Happy Halloween

Monday, November 02, 2009

After the Calabasas Pumpkin Festival Izzy was all about painting pumpkins. So we bought a few small ones for her to paint with Grandma Sunny. And then I carved a few for Ed and I (mainly to roast - for recipes see below).







The kids daycare throws a Halloween part for the kids and parents. Ed went on our behalf as I was stuck in commuter's h_ll. Izzy dressed up as a fairy. Her costume was still a little too big. Ethan was a monkey. It was too hot at daycare to wear the costume for more than five minutes.




Ed recaps the day and describes the funniest thing and I'm so happy he captured it on film. Apparently, Izzy was asking other kids for their lollipops. One of the boys, Keanan, let her suck on his lollipop. Uh...maybe this is how our kids come home with colds.








Halloween night we went trick-or-treating down the street off of Beachwood Drive. It was great. It is the place to trick-or-treat. The houses were decked out. There were three haunted houses on the street and several wine stations for the parents. One of the neighbors setup a caricature station. It was pretty cool. The rumor is Bill Pullman lives at the end of the street and throws a mean haunted house. At the end of the street we did go through a well-done haunted house, but I can't confirm it was Bill Pullman's. I did find a LA Times article with him that does link him to our neighborhood.





I found a few recipes for pumpkin seeds. What I've read is to get crunchy seeds it's all about drying the seeds. First I started by boiling the seeds in salt water to infuse the seeds for a consistent salty taste. Then I followed Martha Stewart's directions for slow roasting to dry out the seeds before seasoning. I roasted at 250 degrees for a little more than an hour. After turning off the oven, I left them in their overnight. The next day I followed Martha's Sweet and Spicy recipe (but added about 1/4 tsp of cayenne for a little more kick). There are so many different variations to make, but I love the sweet and spicy. They came up very crunchy, but I didn't have anything to compare it to. So next year I'll experiment to see if boiling or not makes a difference and if drying the seeds slowly at a low temperature makes for a crunchier seed.