pumpkin seeds, done right.

If you haven’t carved a pumpkin by now, then maybe you’re not going to. But just in case you want to and you have designs on say roasting some pumpkin seeds, here’s the 411 on the how to.




SMOKY, SALTY ROASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS

First, carve out the hole in your pumpkin. Martha Stewart’s new technique on this front is that you should cut your hole in the bottom of your pumpkin, so as not to disturb the pristine aesthetics of the top of your pumpkin with (gasp) a line cut across it. But do you really want to take festive holiday advice from a convicted felon?



So I decided to buck this new trend and hack into mine the old fashioned way: top cut. Take that Martha! While you scoop the freezing cold guts out of your pumpkin and wonder why you wanted to carve pumpkins in the first place, preheat your oven to 375.



Now in my house growing up my mom wasn’t one for taking the care to hose off her seeds before roasting. More like she splatted the whole mess onto a baking sheet and voila: roasted pumpkin seeds. Me, personally, having all that stringy pumpkin flesh roasted onto my seeds makes me want to barf, so I was a little more detail oriented on the pre-roast prep.



First pick out as much of the flesh as you can. Then transfer your seeds to a colander and give them a really good rinse. Transfer to a clean kitchen towel or a couple of paper towels that are still attached together. Pat dry as thoroughly as you can and pick out any remaining threads of flesh.



Transfer to a nonstick baking sheet and lightly toss with a little bit of olive oil. Personally, I used olive oil spray, which worked well to give them just a light coating of oil. If you don’t have a spray (and for god’s sake, don’t use Pam or anything like chemical tasting) simply fill the well of your cupped palm with a little olive oil and rub your palms together. Then give the lot of the seeds a little “how’s your father” and they will be lightly coated with oil. Season however you wish. I used this awesome barbecue salt that I have. It’s essentially a combination of chili powder, smoked paprika, a teensy bit of cayenne, maybe a pinch of sugar and a bunch of sea salt. You could also use salt and pepper, maybe adding some cumin and garam masala for an Indian spiced pumpkin situation; or, a seasoned salt like Lowry’s.



I loved these barbecue spiced pumpkin seeds far more than any other seeds I’ve ever roasted. Normally, I must admit, that the novelty of the roasted pumpkin seeds wears off for me about 10 minutes after they cool to room temperature. But these guys? I have been snacking on since last Tuesday. They are salty and crunchy and delicious and, I feel like, not that bad for you because they are seeds. And like, der, seeds are pretty much chock full of brain developing nutrients. And judging from the grammar and content of this post, I need all the brain development I can get right now.



Oh right, roast them for 15-20 minutes. Checking on the pan to give it a shake. I burnt half of mine, so be careful and take them out when they smell toasty and a sampled one proves to be crispy and crunchy.



Happy Halloween! What are you even being? I am way into Halloween, by the way, because wigs are so funny and I love makeup and drinking and Reese’s products. This year I was going to be the goblin king, Jareth, from the movie Labyrinth (You know? BOWIE: “you remind me of the babe” so awesome) but my wardrobe wasn’t working out. So I’m going to be Tina Turner. The wig I have is sort of interchangeable for both. Be safe and have fun and if you’re in the area, come to my house, I just picked up the dankest selection of candy you’ve ever seen and Paul is making out porch into a scary porch to make kids scream and wet their pants!

dances with meatballs

You know how Native American tradition dictates that every person has a Spirit Animal? And we obviously all hope that ours is something cool and sexy like a wolf, and not something lame like a pigeon or something. Wait. Maybe I’m confusing Native American folk lore with the [intensely terrible] movie Couples Retreat. Regardless, I have a point and I’m going to keep rolling with this. I believe that each of us, in addition to having a Spirit Animal (I call wolf!) have a Spirit Food, and mine is meatballs.



I can’t even believe for one second that I’ve never talked about meatballs on here before. Everyone I know knows that my name is synonymous with meatballs. If you should happen to show up at a party at my house and there aren’t any meatballs, then check my vital signs, because I may have had a stroke or something. Even back in ’99 when I threw a lot more parties where quantity of booze trumped quality of food, I still had meatballs. There have always been meatballs.

My mom taught me her way to make meatballs exactly once, over the phone. The method was loosely explained and anticipated to be understood without any note taking of portion sizes or measurements. She had confidence I would be able to craft meatballs with only the loosest guidelines and she was right. I’m not trying to be conceited but I make a nice meatball and I do so with nothing fancy. No pre-soaked breadcrumbs, no mixing of separate and different meats, just meat, crushed Ritz, parsley, parmesan, one egg, salt, pepper. Handled minimally and rolled loosely into balls that get browned in the oven and finished in the sauce. I’m a firm believer in an “if it ain’t broke” mentality in the kitchen, and my meatballs had served me quite well up until now. I saw no need to rock the boat.



But then last month in Bon Appetit my homegirl, Molly, made meatballs, making claims that these were the most epic meatballs of all time (I’m taking some liberties with her wording). I read the article and accompanying recipe with rapt attention. We were, after all, covering meatballs here. I admired her work and her words as usual and moved on. My meatballs were perfectly fine, thank you very much. But I was a little haunted by her claims. Meatballs are my Spirit Food. Is “perfectly fine” good enough when it comes to the very fabric of my soul? About a week later my mom cracked my world wide open. Informing me that she had made meatballs and “oh by the way Jess, they were the best meatballs I’ve ever made, Jason said so.” I nodded. “I used Molly’s recipe. The one from the Bon Appetit.” My mouth dropped open and I dropped the People Magazine on the counter. Her words sent chills up my spine.



My guru of meatball was switching the script up on me after years of devoted service to her original recipe. My very own brother had endorsed them as the “greatest of all time.” The greatest of all time? I revisited the recipe; I was daunted by the steps. “Are you really necessary milk soaked breadcrumbs?” I wondered out loud in my kitchen. Were all the extra steps worth it? We were talking about my Spirit Food here and I owed it to myself to find out. I would make the fussy meatballs, and I would follow the steps and the recipe perfectly. I would food process homemade breadcrumbs, I would even measure things. I would throw my very own meat safety feelings out the window and follow the directions to braise the raw meatballs in the sauce rather than parbaking them in the oven. I would do it for Molly and I would do it for my mom and I would do it for every woman who’s ever enjoyed meatballs and all of my future party guests for the rest of history. We’re talking about meatballs, and if there is any person out there prepared to seek out the True Path to Epic Meatballs it was me. It is my destiny.

SPAGHETTI and MEATBALLS
(from Molly Wizenberg for Bon Appetit)

SAUCE

1 28 ounce can whole peeled tomatoes
1 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 medium onions, peeled, halved through root end
½ teaspoon (or more) salt

MEATBALLS

1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1/3 cup whole milk
8 ounces ground beef (85% lean)
8 ounces ground pork
1 cup finely ground parmesan cheese (not grated, use smallest hole side of your grater)
1/3 cup finely chopped Italian parsley
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
2 large eggs
2 large garlic cloves, pressed
1 pound spaghetti



To make the sauce: combine both cans of tomato with butter, onions and salt in a large, wide pot. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat; simmer uncovered 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Discard onions. Using an immersion blender, pulse the sauce briefly to break up large chunks of tomato. If you don’t have an immersion blender, chop or squeeze the whole peeled tomatoes before starting the sauce. You want your sauce to have texture, but not whole entire tomatoes floating around in it. Season sauce with salt and pepper to taste. Turn heat down to low while you finish preparing your meatballs.



For the meatballs: combine bread crumbs and milk in a small bowl. Stir until breadcrumbs are evenly moistened. Let stand for 10 minutes. Place beef and pork in a large bowl and break up into small chunks. Add the parmesan, parsley, salt and pepper. Whisk eggs in a small bowl, add the pressed garlic and whisk some more; add this to your meat mixture. Using your hands, squeeze the milk from your breadcrumbs (reserving the milk) and add breadcrumbs to the meat mixture, Using hands, move quickly and lightly to mix everything together until just combined. It’s crucial to the texture of your meatballs that you don’t overwork the meat, and that you likewise have a delicate touch while forming your balls (hee). I’m from a long line of women for whom delicate does not come naturally. Seriously, my mother used to remove seven layers of skin from my face with a damp thumb at the bus stop and she can burp a baby with one swift thwack. My sister and I have often confirmed to each other that dainty touch and a delicate nature are simply not in our DNA. We are frontier women. We could behead a chicken with our bare hands and till soil all day, while 8 months pregnant. Fortunately, we don’t have to do that in modern times, but you get the picture. Strong ladies. Not little. Anyways, I digress. So delicate is something I have to be mindful of. I find that the best way to combine the meat with all the other goodies, with a light touch, but thoroughly combining things is to use a hand "grip" if you will that Molly refers to in her article as “The Claw” (see photo below- what did I say? Those are strong hands yes?). Unbeknownst to me I have been using The Claw for years. I had just never put a title on it. The separation of your fingers is key and The Claw acts as the perfect tool to gently combine everything together in a way that is thorough but not overworked. Once everything is combined, chill the meat mixture at least 15 minutes, or up to one hour.



When you're ready to cook your meatballs, bring your sauce to a simmer over medium heat. Working again with a gentle hand (no kung fu grip) moisten your hands with the discarded breadcrumb milk and form the meat into equal sized balls. Place your meatballs in a single layer in the bottom of the sauce, reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and simmer until meatballs are cooked through (15 to 20 minutes). Personally, I am paranoid about cooking meat and chicken sometimes because I have read too many books/ watched too many food borne illness documentaries, so I checked my meatballs for doneness with a meat thermometer. In the last 10 minutes of cooking, you can cook your spaghetti, if you’re ready to eat (but boil the water before those last 10 min. It takes longer than that to boil water, obvi). Otherwise, this can be made ahead and served later. Just let the sauce and meatballs cool completely before storing in the fridge.



So after all this work, Jess, was it worth it? Um, (pausing in a way I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings) not reaaaallly. In my opinion there were some flaws with these meatballs. First, there’s about 17 more steps than I would normally take to make meatballs. Second, I was hesitant in the first place about cooking the raw meatballs in the sauce without baking them first, and as everything was finishing cooking, I remembered why. When you cook meat in a sauce, it releases a lot of its fat into the sauce. Couple that with the fact that the sauce was already made with a whole entire stick of butter and you’ve got yourself a pretty hardcore artery clogger of a meal here. And you know what? Call it sacrilege but as much as I love pork I don’t love pork in my meatballs. Maybe if it was crumbled Italian sausage? Anyways, I learned a really valuable lesson here though: when it comes to matters of your Spirit Food, trust yourself. I went against my instincts because this recipe deserved a try, but next time I make meatballs, I’m going back to Porky's original recipe. And, because it would be lame to write up the whole recipe above and then simply dismiss it as too much work, I want you to know that you will very much enjoy Molly’s Spaghetti and Meatballs. If you’re looking for a treat and have some extra time on a Sunday, try this recipe out (just don't plan on making any sudden movements for the remainder of your evening- seriously, these will destroy you). At the very least, definitely try making the sauce, it is very, very good and so easy; but if you’re looking to make meatballs and not make a big deal about it, use my recipe below. I do realize this is the longest blog post in history, but I mean, it’s meatballs.



PORKY’S MEATBALLS

1 package ground beef (however lean you like it, 85% is good)
1 cup crushed Ritz cracker crumbs (no substitutions!)
1 cup finely ground parmesan cheese
1/3 cup finely chopped Italian parsley, or about 1 ½ tbs. dried parsley is fine as well
1 large egg
Salt
Pepper



You can feel free to use the sauce recipe listed above, or if you have your own favorite, feel free. Prior to trying the butter and onion spaghetti sauce, I would make a simply tomato sauce with some finely diced onion, a little minced garlic, 1 can whole tomatoes, 1 can crushed and once I got the sauce simmering, I would season to taste with salt, pepper, oregano and basil. As your sauce simmers, make your meatballs. First, preheat your oven to 350. Break meat up into chunks in a large bowl. Add remaining ingredients, bring out The Claw and mix those suckers up. Gently roll into equal sized balls. Place meatballs on a nonstick baking sheet and pop in the oven for about 10-15 minutes. Until they are slightly browned, but not cooked through. Remove meatballs from oven and drop them, one by one, into your sauce. Let the meatballs and sauce simmer. Serve with your favorite pasta, topped with some grated parmesan.




Alternate recipe: PARTY MEATBALLS

Some people think that this is sort of a white trash dish, but you know what? They are snobs because these freaking things are delicious. Follow steps for preparation of meatballs above, cooking the meatballs the full 15 minutes in the oven. Remove meatballs. In a large Dutch oven, or even a Crock Pot if you have one, combine the hot meatballs with one jar apricot preserves and one bottle (normal size jar and bottle, not king sized or anything) of original barbecue sauce (my preferred BBQ sauce here is Kraft original, nothing fancy). Stir everything together so the sauce is mixed well. These can be served immediately or refrigerated until party time. When it’s party time, reheat them in the oven, or serve in the Crock Pot. People will pop these things like Tic Tacs I swear.

making whoopie

‘Memba the Newlywed Show? And the host would always ask “where’s the strangest place that you’ve made whoopie?” and then the studio audience would go “woooooo” and the newlyweds would blush and answer the question and then one time that one guy that said “in the rear?” and it made it onto blooper reels for eternity? Well, this past weekend I made whoopie in the kitchen (studio audience woo) ba dump bah ching! I made whoopie in broad daylight in my kitchen and I made it all by myself. Hey oh! Alright, this is getting gross. It’s just that, I’m a 30 year old woman with the sense of humor of an 11 year old boy and anything that I can even remotely double entendre to death, well, I will.



So popular tradition says that whoopie pies are a “New England phenomenon” (seriously get a load of this unauthorized history of whoopie pies. I love the internet) and word on the street is they got their name because when kids would see these delicious treats on sale at a bakery they would holler “whoopie!” Now, as to where the term “making whoopie” came from, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that it might also have to do with, ahem, exclamations of “whoopie!” but this is unconfirmed. Alright, I’m done. Onto the snack cakes.





This recipe is very simple and straightforward. Trust me, I’m not much of a baker and I wouldn’t lead you astray. However, there were a couple tweaks necessary. Either my oven is well below the displayed temperature or the recipe adapters at Boston Globe are big fat liars, because the original 5-8 minute cooking time was laughably wrong, as were the proportions on how much filling to prepare. I doubled this recipe when I made it, so maybe if you are making just the standard amount (as set forth here), the Globe’s measurements on the filling preparation would be accurate, but to my knowledge, there is no way in hell that ½ cup heavy cream, no matter if it’s beat into creamy oblivion will puff up enough to provide adequate filling for this many whoopie pies. I mean, some things are just mathematical facts. And I am no mathematician (a well documented fact), but I know that whoopie pies with an inadequate pie to whoopie ratio might get you killed in this town, and that’s just a risk that I can’t take.



PUMPKIN WHOOPIE PIES
(found in the Boston Globe, adapted slightly)

For the pies:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 teaspoon nutmeg powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves*
3/4 cup pumpkin puree

For the whoopie:

1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoon confectioners' sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon





*I didn’t have any clove. Clove is one of those spices so rarely needed that it simply is not in my spice arsenal. If you’ve got it, use it. If not use my substitution: pumpkin pie spice (I used about ½ tsp.).



In a large bowl, blend the sugar and oil. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin pie spice. Whisk to blend dry ingredients. Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture. Stir in the pumpkin puree. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.



Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or a Silpat pan liner. Spoon the dough onto the baking sheets, making an even number of rounds, that are approximately the same size. They will spread a bit, but not dramatically so, so just use your common sense on spacing. Now here is where the original recipe said to bake them for 5-8 minutes, which is just a flat out lie. I baked mine for 8, checked on the progress, found them to still be visibly liquid-like. I baked them another 5 and they had started to set up, but the toothpick test came out sticky. All in all I would say each batch was baked closer to the 15-20 minute mark, but I would just recommend you stay close and check on them after 8 minutes and every few minutes after that. You need them to be cooked through, but you wouldn’t want them to brown, burn or dry out.



Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the middle and when it comes out clean, your pies are done. Remove from oven, let cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes, then place on a cooling rack to cool completely. These are surprisingly very workable and easy. I thought I would have to be super delicate, but they’re a very forgiving cookie. As per sticking, they didn’t stick too badly to the parchment paper, but the batches that I cooked on a silpat liner slid off with ease. If you like to bake, these liners are SO incredibly worth having. I only have one but I need more. Easy clean up, perfect cookies and they are very cute, which means they photograph well, which means a great deal to me. Because I am a dork for aesthetics.





While the pies are cooling, prepare your filling. In an electric mixer, beat the cream until it holds soft peaks; add the sugar and cinnamon and continue beating until the cream forms stiff peaks (hee hee). When the cookies are cool, spoon the cream filling onto one cookie and top with another. You may have to prepare another batch of filling, depending on your proportions here, but with a mixer, it’s very easy to whip up another batch. Once filled, I dusted each side with confectioners’ sugar and layered them with parchment paper to travel. I stored them in the fridge, simply because with the whipped cream filling it seemed to make sense; however, if you opted for a frosting-type filling, room temperature would do just fine.

big pimpin

Once upon a time I was a waitress and bartender in a midrange American Bar and Grill. And at that lovely establishment I met many, many wonderful friends who I drank many, many beers with. I am still close to many of these friends today, even though life has blessedly taken us out from behind the Micros and out into the big bad world to seek our fortunes. One such friend from that job just so happens to be an excruciatingly talented graphic designer who is, in my mind, living the dream, having recently gone into business for herself and is, bit by bit, making it work, and making the world a whole lot cuter in the process. She suggested over email the other day that I let her help me make a neat little header for this here blog and the result is that she completely pimped out Porky D. Making it more adorable than I even thought possible! Hope you like the improvements! I’m also in the process of compiling a recipe index, because my sister told me she was looking for my black bean soup recipe for like an hour the other day. Life is hard enough, Porky Dickens should be easy. I will make it happen I promise. In the meantime, much love to Court! You’re the best!

me vs. the 'fridgerator

I have been bad at buying groceries lately. I accidentally bought too many eggs.



So I made a quiche: scallion, pancetta and cheddar.



Just like I did here. But with different fixings.



I made my own pie crust for the first time. Which was more or less a success.



But something about the quiche was off. I think it was the cheese, because it was reduced fat cheddar. And call me crazy, but I just don't trust a reduced fat cheese.



We ate it for dinner but threw the leftovers away. I hate that.