Round up yer pumpkins!

Things were all slow and then in typical Hollywood fashion, they got busy. My next few days are as such: audition, workshop, agent interview, improv performance, web series shoot, improv rehearsal, class. The weekend is the new Mon-Wed.? I am taking next week off from being a blogger. And then oooohhh and then! Then it’s Pumpkin Week in Spring! In the meantime, enjoy a recap of the previous pumpkin dayz:

Yes, Mom, I meant to say “dayz”.

The very first of all the pumpkins madness was a savory pumpkin sandwich:

Next came a shake of oats and pumpkin:

Then there was another prettier shake recipe:

Then something terrible:

I closed out year one with waffles:

Year two! It was exciting, kiddos. First thing, I mixed pumpkin into my eggs. WHAT!?

Then I got even more wild and put it in my salsa.

Next up, I did probably my most adored recipe-in terms of people hitting the site and re-pinning, in my very of recipe for pumpkin soup.

I can never stay away from my mistress Chocolate Covered Katie for long, and on the fourth day I made her Pumpkin Bread in a Bowl and her Pumpkin “boatmeal”:

The last day was a conundrum in that the recipe could have fitted into either my un-pizza or my pumpkin weeks. Another popular recipe, it was, too. I give you, Pumpkin Cornbread Pizza:

Naturally I’ve made pumpkin more than just during pumpkin week. How can I resist all the delicious pumpkin recipes prostrating their whorish orange goodness in front of me in Autumn? There have been pumpkin chia puddings

I tried a couple of pumpkin bar recipes but will only bore you with one picture:

And once upon a time, right when I was starting a-blogging, I made a big ol’ pumpkin. And wow, my photography is not great now, but it has gotten better than this:

See y’all in a couple weeks!

Second Annual Un-Pizza Week Day Two: Un-pizza hummus

The picture is horrendous. Apologies. It probably won’t happen again-ish.

Let’s talk.

Does Chocolate Covered Katie taste like chocolate?

Seeing as her cookie dough hummus tasted like cookie dough, it seems vaguely possible.

Considering the amount of chocolate I’m guessing she probably consumes it seems even more possible.

What is it about her that makes me think kinky thoughts like “what does she taste like?”.

I am terribly shameless in the (virtual) face of the bloggers I admire.

Just as half the planet is shameless in the face of a big ol’ pizza pie.

And that was my half-ass segue to today’s un-pizza creation, which you are sure to be at least half as shameless in the face of as you would be if confronted with a regular pizza-pizza.

Today, we tackle pizza hummus, which Katie calls melty even though it is not melty, but melty sounds good, no?

Per her request, I can only link you to Katie’s pizza hummus, so here ya go. Go on, now.
If you want Gruel on Katie (delish in so many ways) her is the round-up of her recipes I’ve tackled:

Pumpkin Bread in a Bowl
Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal(boatmeal)
Cookie Dough Balls
Vegan Crustless Quiche
Pumpkin Bars
Singleton Muffin and Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal
Cake Batter Ice Cream
Beautiful Blueberry Concoction aka soy-free love potion
Healthy Ranch Dressing
Katie’s cookie dough dip

It is a pudding

I figured I had better give you a non-British-sense-of-the-word pudding. I’d baited you with my two non-pudding puddings.
And then I thought of making a more jello-mold type pudding. My experiments substituting agar for gelatin in fruit jello molds are pretty:

Pretty, but not yet perfected. You’ll note I didn’t unmold that molded agar-jello. There’s a good reason for that.

Then I remembered this recipe I tried from that vixen Katie and combined both my agar n fruit experiments to create a recipe I am going to call more or less: My own.

My own pudding.

Sort of. It is thick, anyway. And sweet. But it is nothing like that gelatinous goop spooned forth from the Jello packs.

That color is all-natural y’all! And it’s hard to see but there are voluptuous cherries in this:

Voluptuous fruit. Yah.

My own chocolate cherry pudding(inspired by Chocolate Covered Katie, any old jello recipe, and a desire to have a healthy-ish and less sickeningly sweet form of these because I am the only one who likes the cordial filling anyway)
1 1/3 cups unsweetened chocolate almond milk
1 heaping Tbsp. agar
1 heaping cup of frozen sweet pitted cherries
Five-ish drops of cocoa stevia( thanks Averie!) plus any more sweetener of choice
1/2 tsp. almond extract

Mix agar and milk in a small saucepan and let sit for about five minutes. Then bring to a boil, reduce heat and let it simmer until the agar is dissolved. That is more or less the same instructions on the package of agar flakes, and about the same as listed in this post by mzzzz Katie.
Let that shiz-nit cool in the fridge and don’t worry about it separating.
Add all but 8-10 cherries, plus remaining ingredients and use an immersion blender to blend the heck out of it. Divide cherries between a couple of ramekins then add pudding.
Admire the purple hue. Devour voluptuously, whatever that means to you.

Addicted to love

I’m actually not addicted to love, but I do become addicted to stuff I love. And when it comes to rehab I say No. No. No.

I am addicted to cooking from kinky-or-not(?)Chocolate Covered Katie’s eponymous blog.
I’ve made more things from her site than any other blog. I’ll give a little rundown at the end of this post.

An actual substance I legitimately love with addictive qualities happens to be cookie dough. So Katie’s Cookie Dough Dip had been on the to-make list for far too long.

I love her, I love dough. What else am I currently in love with? The cast of my play. My trifecta is complete. Crap, I thought trifecta just described a union of three great things but looked it up and found that it is a bet where you bet on the first three winners in exact order. I stand corrected.

Katie, cookie dough and the cast are not a trifecta. They are a triumvirate. That IS correct. A set of three. Specificly they are a triumphal triumvirate. The hat trick of addictive loves.

Katie’s recipe was naturally gluten-free, as are many of my castmates. Geez, these loves were meant to be. And the Midsummer(tickets here!) cast most certainly would need feeding for our sold out Sunday matinee, oui? That is where I served this up.

We are a sordid group, us thespians.
Here’s the green room evidence:

I think I’m in love with them. Oh yes. Meow.
Perhaps I have kinky-ness to rival that which potentially resides in Katie my chocolate covered vegan blog-writer-love? I do make use of a whip in the play. You make the call.

First make Katie’s Cookie Dough Dip.

I served these with sea salt dusted crackers for the salty-sweet goodness and made mine with peanut butter as the nut butter, brown sugar as the sweetener, and added just a pinch of love. That was cheesy. But it’s the truth.

The Katie round-up. Not obsessed, just in love:

Pumpkin Bread in a Bowl
Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal(boatmeal)
Cookie Dough Balls
Vegan Crustless Quiche
Pumpkin Bars
Singleton Muffin and Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal
Cake Batter Ice Cream
Beautiful Blueberry Concoction aka soy-free love potion
Healthy Ranch Dressing

Too busy for fancy

Two reasons to make this recipe:
1)Time
2)The name

Play rehearsals are heating up! A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens in two weeks and many of my nights are in el teatro.

I would love to get all fancy and make things requiring multiple bowls and saucepans.

Hell, I even would loved to get all pretty like Katie did and make a parfait with this cherry oatmeal recipe, which requires a rest in the fridge was waiting for me to complete it when I got home and I was not in the mood to layer. I was in the mood to gobble.

The name? Well I’m in a pretty rock n roll production of Midsummer so…
So if you have a busy night ahead, start this recipe for Cherry Bomb Oatmeal
ahead. Get home and finish then eat. Be. A. Rock. Star.

And come see Midsummer! For tickets:
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/243225, or by calling the studio directly at 323-601-5310
And the Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/events/238549702925183/

One is not enough

Neither one muffin, nor one recipe.
Katie, you did it again. This single-serving muffin was fan-friggin’-tastic.
So go get this recipe and make it-and um, you may want to double the recipe. Then tell Katie she rocks. A lot of blog readers do these days but that is because she does. Like, totally! Sorry, valley girl moment.
So maybe the point of this recipe is that it only makes one. But when it comes to bread products, I eat for two: me and…you. That’s right. I eat a second just to MAKE SURE its good enough to share the recipe with you. Except I couldn’t with this muffin since it only made one. I’m talking in circles. I’ll stop.
So a week later I decided to tackle another single serve Katie recipe, this one for a Cinnamon Roll Baked Oatmeal.

I feared wanting more but this recipe was bigger and have the option of cooking it as one big portion or two smaller so I stuck with it. I figured that the extra large portion would cancel out my need for seconds: I cooked it as one.

Yeah, duuuude. This hit the spot. It was after midnight and I wasn’t up to making frosting so I slathered with smart balance. Mmmmmm, slathering. It’s like lathering without the bubbles. Hopefully sans soapy taste too.
This Boatmeal is good stuff! I would add a touch more cinnamon in the future, but I’m a cinna-holic, take that as you will.

Pumpkin Time Again

I’ll explain the picture in a minute.
I finally succumbed to the autumn urge to pumpkin it up. And now I will pump(clap, point) you up! Sorry, SNL moment. Hans and Franz.
Since I held out on pumpkin recipes for the last post, this time I am showing you two. One vegan, created by the ever-lovely Katie, which you see at the top of the post. These pumpkin bars are so friggin’ fantastic. I barely managed not to eat the whole pan the first night I made them.
Then the next night I had a night shoot playing a goth, AGAIN:

Night fell, the shoot went on forever and at last at 4 am I arrived home with fake blood crusting on my neck, having been killed by vampires. Delicious image, no? I was starving and gulped down half the pan of these. Glad I had saved some. In honor of the goth-y state I was in when I consumed these, I took a picture of them with a comic about goths I clipped way back in the 90’s from a zine. Remember zines? Yeah, nineties grrl power. And goth power. And stuff.
Anyway, black attire or no, bloody or not, hop on over to Katie and check out the recipe for these bars.
And now, the non-vegan pumpkin bar:

This is the one that opened the floodgates of pumpkin. The gateway bar. Once you start, you can’t stop. It is addictive. I had been wanting to make this recipe for Pumpkin Bars from the Poppin’ Fresh Homemade Cookies cookbook, published by Pillsbury since…oh since I bought the book at a sixth grade book fair. A lot of other pumpkin recipes from other sources as well as a six year bout with anorexia distracted me from getting around to it.
Well done on this recipe, Pillsbury authors!
Incidentally, the Pillsbury Dough Boy(along with the Michelin man) was the inspiration behind the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. And I know him. The man who built and wore the costume. he’s not puffy. He says he filled in as Slimer occasionally during the film shoot. These are the folks I met at the parties when I was seeing a professional propsmaker. Ah, Hollywood. I digress.
I wish I had had cream cheese, I’d have frosted these suckers. But I did not.
Observe this picture of these bars:

Yep. That is some light Smart Balance I am putting on them. Incidentally, this variety of it is vegan. Not all Smart Balance is even vegetarian. One variety(the light heart right kind, I think?) has fish oil in it. Gross!
Now we’ve covered Katie, zines, goth-iness, vampires, fake blood, Ghost Busters characters, Hans and Franz, and fish oil.
So eat. Write a zine. Pump yourself up. Do a little dance. Make a little love, if you like.
Which of these activities are you doing tonight?
Let’s get to the recipe.
Pumpkin Bars(adapted from Poppin’ Fresh Homemade Cookies by Pillsbury)
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup splenda or stevia(or just use a full cup of sugar)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cloves
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
2 eggs
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Sift dry ingredients together. Add wet and mix it up. Mix it good. But not too good, no need to beat this stuff. Pour into a sprayed 9×9 pan and bake til…done. I don’t remember how long I cooked these. I’m guessing a half hour more or less. But I took them out when slightly underdone because that is how I like them. Bottom line, take them out when they reach the state of done-ousity you prefer.

Balls for Birds, Especially Pujols

Oh happy night last night! I’m talking about Pujols’ three homers. Take that Rangers!
And in honor of Cardinals baseball, I give you cookie dough balls.

Oh Katie, you feed my addiction. For dough. You have so many variations on dough on your blog it makes me dizzy. And giddy. And removes my ability to filter my 13-year-old boy sense of humor which is why I giggled(like a school girl, how’s that for irony) when I came to the instruction to “insert lollipop sticks(or any long object, really)” into these. I fell down on inserting things into these Cookie Balls that were supposed to be Cookie Dough Pops. Cause I prefer balls to long objects. When it comes to food! Don’t let your mind slip into the gutter mine occupies. Or do. Sometimes it’s fun.
I enjoyed these balls. They are quite healthy, raw, and for my mom, gluten-free if made with the correct flours. I opted for a mix of oat flour and whole wheat.
They were not so photogenic which is why I put them on this adorable cat plate(a smashing gift from Eleanor, the fwife i.e. best friend I’d marry if I were gay and she was not married) and played around with photoshop…
Oh yikes, just realized Katie lives in Texas. Sorry. Hope you’re not a Rangers fan although since you are awesome, I’ll forgive that if need be.
So go to Katie’s blog, get the recipe and mix em’ up.
Unless you are a Rangers fan. No balls for you!
Sorry. Normally I am not like this. Two games won, two to go!

Not a purple people eater

OF COURSE NOT! I’m vegetarian and people count as meat, purple or not. But that is not the real question. The real question is the ongoing debate(mostly in my head)on whether or not Chocolate Covered Katie is a kinky gal or not. Then I came upon a post entitled “Soy-free love potion”, which makes me think maybe she is actually a romantic? Of course, she could go both ways. I mean, love potion? Could be romantic. Could be twisted.
The recipe on this page was for this delightful frozen blueberry concoction which she alternately refers to as love potion or lavendar cream. If it actually were lavendar flavored, as is so trendy these days, I’d be out. I hate perfume-y floral flavor. But it wasn’t, and it made use as agar as a gelatin substitute, which I’ve been wanting to learn about, so I was doubly in.
This grew on me, bite by bite. Maybe it does have magical properties. As in, it will make you love it. Be careful with those love potions. You never know what you’ll fall for. Although a healthy, blueberry-y frosty concoction is a pretty safe thing to love, methinks.

EEEEAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGG!!!roar.

That was my scream. For ice cream. What else would I scream for, Jim Beam? Well somebody might but not I. Your favorite team? I might. A perfect seam? I’m stopping now.
Chocolate-Covered Katie has really been my main blog homegirl. I want to make almost everything on her site except things with coconut in them. It has been hot, so I decided to give her vegan cake batter ice cream a whirl. Literally. You freeze the base for it then put it in your blender. It contains sugar and almond milk, so it has to be good.
I am just sending you to her link for this one because I did nothing to alter the recipe-I did go for the option of using butter flavoring(which is vegan, according to Katie-it’s by the vanilla extract at the store) instead of coconut butter, and I left out the sprinkles. Though if I could get my hands on a container of the rainbow chips in rainbow chip frosting I’d put those in. Or maybe I should have just put a scoop of frosting on the ice cream. I would do that.
This tasted pretty darned good, I thought. It grew on me with each bite. But then again I love almond milk. I’m thinking I’m going to play with this one-make one with chocolate almond milk, use different flavored extracts…but first I really need a new blender.
Here be the link: Cake batter ice cream