Catchy Title that advertises this soup that I made

Oh look, she's doing something with a pumpkin again. Deal with it.

Tonight for dinner I cooked up some Pumpkin soup, topped with pumpkin seed-basil pesto. Kudos to Sunset magazine for giving me the idea for the pumpkin bowls, and a guideline for the recipe. Someone once again clearly has too much time on their hands. I'll tell you here how to make the bowls, soup, and the pesto.

THE BOWLS
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. To start you need six miniature pumpkins.

If they're drunk and can't stand up on their own, cut a (very) thin slice from the bottom of the pumpkin so it sits flat. Set them on a rimmed baking sheet, and rub them (in the least creepy way possible) with olive oil, then top them with salt and pepper.

Yep...that's my pepper shaker.

Bake them for 35 to 40 minutes. When they're done and have cooled off a bit, cut off approximately 2 inch wide lids, and scoop out the insides so there's room for your soup. Once all that stuff is out, ladle in the soup. This is what the pumpkins should look like when you pull them out of the oven:

And this is what it should look like after you've removed the lids and scooped out the insides:

THE SOUP
Ingredients:
1 Large Onion, chopped
1 1/2 tbsp. chopped fresh ginger
2 tbsp. olive oil
4 large garlic cloves, chopped
2 tsp. ground coriander
4 1/2 cups peeled 1-in chunks pumpkin or squash
4 1/2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. pepper

Saute the onion and ginger in oil in a pot over medium-high heat for approx. 5 minutes. Add the garlic and coriander and cook until softened, about 1 minute, then add pumpkin, broth, salt, and pepper. Simmer, covered, until pumpkin is very tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Puree in batches in a food processor until smooth.

THE PESTO:
Ingredients:
1 small garlic clove
1/3 cup fresh basil leaves
1/8 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup salted roasted pumpkin seeds

Grind up the garlic, basil, salt, and 1 tbsp of olive oil in food processor until it resembles a coarse paste. Then add the remaining oil and pumpkin seeds until it is coarsely crushed. Drop small spoonfuls of pesto over the soup in the pumpkin bowls and serve remaining pesto on the side.

Serve with fresh-baked bread!

Halloween Lanterns

Having a Halloween party this year? A great way to set the atmosphere is lighting. Cast some eerie shades of orange with some cheerful light fixture covers! You're going to need basically the same supplies you would with any paper mache project:

Mod Podge, (You can use liquid starch as your adhesive instead if you want), a balloon pump, small water balloons, craft tissue paper, and a paintbrush to apply the Mod Podge or starch. You need water balloons because they are smaller. If you want a bigger lantern, use a standard sized balloon. Just note that the drying process will take much longer, and you will need a lot more tissue. A balloon pump is necessary because if you've ever tried blowing up a little water balloon by mouth, you know it's nearly impossible. (It feels like your entire facial structure is going to implode.)

First, blow up the balloon using the pump. I was going to include a picture of this, but then I changed my mind- it's pretty self explanatory. If you can't figure it out yourself.. I have no words for you.

Tie a knot to keep the air inside, then proceed to cut out manageable strips of the tissue paper color of your choice. Apply the Mod Podge to the balloon, then start pressing the strips of craft tissue onto the adhesive.

After you complete one layer of the tissue on the balloon, let it sit somewhere it can dry for at least one hour. Then apply your second layer, and let that layer dry for about 45 minutes. Then apply the facial features you desire using a different colored sheet of tissue. After that, leave your little tissue-balloon concoction alone for at least a few days- let the balloon deflate a little. If you find the balloon is still sticking to the tissue paper and your creation is sinking in on itself, do yourself a favor and just pop the balloon. You can fix any dents by pressing your finger on the inside of the dried hollow lantern. You don't have to make only pumpkins, you can make other things, like this little Dracula!

Make as many as your light fixture needs, then make sure that there is an opening on the bottom of the lantern large enough to stick it onto the light bulb. WARNING: Use a LOW-WATT bulb. (Unless you want your creation to go up in flames and take your house down with it.)

Here's what some of my lanterns looked like on my chandelier: (Just a heads up, my chandelier looks like a tree.)

Another way you can decorate with these little fellows is by attaching them to an ARTIFICIAL light source, like an electric tea candle- NOT A REAL CANDLE. (Do I even need to say that?!)

Then you can place them somewhere dark and they'll really pop out!

BOO!

Pumpkins for the Faint of Heart

Can't handle the CARNAGE  involved in carving your Halloween pumpkin? Maybe you're just one of those people that do not desire all that orange stuff under your nails, or maybe the thought of reaching into something and ripping out its intestines is unappealing to you. There's a word for you guys.

                                  COWARDLY.
But in all seriousness, there is a pumpkin for people that are faint of heart, or busy moms who don't want to have to clean up after their jam-sticky-handed children, (Children always have sticky jam hands.) etc.


I stumbled across the "Craft Pumpkin" yesterday while out doing errands, and the first thing I had to do was poke it a lot. After that assessment, I deemed it worthy to take home. I got out my little ghetto kitchen knife and carved in a face, while my older sister Isabelle watched, laughing at me the entire time. She recommended I carve this face into it:

So I did.

But look! No mess, no gore! And that's the point of this post: To show you a way to carve pumpkins and not make a mess. They come in regular pumpkin colors as well, and they usually go for around six dollars or less.
You can tell by looking at the inside that it's similar to Styrofoam, but not all disgusting, dry, and squeaky like Styrofoam usually is. Once you're done carving your face, all you do is pop a candle in and BOOM:

INSTANT TERROR.

And now lo and behold, you are now the proud owner of a very happy calcified husk!

My sister was thrilled I made her derp pumpkin face. YOU'RE WELCOME ISABELLE.

A New Purpose for Your Pumpkin?

So I was browsing the interwebs and stumbled upon Fall decoration ideas, and I saw that someone made a vase out of a pumpkin: Too much time on their hands, or brilliance? Either way, I had to prove that I could do it too. If you want to know how, keep on reading!

MATERIALS:
A medium sized pumpkin, pumpkin carving knife or standard kitchen knife, pumpkin scooper or spoon, small jar or small vase that can fit inside of the pumpkin, and newspaper. (And of course later, have some seasonal flowers ready to put in the finished product.)

*Side note: Yes, a "pumpkin scooper" actually exists. Is that the technical term for it? I looked it up and apparently it is. You can't get much more literal than that. But who actually owns this...err.. pumpkin paraphernalia? Anyhow, I went ghetto and used what was in my kitchen.

STEP ONE: Prep your workstation with the newspaper. (Or your mother will get extremely angry if she discovers you got pumpkin intestines on her antique table.) Just spread out a layer as so:

STEP TWO: Using a pen and the small container that will later go into your pumpkin, (in my case I used a jar) trace around the circumference to get a general idea of how big your pumpkin's opening needs to be. (Later, you might want to increase the size to fit more flowers. In that case, just use your knife to make the opening bigger.)

STEP THREE: ASSASSINATE. Using the knife, carve around the line made in the previous step. I went all Assassin's Creed on my pumpkin.

Once you get that top off, scoop out the insides. (Tip: Save the seeds, soak them for a bit in saltwater to clean them, and roast them on a baking sheet with salt, or cinnamon and sugar!) The inside of your pumpkin should be pretty cleaned out like this:

Do you see why that newspaper came in handy?

STEP FOUR: Place your container into the pumpkin like this:

It's like a vase within a vase. INCEPTION!!!

STEP FIVE: Put your flowers into the container inside of the pumpkin!

STEP SIX: Impress your mother.

(She was impressed.)

Roses are Red.. (and whatever other colors you want them to be, too.)

Follow these steps to create your own bouquet of flowers that will never wilt!
In the following example, I am creating a paper rose. In later posts I will show you how to make other flowers.

MATERIALS: Patterned paper of your choice (thick enough to survive the wrath of a hot glue gun), wire (to act as the stem), a hot glue gun, and scissors.

Materials

STEP 1: Make the base of the flower

This part is tricky if you're not savvy with a glue gun. Cut out a 1-1/2" to 2" piece of your patterned paper, and if desired, cut frills into the end that is facing up. This will be the center of your flower in the end result. You can also add the frills later, although it's a little trickier. (In my photo example I decided not to cut frills until the end.) Using your glue gun, glue the wire as so:

After this, proceed to roll the wire (stem) until you reach the end of your little piece of paper. It should look something like this as you're rolling it up:

Once you are sure your flower's base is secure, it's time to cut out petals. Get creative and pick whatever colors and patterns you'd like to use. Once you have your paper of choice ready, cut out different sizes of petals. You want to start out small and get bigger as you glue petals onto the flower base. Here's an example of 3 petal sizes:

You can make yourself a stencil for petal size and shape, or free-hand it like I did for a more natural look! You can always crinkle the edges or roll them up using a pencil for a more realistic texture.

 Now it's time to glue on the petals! Start with gluing small petals at the top of the base, and work your way down and increase the petal size, like so...

As you glue on each individual petal, press down with your finger to and let the glue dry for a bit to ensure your petals won't fall off!

Keep gluing those petals on until you feel like you're satisfied, or keep going until you can't see the bottom of the base anymore! When you're finished with these steps, you should have a lovely rose:

EXTRAS: You can use floral tape around the wire to make a thicker stem- I prefer not to use it because it tends to unravel easily! You can also add leaves if you desire.

Paper flowers make a great gift to anyone for birthdays, holidays, get-well gifts, and more! Keep working on it, and you can make a sweet bouquet like mine here:

I don't feel the need to think of an appropriate title.

Thanks for stopping by, even though you had no choice. I'm sorry you're being held against your own will.

Anyways...
I'm Madelaine Genevieve St. Pierre. I'm 16 years old, and I'm left handed. Some people say that left handed people are more creative than normal people. So to see if that was true, I googled it. Turns out, left handed people are more likely to kill themselves before their late twenties.

Well that sucks.
But don't worry, I won't off myself anytime soon.

Oh wait. I think I was supposed to talk about myself or my blog or something. I like to draw, paint, cook, play piano, make short films, write, and basically just create things in general. This blog will be about my creations, and how I made them (primarily with my left hand.). Maybe you can make them too.

Hugs and kisses xoxo