it's halloween: vampire soup

I'm not one for kitchy names, but I had this soup for dinner last night and it's one and only purpose was to get rid of a cold. I woke up feeling under the weather and I didn't want to get sick, so I culled all the vegetable remains in my crisper along with a little bit of bacon and got to work. While chopping the vegetables, I decided that instead of just a few cloves of garlic, I'd add in the whole head. Perfect for fighting off vampires and nasty bugs. And just to add in a bit of Eastern European flavour, I threw in 2 different kinds of Hungarian paprika. The soup was good and hearty and today I woke up feeling much, much better.

I'm not going to give you the recipe because while the soup was good, it's a good example of taking random ingredients and making dinner without a recipe. So instead of a recipe, you'll get just a minimal guide and hopefully a kick in the pants to get you started to make your own soup. Soup is easy and usually ends up turning out well if you just remember to taste as you go along. For this soup, I had half a parsnip, 2 strips of bacon, a quarter head of red cabbage, half an onion, a couple stalks of celery, a can of chickpeas, a near empty bag of pasta, along with some homemade turkey stock. These ingredients were chopped, sauteed and the liquids reduced before I had my first taste. It needed more, so in plopped a large squirt of ketchup for zing and after tasting it again, I added in a large spoonful of sweet paprika and another large spoonful of a smoked hot paprika. Now I was getting somewhere. I added in half the garlic at the beginning and half near the end. For me it was important to really taste the garlic and have it fresh so it could kick start it's fighting powers. The ingredients themselves don't inspire very much on their own, but put them together in a haphazard way, tasting as you go along and boom! You've got some mighty fine soup.

And yes, I'm giving this vampire soup all the credit. This soup warded off the evil and now I'm ready to make some caramel apples and watch horror movies all night with friends. Happy Halloween!!

Want a recipe for soup? Check out these winter-warming recipes from my archives:
African Yam & Peanut Soup
Black Bean Pumpkin Soup
Cabbage Potato & Chorizo Soup
Italian Minestrone with Beans, Pasta and Chard
Red Lentil Soup with Lemon
Winter Vegetable Soup

pumpkin carving party

Since my pumpkin cupcakes were not scary in the least, I decided that I had to have some creep-out factor to my pumpkin carving party (our library dvd copy of jeepers creepers didn't do the trick after all). A couple of weeks ago, our friends and I went to a pumpkin patch in Richmond to pick out our pumpkins and since we were so close to the fishing village of Steveston, we decided to pick up some fresh prawns off of a fishing boat. I decided that since we picked our prawns the same day as our pumpkins, it would seem only fitting to take them out of the freezer and serve these creepy crawlers of the ocean to our friends.

I've never made prawns before and decided to take the simplest route -- I didn't want to have to devein them or peel them or brine them or do any other myriad of other things I found online. I wanted them simple to prepare and creepy to eat, so that meant heads n' legs n' all for our little Halloween get together.

peel 'em & eat 'em prawns
(ingredients weren't measured so beware!)
Rinse 1-2 lbs of fresh prawns and please watch out for their sharp legs, ouch. In a large pot combine some champagne or beer or white wine (I used left over champagne since that is what I had), lots and lots of crushed garlic, some chopped onion, salt, red pepper flakes, a couple of bay leaves, a sliced lemon, some dried thyme and bring to a boil. Taste liquid and adjust seasonings (I didn't do this step and should have added more salt and maybe some extra hot sauce to the liquid. Live and learn.) Add 1/4 c. of butter. Add the prawns and put a lid on the pot. Let boil for 3 minutes. Add another 1/4 c. butter and stir it around til it melts. Cut up some good rustic crusty bread and dig in! So good and just a the right amount of creepy.


roasted pumpkin seeds
Of course if you are making jack-o-lanterns, roasting the seeds is a definite must. Rinse the seeds well, getting rid of any pumpkiny threads and goopiness. Pat the washed seeds with a tea towel and spread evenly on a walled cookie sheet. Sprinkle with cumin, seasoned salt (the only reason I keep this around is just for roasting the seeds), smoked paprika, pepper, garlic powder and chili powder and give the pan a light shake. No oil needed. Bake in 300 degree oven until you hear popping sounds, about 15-20 minutes. Give the pan one more shake and toss around seeds with a spatula and put back in the oven for another few minutes until seeds are dry and toasty. Eat up immediately while watching a silly scary movie.