Weather Forecast: More Rain

It's been a couple of cold, rainy days.  We had a nice weekend, which made going to the pumpkin patch a delightful experience.  But today?  Rain.  Yesterday?  Rain.  Tomorrow?  Also rain.

Rainy, grey fall days make me want to bake.

And what better than pumpkin scones!

Today the girls have Sesame Ginger Baked Chicken (leftover from last night), with brown rice.  Can you see it?  It's under there.  Cucumber slices help hold the rice in place,  red pepper slices add colour.  Steamed broccoli provides extra veg and fits in well between the cucumber and the red grapes.  The special treat Mini Pumpkin Scone with cinnamon glaze sits in a purple flower shaped cup.

It's cute, and the girls ate all of it over the course of the day.  But the biggest hit wasn't the scone.
The biggest hit (for Pumpkin, anyway) was this guy:

I wrapped the spoon and fork in a napkin and secured it with this festive little guy.


Added to What's For Lunch Wednesday

Black Cat Pasta

Fall is here.  October.  A nifty month, full of rain and falling leaves and fog.  Towards the end there will be costumes and pumpkins.

I found this pasta on the weekend.  Black Cat pasta.  Little kitty faces and kitty paws, coloured with spinach.  I thought it would be fantastic for a Halloween themed lunch, especially since I had a few cute Halloween picks.  I suspected the vibrant colour would not hold through the cooking process.  I was right.  They are still pretty cute though, aren't they?

The pasta is not black.  It's a pale green.  Le sigh.  I've been spoiled by squid ink pasta.  And by other spinach pastas.  They've usually held their colour quite nicely.

The garlic and parmigiano-reggiano kitty pasta is sitting in a purple cabbage leaf and decorated with a little tomato.  (Both from our garden!  Yes, even still! ) 
Steamed carrots sit in a silicone cup.  The cucumber was unfortunately peeled before I could stop my kitchen helper, but  keeps the pasta separate from the grapes just the same.

I couldn't resist

This is Friday's lunch.  We were running behind schedule, so there was some dashing about in the kitchen.  I did have a much fancier looking lunch in mind, but when everyone overslept, that just wasn't going to happen.

The girls took the same lunch contents, but they were arranged differently.  Peanut's was more plain, as she is too old now for cutsey lunches.  Below is Pumpkin's lunch.  She's fine with the cutesy.

It started with just ham on tortillas, with grapes and blueberries in the silicone cups.  Then I thought, hey, the broccoli kinda looks like hair!  

So I added grapes for eyes and a blueberry nose.  I could not find the toothpicks anywhere, so they are held in place with short bits of whole-wheat spaghetti.  The face was taking shape, and screamed out for a mouth.   Pumpkin also got a yellow pepper ring cut in half for a smile. 

Braaaaaaains

Today the girls took something a little.....different.

Saturday is World Zombie Day.  Many cities are having celebrations, lots of them involving food drives to support local food banks.

The girls' school is having a food drive, but it is the annual Thanksgiving drive.  It has nothing to do with Zombies, but will have some links to Oktoberfest, which kicks off Friday.

What is the favourite food of zombies?  

Brains!

Of course I couldn't send real brains to school!  These are maccaroni elbows with a little garlic and grana padana, shaped roughly into a brain (see the cleft?), with tomato paste dabbed on for blood.
The brains are held in place with cucumber slices. A silicone muffin cup holds the grapes.  Broccoli, red pepper slices and carrot slices  fill in gaps.

Garden - Week 20 - Frost Warnings

It's that time again.  Time for frost and frost warnings.  There was even (allegedly) had a dusting of snow over the weekend, just south of here.  I didn't see it myself, but the weather guys claim it happened.

Was my garden prepared?  Nope.

So, this week/weekend will see me apologizing to the bedraggled looking plants as I tidy them up.  Hopefully I will be able to plant some bulbs and top-dress some beds before we get truly bad weather.