Saturday, October 25, 2008

Oktoberfest or Vegan MoFo Day 21

My dad's birthday was Thursday, but I had the 40N 88W ACE Awards Thursday night (no, I am not an artist, but I was a judge this year for the awards and they like the judges to be at the event). I have to say that it was a lot of fun being a judge and I was impressed by all the people, businesses, organizations which are worthy of an award for work in the arts in our little town. 40N 88W is a great group and promotes art in this area. WEFT 90.1 FM was a ACE award winner in 2006 and I'm on the board of directors at WEFT so that is how I was asked to be a judge. Both organizations are great groups and worthy of volunteer and financial support as we enter the "season of giving". While Rob and I were at the ACE awards (it was kind of fun to go out just the two of us dressed up a bit...we need to do this more often), my sister Karen and her boyfriend came over and watched the kids. Karen, ever the fun aunt, brought several pumpkins and all the stuff to carve them with and the kids had a grand time carving pumpkins.
I saved the pumpkin seeds and toasted them the next day (put some olive oil and tamari on the seeds and baked them around 250 degrees until they smelled done). The seeds were great, but it got me wondering why the raw pumpkin seeds we buy in the store are green and these are white until you roast them...of course this is because we buy hulled pumpkin seeds in the store, but I did ask a couple people before it came to me and they didn't know the answer either so I don't feel so bad. Why should you eat pumpkin seeds? Pumpkin seeds have Protein, Magnesium, Zinc, Iron, Calcium, Potassium, and Manganese (nutritional analysis here). They are super tasty and fun to eat especially this time of year.
Anyway, I invited my dad to our neighborhood potluck today to celebrate his birthday since we didn't see him on his actual birthday. Rob made what I have deemed Rob's Risotto, I made Mac-Oh Geez from Dreena's blog (except with pumpkin seeds and walnuts as topping instead of bread crumbs) and Pumpkin Crumb Cake with Pecan Struesel (except I used walnuts) from Veganomicon. The doughnut is from a friend of Rob's who is in town from Portland and very, very sweetly brought Rob a dozen vegan donuts from Voodoo Doughnut. Parker wanted to share the dozen doughnuts with his friends, but I said that we should just eat them all ourselves because his friends wouldn't understand the value of a vegan doughnut flown all the way from Portland, OR. I know, I'm an awful mom to keep the child from being generous, but come on...these are precious vegan doughnuts we are talking about.
Rob had to leave the potluck early because he messed up his neck. He slept wrong a couple nights ago and hurt his neck and it was finally getting better and then he took the kids on the weekly shopping. Dema accidentally pulled the shopping cart over while he was trying to help get the food out and Josie was in the cart. Rob lunged to save Josie and hurt his neck again pretty severely. Josie and Dema were both fine. It was a little chilly and I felt bad for Rob, but it the potluck was a lot of fun and the food was great. We really are lucky to have great family, friends, and neighbors.

2 comments:

Lisa -- Cravin' Veggies said...

So nice to have a date once in a while isn't it?

Your plate of food looks delicious!! We love Mac Oh Geez too! And I agree with you about the vegan doughnuts. Too rare to share.

Great expression on the pumpkin!

The Fearless Freak said...

Love pumpkins seeds! They are my fave fall food. I was super excited to find that I could buy them on the internet, both raw and pre-roasted, all without having to go to the trouble of actually cleaning the pumpkins out :)