Do you like cute pizzas? Do you like cute HALLOWEEN pizzas?
Del Norte Presents has come through for us in a way never before seen on Gothtober! Sometimes you see these types of seasonal recipes in magazines and wonder to yourself “Do any of these actually WORK?”
Del Norte Presents Kitchen has taken on ALL the work of making and tasting four variations on a “Halloween Pizza” theme and brought the savings to you! Get your toppings together and follow along with the step-by-step photos.
Helpful informational tidbits make putting these decorative pies together a cinch, you’ll be the slice of the party!
Visit www.gothtober.com and click on DAY 27 to get a rather tasty recipe from Yuki Okada, author and illustrator of Arya Bakes a Pie, which is her website hosting recipes inspired by the HBO series “Game of Thrones.” You can look up recipes by course, OR by house, so for Gothtober, she decided to share with us a recipe from House Stark!
All these recipes have been cooked, tested, written, designed and illustrated by Yuki who is really adept at doing all of the things just listed.
For this particular recipe, she made multiple savory pies and tested the recipe oh… I dunno, like FIVE TIMES to get just the right technique and ingredients! It’s a biggie deep dish pie, you gotta use a springform pan, which is a lil’ advanced, but totally worth it. As the days get shorter and cooler, you’re gonna need a pie like this one to get you through winter because… winter is coming.
Will one more turkey sandwich drive you over the edge?
Well, today’s a game changer.
Experience “Monster Mash”, Yuki’s recipe for some pre-winter sustenance, a dish that gets rave reviews from those of you who need a little love and light in your food repertoire.
It’s a squid, it’s a recipe! It’s a recipe, it’s a squid! You may or may not know what we’re talking about, which means you should visit Gothtober Day 22.
Billy Kheel makes incredibly detailed and intricate artworks in the felt appliqué genre, often super hot clever macho stuff like shotguns for babies who hunt, forgotten shopping carts in the LA River, giant majestic swordfish, and valiant football players. Billy is working on a cookbook with his wonderful wife, Marina. They collaborated together to bring you the best in food and art together in one fantastic coloring page.
If you’re going to meet a cephalopod face to face, we recommend this one, never mind the fangs.
And you know how we feel about coloring. It’s good for your health. Don’t roll your eyes! It’s an inexpensive and fun hobby that boosts your self esteem and sense of accomplishment, it relaxes and de-stresses you and encourages your mind to wander and daydream. So please: download, print and color in your squid page! And then go get your garlic, your butter, your parmesan, your squash and your squid ink pasta and get cookin! Also, if you want to know more, visit Billy’s site, there are tacos and Silverlake foot sign ornaments.
Vincent Price was really into art, and really into food, and he published a book with his wife many years ago called A Treasury of Great Recipes that I would stare at from time to time during my childhood. It sat in a prominent spot on the cookbook shelf in the family kitchen, and it was perhaps the first time I understood that an actor could have interests outside of being on stage or on screen. Mr. House of Wax put together a fine list of recipes with his wife, and it is a collector’s item today, available on Amazon in mint condition for about three hundred bucks. Published in 1965, this book with it’s padded faux leather copper exterior and gilt lettering doesn’t have fast recipes, it’s got recipes you slave over slowly with love for food. It’s also peppered throughout with beautiful pen and ink illustrations and harkens back to those globetrotting Pan Am days of travel and romance that Mary and Vincent Price were enjoying with true appreciation and wonder.
A photo of Spaghetti alla Bolognese and a sketch from the book!
I called Bill Parr (Dad), and asked him to pick one of his favorites from the book that might be an easy recipe for Gothtober readers, and so here you go, from the vault of Gothtober Dad’s recipe bookshelf is Vincent and Mary Price’s recipe for Spaghetti alla Bolognese. Kind of a great thing is that while it seems that Mary and Vincent were at Tre Scalini a long time ago, the restaurant opened in 1815 and is open for business even today! Just try to read this recipe without hearing Vincent Price’s voice. Bon Appétit!
[column]INSTRUCTIONS SAUCE: In a heavy skillet heat 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add: 1 onion finely chopped and cook until soft.
Add: 3 rashers lean bacon, cut into small pieces, 1 carrot, chopped, and one stalk celery, chopped. Sauté over medium heat until lightly browned. Add 1/2 pound beef, coarsely ground, and stir until meat is coated with fat.
Add: 2 chicken livers, minced. Stir until meat browns evenly. Add 2 tablespoons tomato puree, 1/2 cup dry white wine, 1 cup beef stock, 1 bay leaf, and 1 strip lemon peel (thin yellow skin only).
Season with: salt, freshly ground pepper, and 1 clove garlic, crushed.
Cover and simmer for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove bay leaf and lemon peel and allow to simmer uncovered until sauce thickens slightly. Just before serving stir in: 1/4 cup cream and reheat sauce. (Makes 1 pint.)[/column]
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Tre Scalini has a sidewalk café just off the Piazza Navona. You can sit at a table outside and enjoy the view of Bernini’s fountains over an ice cream, or go indoors and enjoy the view of their sumptuous buffet over a dish of pasta. Only people who loved their pasta could have invented so many charming shapes for it. But the great classic dish remains spaghetti with savory meat sauce.
Tre Scalini, where Mary and Vincent Price went on holiday, savoring the local cuisine
SPAGHETTI: In a large pot pour: 3 quarts of water. Rub a little olive oil or butter around the sides of pot above water line. This will prevent water from boiling over when you cook the spaghetti. Add 1 tablespoon of salt and bring to a rapid boil. When water has been boiling briskly, take: 1 pound spaghetti and feed by handfuls into the boiling water. Dip one end of the spaghetti sticks into the water, and as they get soft let them coil into the pot. Never break them. Stir with a wooden spoon occasionally.
If you are using packaged spaghetti, cook for about 12 minutes, or according to directions on package. It should be soft but firm when you bite it. (The Italians call this al dente, or “to the tooth.”) Homemade pasta will need less time to cook – only 5 to 7 minutes. Drain cooked spaghetti in a colander over a pan of boiling water and covering it with a towel wrung out in warm water. PRESENTATION:
Place spaghetti on a warm platter and dot with: 4 tablespoons butter. Sprinkle with: 4 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Serve with meat sauce on the side, or in the center of the platter with the spaghetti around it. Pass a bowl of freshly grated Parmesan cheese with the platter.
It’s true that after awhile, even something as exciting as an entire plate of fresh brain curds can get tiresome. Yuki steps in today to steer you gently away from the same old boring gourmet brains to try something a little different, even, dare I say, refined. You see, Halloween doesn’t have to be all foil-wrapped mini candy bars, nor does it have to be triangular-shaped tri-c0lored candies masquerading as maize.
Halloween can get highbrow, it can be nimble like pointy spider legs or the claw of a rat’s foot. No matter how thin you slice it, it’s still mystery meat and it might as well be delicious. Zombies might at first be a little confused by this sumptuous dish, but give it about 30 seconds, and their senses will be overcome with this delectable alternative to the customary brain dish they usually demand.
This recipe is actually vegetarian, but very far from vegan, it involves seasonally appropriate ingredients suitable for placating your Jekylls or your Hydes when hosting gatherings. If you enjoy decadence, this is your jam.
The recipe also calls for a “sugar pumpkin” which is different from your everyday pumpkin that you see in the bins sitting at the entrance of your local supermarket. The main difference is that “carving” pumpkins are grown specifically for that purpose, and are more hollow inside. Sugar pumpkins, on the other hand, are grown for their taste, thus they are smaller, sweeter, a bit darker in orange color and packed with pulp to be used for things like soups, muffins, pies and breads.
You can find GREAT sugar pumpkins out at Lombardi Ranch, which is a trek, but worth it for the petting zoo, bands, scarecrow alley and all of their other seasonal produce. Take a look at their calendar, and get there early if you decide to go on a weekend, it gets pretty crowded. You should also make sure you have a “corn on a stick” there, as they serve possibly the best I’ve ever eaten at their farm stand. I discovered Lombardi Ranch in 1990, and it’s my go-to pumpkin patch for family fun.
Another favorite, from what I’ve heard but not seen, is the Faulkner Farm Pumpkin Patch out in Santa Paula, which has hay rides, pony rides, face painting… and something called a “Pumpkin Chucker” which sounds very intriguing.
Other possible locations to find sugar pumpkins could be Trader Joe’s, Bristol Farms and Whole Foods. There you have it, now go get your sugar pumpkin and get cookin!
