Tag: Halloween

Review: Creamy Pumpkin Pasta

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This week I had the luxury of free time and leaving work on time! We just finished a project workshop and my next set of action items are on hold until I get the needed materials. This means I’ve had a bit more free time at work to pick up other projects that were put on hold to prioritize materials for this workshop. It’s been nice to get back into the other projects and have a bit of a change-up, but by the end of this week, the main project has picked up again so we’re back to it!

Good thing is that I’m really enjoying the project and the work that I’m doing. We’ve had a few late nights associated with this project, but I always feel energized at the end of the day. We still have a lot of work, but I know we’ve made great progress and it’s great to be a part of it.

As we begin to enter the next stage, there’s “chatter” that we may be able to travel to some of the different site locations. Fingers crossed! I think it would be great to see this project implemented at some of the locations and get a better understanding of the impact it will have. There may even be an opportunity for some international travel which would be very cool!

To get into the spirit of Halloween and fall, I decided to make a recipe that had pumpkins in it! Pumpkin is not an ingredient that I regularly (or ever) cook with, so I was excited to give this a go. I was a bit relieved to be using pumpkin puree rather than having to buy a pumpkin and start from scratch.

Pumpkin is one of the best-known sources of beta-carotene, a powerful antioxidant.

Pulled from Medical News Today

I found this recipe from The Washington Post which surprised me a little. I never think of looking on these types of sites for recipes, but they have some great suggestions! I’m really thinking about subscribing to get the weekly recipe ideas. They always look delicious and easy to follow.

All the goods minus the protein we added! I have two cans of pumpkin puree pictured here, but I only needed one. I also only needed one out of the 4 bottles of chicken broth.

I would say that this recipe took me about 40 minutes to make including prep work. I try to use as much fresh stuff as I can because I personally find that it tastes a little better, but you could easily cut down on prep time by purchasing prepared items.

The one thing I absolutely loved about this recipe was how easy it was. I’ve found that blog posts tend to give a lot of details for how to heat up your oven, or how to chop up your onion, and sometimes you can get lost in the weeds. These directions were very clear, very short, and very direct (directions my Fiery Red personality loves!).

The big mix! Plated with the extra goodies really makes this look delicious.

I would say this is one of a few recipes that for me, turned out exactly or very similar to the photos displayed in the article. The article suggests serving the pasta with steamed broccoli. It wasn’t clear to me if that was intended to be on the side or mixed in, so I mixed my steamed broccoli into the pasta and it was a great addition. I also switched up other additions such as protein. One night I added some leftover balsamic marinated chicken and another night I added dried prosciutto. Even though I loved this dish, I think it would have been a bit plain without some of these additions.

Rating

10/10

Recipe

Pasta with Creamy Pumpkin Sauce

This might be my new favorite comfort food. It was really easy to make and for me, gave a new twist on the classic pasta with marinara sauce. I would 100% recommend trying this, and please do and let me know what you think! Some notes and things I learned:

  • I think I somehow made it a bit drier than it was intended. I’m not sure how, but maybe I needed a bit more liquid or not to cook the sauce for as long
  • Adding protein to this was a great idea. It really upped this recipe. My recommendations:
    • Small broken up pieces such as chicken, prosciutto, beef, etc.
    • I think anything could work honestly, even some shrimp, etc. Experiment with it!
  • Don’t forget to add the sage and parmesan on top!
    • I forgot for the first bite, but added it for the second and it was even better
The final product!

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White Bean and Sausage Rigatoni

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I think I need to start taking notes of what happens every week because half the time I end up forgetting. Last week is a bit of a blur, and this week, Monday felt like the longest day, and Tuesday felt like Thursday. And it’s only Wednesday…

Not too many updates. Module 2 of fall semester is going well. I feel like I’m actively participating in class and actually retaining and learning the information, whereas Module 1, it felt like it was going in one ear and out the other. Even though I’m taking an extra class this module, I feel that I have more time for myself and a better handle on everything.

Honestly, it’s probably all due to my calendar update. I re-vamped the whole thing. It’s a little scary to look at because it’s so overwhelming, but it really keeps me on track. I’ve put EVERYTHING, like literally ~everything~ into my calendar. This includes when to wake up, my morning routine, reminder for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, homework/study time, gaming time, bed time, everything. And it’s been really great actually. I used to feel like I couldn’t do certain things like working out or playing a game because it didn’t fit into my schedule. But now that I’ve allocated time to do those things, it’s actually really easy to do them and a lot of the time I end up being ahead of schedule rather than behind schedule. And if something ends up not fitting, I don’t feel bad because I know I’ve accomplished so many other things in my day. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, I would highly recommend doing this, it really helped.

I also started using these notepads that my sister gave me a while back. They’re called “Today’s Plan of Attack” and its split up into most critical, would be nice, and not a chance. It’s pretty limited space which is good because it means I can’t over-pack my day. And then I get to cross things off as I finish them, which is really satisfying and makes me feel like I’ve accomplished so much, even if it’s just a minor task.

Anyway. Halloween weekend a friend of mine won a brownie and cookie making kit, but wasn’t going to use it, so I ended up making it. Just the brownies, the cookie box is still on my counter. I’m not a great cook, but I’m very comfortable cooking and following cooking recipes to make something edible. Baking on the other hand is a whole other story. I don’t think I have ever baked something that has turned out how it was supposed to. I don’t know why. I follow the directions and things still turn out burnt, or undercooked, or just plain ugly. These actually turned out kinda okay! It was really exciting. They were really painfully sweet, but good all the same. I didn’t take a picture, but the box came with a coffin cut out and some icing, so we (I) got to decorate the brownies to look like coffins, post-Halloween. It was a lot of fun!

Aside from my questionable baking skills, I made a rigatoni recipe which turned out delicious (I think I say that every week…). I had a bit of help cooking the sausage because anything other than chicken makes me a little nervous that I’m undercooking it, and we definitely don’t want that. The recipe was really straight forward, and there actually wasn’t a whole lot of prep time, mostly cooking time for the sausage. I also thought I took photos, but apparently I only took like 3… soooo sorry about that. Must have slipped my mind.

The recipe for this week is from Better Homes and Gardens, New Cook Book, 16th Edition. As you can probably guess, this recipe is located in the Pasta section of the book. The book is like 700 pages long, so there are a lot of other really good recipes and ideas in here, some of which I’m hoping to try and share with you in the future.

I had nearly double for everything except for the beans and I think I should have bought 2 cans. They weren’t overwhelming but there also wasn’t really enough to realize that they were there. I think it would have been nice if there were more. I also noticed that the sausage the recipe recommends is PRE-cooked. That saves a WHOLE lot of time. So, for next time, I will buy already cooked sausage so I don’t have to struggle again. This turned out really great. I didn’t add in the dried basil, but having the fresh Basil added on top was a really nice touch. And I of course added loads of Parmesan cheese. Since I decided to cook the sausage, it took me much longer than 20 minutes to prepare this, but overall the recipe was really quick. It was a good cozy meal.

After preparing this, the rest of the night consisted of watching yet another episode of Monsters & Myths. We finished The Haunting of Bly Manor the night after Halloween. The whole season was SO good, and the ending kinda sucked. It was just so underwhelming. Like they had this great buildup and then were like “oh, we need to wrap it all up in this last episode.” It was a little disappointing. But overall, the show itself was really good. Next up: Christmas Movies!!!

Deciding between a zucchini dish or a pork dish for next time. We’ll see 🙂

To be continued…

Gabriela

Sweet Potato-Quinoa Chili

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Happy Halloween!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. It’s so much fun to decorate for. I, of course, went all out! I found a lot of great stuff on Amazon for pretty cheap and a lot of stuff at Dollar Tree. I didn’t want to spend too much money so these stores ended up being great. I had a mini get together (7 people maximum) for Halloween, just to get some friends together for a post-Finals break. We all live alone or with a roommate and haven’t had much to any interaction since grad school started so I felt comfortable with a small gathering, but definitely made sure everyone who came was also practicing COVID-safe guidelines. It turned out to be a lot of fun.

I was planning on posting this on Wednesday, for it’s usual bi-weekly scheduled posting time. But it’s amazing just how overwhelmingly busy I am. Even the other day, I had a headache all day simply because I was stressed and didn’t know how I was going to get everything done that I needed to get done. I really can’t imagine posting this every week. It doesn’t take very long to make a post, but it is time that is devoted to something other than my studies. Even though I have free time for taking a break, that break time is specific for break time, not blog time. So the two week schedule is really manageable and half the time I’m surprised that it’s already been two weeks, so I can’t imagine how it would be if I posted every week. Plus it gives me a chance to take a break from making recipes when I need to (like I am this week).

For the Halloween season, my friend group and I started watching The Haunting of Bly Manor which is on Netflix. I’m not a big horror person and I’m typically the person that sits there with my eyes closed and my hands covering my ears, but this is actually a really good show. The first few episodes made me nervous, but now that I know what kind of “surprises” are expected to be in store for the rest of the show, I’m okay. Now it’s picking up and getting really good! All of the hidden details and background stories are coming out and everything’s connecting. We have ONE episode left (which we’re hopefully watching tonight) and I CAN’T WAIT.

I ended up making this meal (and next post’s meal) with a friend because we’ve started to watch this show on Netflix called Monsters & Myths, which is a docu-series talking about why certain myths have lasted so long, and what makes them so good/interesting. I highly recommend. It’s actually really good.

This week I made Sweet Potato-Quinoa Chili which is a recipe I found in Eat This, Not That! magazine. It was really easy to make and I (for once) followed the recipe perfectly. I think I was also pressured because someone else was going to be trying my food, so of course it HAD to be good. I only messed up once (with groceries….again). The probably with recipes is that they don’t say “Buy 3 red bell peppers.” They say “Use 3 cups red bell pepper,” but I don’t know how many bell peppers that correlates with! So I typically buy more so that way I know I for sure have enough. It worked out fine, I used the extra stuff for other meals, but still.

The recipe was really straight-forward and the only thing that took time was the chopping. Other than that, everything just sat happily in the pot to cook. The Greek yogurt, green onions and fresh cilantro are actually all toppings to the dish, and are not incorporated in to the actual cooking. I didn’t know this and bought a BIG tub of Greek yogurt, only to use a little scoop. Even though it was a small scoop, the Greek yogurt really balances out the spices and density of the quinoa chili, so even though it’s a small aspect, it really makes the dish come together.

To finish off our (my) hard work, we had the bowls while watching Monsters & Myths. A relaxing weeknight in preparation for a chaotic week. I feel like I’m finally getting into the flow of grad school, so maybe it’ll get easier from here on out? We’ll see. Probably not.

Next time is a rigatoni dish, so stay tuned!

To be continued…

Gabriela