Let’s talk about pie crust. I realize it’s still a couple weeks before Thanksgiving- the day I most associate with eating pies- but it’s never too early to talk about the importance of pie crust. This is one largely contested debate. Do you swear by butter, lard or olive oil? My husband swears that shortening is the key to flaky crusts. If you want to see me get into a hot debate, please don’t tell me to use shortening or chemical margarine in my pie crust! I’m a butter girl.

What’s your secret to a great tasting flaky pie crust?

Other Types of Pie Crusts

Above photo by [177}

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Categories:	Baked Goods • Holiday • Technique • desserts	6 Comments
Tags:	baking pies • pie crust • Thanksgiving

The trick-or-treaters are barely gone. Jack o’ lanterns still adorn many a front doorstep. And I’m sure we are not the only household with a bowl full of candy leftover. But when I turned the TV on this morning I was inundated with Christmas commercials! Christmas! Come on! We haven’t even had Thanksgiving yet! Not that I don’t enjoy Christmas – quite the contrary – I belt out carols for a good month and leave my tree up until New Year’s. But, advertisers, you need to just slow things down a little here. Don’t rush the process. We want to enjoy fall. We want to soak it all in and lavish in the holidays the season has to offer – in order of appearance. We’re all so busy all the time, why rush? Let’s just take a deep breathe….

…and start planning that Thanksgiving menu!

If it freaks you out, return to your breathing exercises. But to me, I love nothing more than perusing and bookmarking recipes – dreaming up how my Thanksgiving menu will shape up. Do you do that too?

We’ve put together a collection of great holiday recipes for you in one easy spot. If you’ve got something fabulous to share with the food-loving community we’d love for you to add it to Foodista! Check out our Thanksgiving recipe collection, and enjoy the next few weeks pondering and planning your holiday meal!

Photo by: D’Arcy Norman

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Categories:	Entertaining • Holiday	2 Comments
Tags:	holiday cooking • side dish recipes • Thanksgiving • thanksgiving recipes • turkey day • turkey recipes

If you are headed out to a Halloween party, there is a good chance you’ll be asked to bring a dish. Need a fast idea for what to bring? Here are 5 dishes sure to turn heads.

Feed a crowd without breaking the bank with a festive Halloween Pumpkin Soup

Go old school with some candied apples!

Deliciously Gruesome?

Feeling Devilish?

Is that a bowl of fingernails? No! It’s curried pumpkin seeds!

Click here for many more spooky Halloween Dish Ideas

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Categories:	Holiday	3 Comments
Tags:	halloween dishes • Halloween party ideas • Halloween pot luck ideas

Recently, I posted a blog about non-alcoholic Halloween drinks for kids but as we all know, Halloween is just as much a holiday for adults as it is for kids. Instead of bringing spooky cupcakes or Halloween truffles to your Halloween gathering this weekend, mix up some creepy cocktail concoctions to share with your adult guests.

Dressing up? Bring a special potion that goes with the theme of your costume. For example, if you are going as Don Draper, you should probably bring the ingredients to make an Old Fashioned. Going as a vampire? A Bloody Mary is more than fitting. Want to bring enough for a crew? Here is a list of  Halloween cocktails that are to die for!

More Cocktail Inspiration
Cocktail Culture- Absithe Cocktail
Sloshed!- Hard Pumpkin Cider
Nightschool-Professional bartenders share their secrets
Vintage Cocktails on Facebook

Above photo by TangoPango

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Categories:	Beverages • Entertaining • Holiday • Uncategorized • cocktails	Leave a Comment
Tags:	drinks • Halloween cocktails • Halloween party beverages

While growing up Halloween trumped Christmas as the holiday I looked most forward to. It wasn’t so much the candy that had me counting down the days, but the costumes. My mother would indulge my dress-up desires and help me brainstorm what I could be for Halloween months in advance. Now even today, I look forward to Halloween and fall is one of my most favorite times of year, but besides costumes, I indulge in festive drinks and dishes. Because I associate Halloween with my childhood, it’s only fitting to post some frightfully delicious drinks for kids.

Perhaps you can think of ones I may have missed?

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Categories:	Beverages • Holiday • for Kids	1 Comment
Tags:	halloween • halloween drinks • non alcoholic drinks • October

Between candy corn made with egg whites, milk-laden chocolate bars and gelatin-based gummies, Halloween can be a vegan’s nightmare. Whether you’re hosting a party, need a festive treat to bring into the office, or just want to spice things up around the house, here are some ideas.

Cupcakes are hot: you can’t go wrong with cupcakes right now. Chocolate and vanilla are always good, but why not try pumpkin? Look beyond the basic orange icing with chocolate sprinkles: get creative. Most store-bought marzipan is vegan (be sure to check): use it to sculpt pumpkins, bats, decapitated heads, zombie hands- whatever suits your fancy- to decorate your favorite vegan cupcake and frosting. Or, cut stencils out of stiff paper and arrange on top of cupcakes, then sift orange sanding sugar or confectioners’ sugar generously over the cut-out.

Apples are in season, and candied apples are a completely vegan Halloween tradition, provided you don’t have any objection to corn syrup.

Popcorn balls are another classic. Swap the butter for non-hydrogenated soy margarine and wrap them in orange cellophane for a festive treat.

Use a cookie cutter to make bat-shaped tofu cutlets; serve with ketchup “blood.”

Since Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, start the morning right with pumpkin pancakes. Make jack-o-lantern faces with chocolate chips, and douse with maple syrup.

When in doubt, pumpkin is a proven Halloween winner. More pumpkin ideas:

Indian Pumpkin

Pumpkin Peanut Butter Spread

Pumpkin and Avocado Oil Soup

image by Sevenmarie

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Categories:	Holiday • Vegetarian • vegan	2 Comments
Tags:

Pumpkin beer: beer geeks love it or hate it. “Liquid pumpkin pie”, say the detractors: sweet and overly-spiced- hardly beer at all. However, many take pumpkin beer seriously. Very seriously. The Elysian Brewery in Seattle devotes an entire weekend to the Great Pumpkin Beer Festival every October; for this year’s event, they brewed not one, not two but nine different varieties.

The pumpkin beer category encompasses any style of beer brewed with pumpkin and/or pumpkin pie spices; the base beer can range from a lager to a brown ale to a stout- whatever the brewer desires. The best pumpkin beer is a fine balance between pumpkin and beer, allowing the two flavors to coexist in harmony. These are the money beers, the ones that prove pumpkin beer is more than just a seasonal novelty or pie in a bottle.

Pumpkin beers are quite enjoyable on their own, but when combined with food are a delightful celebration of autumn. Don’t throw out the usual beer pairing rules with pumpkin beers. Look for ingredients that will either compliment or contrast the flavor of beer, not compete with it. The sweetness, texture, and style of beer will dictate what recipes will work best with which foods: lighter beers tend to work well with lighter fare, while richer beers can stand up to heartier meals.

However, pairing completely contrasting flavors can also create a wonderful effect. For example, salty foods will enhance the sweetness of a sugary beer. This contrast should be a playful debate, not a fist fight: the flavors should not be grappling for dominance on your tongue. The differences between the beer and the food will coax out flavors in each that otherwise might go undetected.

While it’s tempting to couple pumpkin beer with foods containing pumpkin or winter squash, the similarity in taste will generally cause the pairing to fall flat. Instead, consider other fall favorites. Try a lighter beer with turkey, poultry and root vegetables, or darker, richer beers with stews, brown butter, sharp cheese and lamb. Adding a hint of nutmeg or pumpkin pie spice to a recipe can make an otherwise unsuitable dish pumpkin beer-friendly.

For a sharp, strong beer like Dogfish Head Punkin Ale or Elysian Night Owl:

For a sweet, strong beer like Southern Tier Punking Imperial Pumpkin Ale:

For a lighter beer like Shipyard Pumpkinhead:

Need to find pumpkin beer? Beer Advocate has a good list.

(image from Flickr user euart)

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Categories:	Beverages • Holiday • beer	4 Comments
Tags:

Whether or not you believe it was Christopher Columbus who discovered America, there is one thing we can all agree on, the only thing fresh on the menu while at sea was likely caught off the side of the boat. The pantry necessary for Christopher Columbus’ journey had to feed a hungry crew for several weeks and endure extreme weather conditions.

Just for fun, we did a little research and figured a boat leaving the Spanish port of Palos de la Frontera in 1492 might be stocked with these delicious staples:

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Categories:	Holiday • Mediterranean • Spanish • Travel	2 Comments
Tags:	1942 • Christopher Columbus • Christopher Columbus food

In Seattle, now that fall is here, it means it starts raining. The days grow increasingly darker and the clouds rarely take a break from hanging out above the city. As a native, of course I’m sad to see the sun go for months on end, but honestly there is a big side of me that is excited to spend all evening roasting winter vegetables and drinking red wine, while a game is on in the other room. The wind and cold rain whipping leaves from the trees forces me to stay inside and convince me that it’s okay to not do anything, but cook comfort food, feed it to my favorite people and not feel guilty about staying in my sweats all day long.

Cheers to Autumn!

Here are 10 Fall Dishes We Can’t Wait to Cook

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Categories:	Baked Goods • Beverages • French • Holiday • Soup • Vegetarian • desserts	6 Comments
Tags:	autumn food • comfort food • fall food

I used to work at a German pub and instead of celebrating Oktoberfest every fall, we celebrated it all year round.  Patrons would sit at long wooden tables, drinking steins of beer in a quaint pub that reeked of slow cooked sauerkraut and hot pretzels, and to every regular at the bar, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

Of course things always got a little crazier at the end of September and the beginning of October when the entire pub was decorated in blue and white checkered signs and the owner would don lederhosen and tap a wooden barrel keg of beer to celebrate Oktoberfest.

Now, since I am no longer a bar maid, I get enjoy a bratwurst with a tall pilsner on the other side of the bar for a change. Perhaps I’ll even make my own soft pretzels and perfume my house with slow cooked sauerkraut to celebrate!  Suddenly my mouth is already watering thinking about the tang of vinegary cabbage.

Feeling inspired to celebrate?

German Fare You Can Make at Home

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Categories:	European • Events • German • Holiday • Uncategorized	Leave a Comment
Tags:	German food • octoberfest • Oktoberfest • oktoberfest food