oil and seasonings of your choice.
4. 4
   Spread pumpkin seeds in a single layer on baking sheet.
5. 5
   Bake for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden brown.
   
   
   YUM!!!!!
   
   Also, check out those pumpkins that these seeds came from. Can you guess which one I carved and which one was Danny's?

My New Favorite Thing

K, well, I already told you about allrecipes.com.

My new love?

Pinterest! I waste hours on that thing. There are so many cute/good ideas under the Food + Drink button. I just can't get enough!

One of my favorite things I have found on the site are these little babies:

Cookie Monster Cookies!

-Pinned by Pamela Murray, from this website: http://sammifong.tumblr.com/post/591658073

I just cannot get over how cute they are. My husband told me I was being too girly when I kept showing him and saying, "Aren't they SOOOO cute????" 

Well, he had a point, but I couldn't help it!

My Secret Love

Oh how I love allrecipes.com. There seems to be a reason every day to look up something on that website. I've used it to make frozen hot chocolate when I needed a chocolate fix. I've used it to help me dress up a can of pork and beans that didn't look very appetizing. I found a recipe for homemade fortune cookies on there that looks difficult, but I can't wait to try it. When I can't call my mom to ask how to cook something, I go to allrecipes.com.

I like that people write reviews of the recipes too. That way I can kind of get a feel for how difficult and yummy each one is, before spending money and time trying a recipe blindly. I have been pretty happy about how easy it is to find and compare recipes. You can even search by ingredients if you have a few things on hand but don't know what to make. You all probably already use this website, but in case you don't I'd like to introduce you. Go check it out, and it might just become your new secret love too.

What do you like about allrecipes.com?

One Crust Pie Recipe (From High School Foods Class)

1 cup flour

½ tsp salt

½ cup shortening*

3-4 Tb water**

*Keep shortening cold.  You don’t want it to melt before baking.

**Use very cold water to keep shortening 
from melting.


Mix flour and salt together. Cut shortening into dry ingredients.


 *TIP: "Cutting in" is a technique used to put tiny chunks of butter or other fat into dry ingredients. A pastry cutter is my favorite way to do this, but two butter knives can be used if you don't have one. Simply cut across the butter, running the knives against each other like you are sharpening them. You are trying to cut the butter into tiny pieces to create pockets of air and make your crust flaky. The end result should be a corn-mealy texture with no big pieces of shortening left in the bowl.


Add cold water to form a dough. Roll out on floured surface and place in pie tin. Be sure to gently sink the crust into the tin. Do not stretch the dough. Poke holes all over the dough with a fork to prevent big air pockets from rising. Do this unless you are putting filling in the pie before baking. Make the edges of your pie look pretty by trimming off excess dough and crimping with your fingers or a fork.


Bake 8 min at 350 degrees or until slightly brown.