Pumpkin Quinoa, Lemon Mustard Salmon and a Fall Mojito

After making last weeks pumpkin macaroni and cheese, I had some pumpkin left over so I decided to spice up my quinoa with it!

First I prepared 1 cup of quinoa with 1 cup chicken stock and 1 cup water.  You can also choose to do 2 cups chicken stock or 2 cups water.  I personally think that the chicken broth added amazing flavor.  After the chicken broth and water begins to boil, mix in the quinoa and cook for 12 minutes.

While the quinoa was cooking I sauteed about a 1/2 cup of red onion.  Once the quinoa is fully cooked, mix in the red onion and pumpkin along with some cilantro and mint.  Let sit for 15 minutes.

I paired the pumpkin quinoa with a lemon mustard salmon.  I mixed olive oil, dijon mustard and lemon juice until the mixture thickened.   I then placed the salmon flesh side down into the sauce and cooked it at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

I then turned the salmon skin down, added red onion, cilantro and freshly ground pepper on top and cooked for an additional 10 minutes.

The Fall Mojito we made last week was delicious, and it smelled amazing!  It takes about 30 minutes to prepare so plan accordingly.

Ingredients:

2 ounces apple cider

2 cups apple brandy

2 apples cut into chunks

6 cinnamon sticks

3 star anise 

2 ounces spiced dark rum (we used Captain Morgan)

1 ounce simple syrup

mint leaves to taste

1 lime

Step One:

Combine the apple cider, apple brandy, apples, cinnamon and star anise ans simmer for 30 minutes.  This mixture smells amazing and combines so many delicious fall flavors.

While this is simmering, take the mint and lime and muddle them in your glasses.

Once all of the flavors have combined strain and chill the liquid.  We put it in a martini shaker with ice.

 Then add ice cubes, some of the apple pieces and rum to your glasses, pour in the apple cider mixture and top with a cinnamon stick and sprig of mint for the garnish!

Thanks-Tini

In watching an old episode of "How I Met Your Mother" we came across an interesting martini for Thanksgiving.  They called it the "Thanks-tini." 

Ingrediants:

Potato Vodka, Cranberry Juice, and a Bouillon Cube

Thanksgiving dinner in a glass!

For the garnish we used a sweet potato to represent the yams in this Thanksgiving dinner!

Honestly, it tasted just like a vodka cranberry as the bouillon cube did not dissolve.  You can only taste it in the last sip, and even then it just tastes salty.



Saturday's breakfast consisted of a cranberry scone and an Egg Nog latte

Pumpkin Carving

Every year my husband and I host a pumpkin carving party.  We provide all of the food and drinks, but it is BYOP!  As I said in my last post, I love Halloween, so I also love to decorate for it!

Some of our party decor:

Our appetizers for the night consisted of Halloween cookies, crudite, ranch dip, cheese and crackers, and of course Halloween candy.

You may recognize the candy corn from martini night!

Beverages!

Octoberfest and Pumpkin Ale, what else?!?

This year I also tried something different which ended up being a huge hit!  I made Spiked Autumn Punch.

Spices:

Cinnamon sticks, cloves, and splenda.

First  I simmered these spices along with cranberry juice, dry vermouth, and sweet vermouth.  I simmered it until ithe sugar was completely dissolved, and the mixture had bagan to boil.  Then you let it all steep for 1 hour.


Liquor:

 2 bottles dry white wine, 1 bottle full red wine, 1 cup vodka, 1 cup apple brandy.


Then I decided to add two creative touches of my own:

1. Pumpkin Serving Bowl

              

 2. Cranberries

                                                                                                     

It was amazingly delicious, it may seem similar to jungle juice, but it is much less dangerous!





And now the reason we were all there, pumpkin carving!!!!

Before:

After:

Hers

His

My husband and I were the only ones to do our own pumpkins, everyone else did "couple pumpkins."  Here is our group shot.

Which Pumpkin is your favorite?

Fright Night-tini

Last week was EXTREMELY busy so I am a bit behind on my posts!  Halloween is almost here, and it is one of my favorite holidays!!  In honor of this amazing holiday, we did a Halloween themed martini, called Fright Night.  I have a collection of hand-painted Lolita martini glasses, and each one comes with a recipe on the bottom, and this was one of them!

The recipe is equal parts vodka and hazelnut liquor.  That's it!  Super simple!

Just shake the two ingrediants, and pour into a frozen martini glass.

Now time for the garnish.  In keeping with the halloween theme, we choose candy corn as our garnish.

Normally I HATE candy corn but these were flavored candy corn one flavor being caramel.  It was definitely an improvement on the traditional candy corn, although still not my favorite.  Candy corn is very fragile as I found out, which made it very difficult to do as I had planned which was to cut a slit in them, and slide them onto the rim of the glass.  I was successful with one, (botton pic) and the rest just crumbled apart. 

I also decided to throw some of the candy corn directly into the glass, which was good in theory, but the longer they stayed, the sweeter the martini got, until it became too sweet for me to drink!

Here is my final product.

And because I slacked on my posts last week, here are some of my culinary highlights from the week.

Pinto Bean and Chicken Chili:

Ingrediants:

Chicken seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic seasoning, two cans of pinto beans, chicken broth, cayenne pepper, green chili peppers and a jalepeno.

This was delicious!  One tip- be sure to wash your hands throughly after cutting up the jalepeno!!! I did not do that, and ended up getting some in my eye, not a great feeling.

Brown Rice and Black Bean Casserole

This was our Taco Tuesday dinner, and was also very delicious!

Ingrediants:

Chicken, black beans, brown rice, cheddar cheese, green chili peppers, cayenne pepper, cilanto, tomatoes, red onion, lime zest and sour cream.

Cheese and Cracker Appetizer

Brie Cheese, Irish Aged Cheddar, and Pepper Boursin.  This appetizer was so good, it also ended up being our dinner!

My first home-made pumpkin spice latte!