Pumpkin Fun

Little Man has a near-Halloween birthday, so we tend to make a lot out of autumn-themed festivities.  One such activity is the carving of the Jack O Lantern.  This year I think we're still going with insect-themed luminaries.  We will unveil those soon along with a Pumpkin Gelato recipe that Major Obvious is making this afternoon.  In the meantime, here are some of our previous pumpkins and a link to the World Wildlife Federation's stencil page (the source of our butterfly jack o lantern this year).

Happy Carving!

Lunchbox Treats - Pound Cake

Is lunch complete without something sweet?  No.

Original Pound Cake - King Arthur Flour 

Ingredients:

2 cups (4 sticks) butter
2 to 2 1/4 cups granulated sugar
8 extra large or 9 large eggs
4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons brandy or sherry
2 teaspoons vanilla, almond or other flavoring

Directions:

To lighten the cake, separate the eggs before you begin. After creaming the butter and adding the sugar, beat in just the egg yolks. Beat the whites separately until they form stiff peaks, and fold them in after all the other ingredients have been combined.

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl, cream the butter until very light. Add the sugar gradually and then the eggs, one by one, and continue beating until the mixture is very light and fluffy. (An electric mixer can be most helpful and effective here.)

When you cream butter, it may seem at the beginning as if you're just mashing it flat. But if you persevere, you'll begin to see it get "fluffy." What you're really doing is adding air. When you beat the butter with sugar, it becomes even fluffier, evidence of more air. And when the eggs are beaten in, the fluffiness is at its peak. That's why this part of the mixing is so important. The more air bubbles you can beat in at this stage, the more air bubbles there are to expand in the heat of the oven. Baking powder or soda can do part of the work of leavening, but the more air bubbles you can get into a batter manually, the finer and lighter the texture of the finished cake.

In a separate bowl, blend together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Pour the milk into a third small bowl, mix the brandy and vanilla, or whatever flavoring you're partial to.

Alternately add the wet and dry ingredients to the butter/sugar/egg mixture. Pour into a lightly greased tube pan, or two 5 x 9-inch bread pans, and bake for about 1 hour or until the top surface of the cake springs back when you press on it gently with your fingers.

Dirty Dozen

Ok, ok, we get it.  We're supposed to buy organic everything.  We're supposed to buy locally-sourced everything.  But that's exhausting and food is supposed to be FUN.

So is there a crib sheet that tells you when you're really supposed to buy organic?  Thankfully, there is!  More importantly, if you want to buy non-organic fruit or veggies, this list will tell you where you can take some shortcuts if you can't find organic or if your wallet just can't handle the prices. 

Environmental Working Group has published a list of produce that tells you what produce you really should buy organic and which ones aren't so pesticide-ridden, even if they aren't organically-grown.  You can download the guide here and they even have it in app form if you want to just download it to your smartphone.  If you want the app, just type in "dirty dozen" in the App Store.

For those of you who cannot be bothered to click on hyperlinks and want to end the suspense right now, here are the 12 foods that you should buy organic:

Apples
Celery
Cherries
Grapes
Lettuce
Nectarines
Peaches
Strawberries
Spinach
Cucumbers
Blueberries - domestic
Potatoes

Naturally, I was horrified to discover that foods that I buy for my family all of the time (apples, peaches, bell peppers, blueberries) I often buy non-organic.  Whoops!  Oh well, time to attempt improvement and just move forward.