On Sunday night we went to my aunt's house. She invites us over for dinner a lot (and we are due to her house again this Sunday...hopefully I'm feeling better by then). Also on the agenda that night was carving pumpkins. They started inviting me over to do that with them last year (and before that I hadn't carved a pumpkin since I was in high school). It was a lot of fun, and I was glad that I was able to do something related to Halloween. Here is how the night went:
We got there and had navajo tacos for dinner....I haven't had those in such a long time....it was so good. *note: my aunt Wendy and uncle Ingolf are the chefs of the family...we always joke they should open a catering business. * It had your usual toppings such as beef, beans, lettuce, salsa, olives, cheese, sour cream...etc. Way good!!! We used any extra dough to make scones and topped them off with honey-butter (also good).
Usually dinner at their house is pretty interesting...never boring. My cousins Dayton and Keaton are the reason why. Keaton (he's 15 I think) is just silly, and Dayton (18) is really blunt. He is going to school to be a nurse and let's just say he is more than willing to talk about what he has learned. The topic that night was breast and testicular exams...I'll spare you all the details. His dad kept joking about what I hear at their house and tolerating it, etc. I said after spending over a week with them in Hawaii I was pretty much used to it.
After dinner we got our pumpkins from outside....it felt like it was 20 degrees out there. Needless to say, our pumpkins were frozen...and so were the insides we found out when we were cleaning them out. I don't have a problem with pumpkin "guts" or cleaning out my pumpkin. I'm perfectly able to...but it was so cold on the inside of the pumpkins! I eventually got mine cleaned out, picked a pattern and started away.
My aunt had discovered a new way of carving pumpkins online. It's supposed to be easier. You start out by carving a whole on the bottom of the pumpkin instead of the top to clean it out. Another difference was instead of putting your pattern on and poking holes where you are supposed to cut, you trace on the pattern using carbon paper. Why the heck didn't any of us think of that sooner! I don't think it takes a genius to figure that out...but it worked really good. A lot of the time is taken by that blasted hole punching...so the tracing really helped. Then you carve away like normal, but make sure the pumpkin is thin enough where you plan to carve.
Last year, since I was very rusty, I chose a pattern that was slightly difficult. Don't get me wrong, the pumpkin turned out great. No mistakes whatsoever. But it was very time-consuming. We left at 11:30 that year (way too late and I had school the next day). This year I picked an easier pattern. My grandparents very eagerly agreed that it was a good choice (afraid I would change my mind and pick something that would take all night).
...wow, this is turning out to be a longer post than I thought it would be...
In short, I got done by 9:30 that night. We also had some caramel apple that my aunt and uncle made. We had two kinds, one with caramel, dark chocolate and nuts, and another with caramel, white chocolate and powdered sugar. I was all over the dark chocolate ones....Yummy!
We also had a "competition" to see whose pumpkin was the best. My cousins (and uncle) are very competitive...they were even offering one of the boys' old trophies as a prize. We had a vote, and alas, my pumpkin did not win. Oh well.
All in all it was a fun time...and I got to do something for Halloween.
