Guest Attempt: Matt's Special Seeds

If you're like me, All Hallows' Eve means one thing. Yep, you guessed it. SEEDS! When I was a kid, my Dad was in charge of the pumpkin seeds, and every year, the days following Halloween would be marked by us kids flooding our bodies with handfuls of these addictive, salty snacks. I tweaked the recipe (added more salt) and now, according to Amelia, they've become: Matt's Special Seeds.

Making Matt's Special Seeds is so easy a toddler can do it! First, you must harvest the seeds of one or more pumpkin-gourds. You can do this during a solo pumpkin-carving session, or you can show up to pumpkin-carving parties hosted by your friends with a one-gallon ziploc bag, waiting in the wings for the right moment to sweep in: "Lemme get those seeds?"

Once you have procured the seeds, you are on the home stretch. To close the deal, you'll need to wash the seeds and let them soak for an hour or two in a soy sauce bath. The amount of soy sauce depends on the number of seeds you're working with but, like everything in life, be generous. Oh, and PLEASE preheat your oven to 325.

Spread the seeds in a single layer on a foil-lined baking sheet. (You are almost done.)

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour—until dry and crispy. Pull out, sprinkle with coarse kosher salt and let cool.

Eat the seeds!

Every once in a while you get a loner seed...

Gourmet's yellow cake with chocolate frosting circa 1987

Matt's birthday cake is a case of what should never have been--as in, this cake should not have existed after what I put it through.

Here is a brief list of things I did wrong:

1. undercooked all three layers of cake.

2. tore two of the layers trying to get them out of pans.

3. completely finished making the frosting and even put it in the refrigerator to cool only to then spy 9 oz. of chocolate I had left out entirely.

4. didn't give frosting long enough to come to room temperature so that when I began spreading it, I further mangled the cake layers.

Gourmet's version:

 our version:

This cake is like that lucky person that walks away from a horrible car accident without a scratch. Well, let's be honest. There were a few scratches.

Icing a layer cake reminded me of the crappy first draft in writing. You kind of just need to to get the cake covered with frosting no matter how messy it is and even though crumbs will be everywhere and you will start to doubt why you even thought you could do this in the first place.

But eventually you'll get there.

Ten days after the actual date, this should finally close the chapter on Matt's birthday meal. Let's not close the chapter on Matt though. Because there's still so much more to share.

 

Does it Count as Tackling Something Semi-Ridiculous if Working From a Recipe From Real Simple Magazine?

Well, I'm counting it. 1. because it still involved doing something I'd never done before, which is make pizza from frozen pizza dough. AND 2. because I'm driving cross country in two days, so cut me some slack, please. Thanks!

Real Simple's version:

my version:

It all started with four balls of frozen pizza dough, which had to thaw for 6 hours.

Matt enjoyed tossing the thawed dough in the air to the tune of "So you want to make a pizza, yum, yum, yum!" You guys know that one? I didn't.

We forgot to take pictures of the rolling-out process, but here is one of Matt's knife skillzz.
Italian food is pretty.

I wish I had a digital recorder so that you could click on this and hear that pizza song. Yum Yum YUMMMMMMM.

COMING SOON: pictures of something that is going to change the face of Bon Appétempt as we know it.