2018 October Foodn'Flix

Spudguns!, it's time again for another Foodn'Flix recipe. This month's selection was hosted by our fearless leader Heather at All Roads Lead to the Kitchen; and her pick was Princess and the Frog.  Now, if you've been following this blog much at all, you might remember I talked about this back in Year One of the blog. (Day 292)

plot: A young woman -Tiana, has a dream of opening her own restaurant in the heart of New Orleans in the 1920's. But it seems, every time she gets a step closer, something gets in her way. When a young prince comes to the area, her best friend's dad throws a grand ball for him, in hopes the prince will marry his daughter. Unknown to anyone, the prince has become cursed and turned into a frog. Tiana who has borrowed her friends clothes, is mistaken for a princess, and the frog prince talks her into kissing him. Only, instead of saving him, it turns her into a frog as well. The two then end up going to the local Hoodoo Priestess to help reverse the spell originally cast by the Voudon Bokor. When nothing seems to work, the two admit they have fallen in love and are willing to stay frogs as long as they can stay together. As frogs, they get married and are suddenly transformed back to humans.

notes: tea, gumbo, apples, salt, ground black pepper, hush puppies, cake, rum, eggs, bacon, ketchup, fruit, waffles, rice, coffee, honey, toast, bagels, pancakes, hot sauce, donuts, sugar, wine, soup, carrots, red peppers, mushrooms, chicken, pumpkin, crawfish, bananas foster, okra, strawberries, jelly beans, candy, garlic, herbs, flour, walnuts.

I ended up pulling my inspiration from a short scene midway through the film. The main characters are in the middle of a swamp and decide to make a gumbo from the ingredients they can forage for, which included a pumpkin.  I ended up making my Pumpkin Sludge Cake.

Ingredients

2 1/2 c flour
1/2 c butter softened
1/2 c white sugar
1 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 c water
1/3 c spice mix (cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice)
2 c pumpkin shredded or pureed

Mix butter, sugar and salt
then add in flour, baking powder and eggs
add spice mix and water mix well
add the pumpkin

Bake at 325 degrees depending on your oven for 75 to 90 minutes

The name came from the colour the batter took on. I also topped it with a few pumpkin seeds I had roasted in salt and pumpkin spice mix.
 

And that's about all I've got for you today.  Don't forget, you can join in next month with Foodn'Flix for  A Man Called Ove, which will be hosted by Wendy at A Day in the Life on the Farm.

What that Movie Inspired #78

Spudguns!, I mentioned back nearly two months ago, I had done a recipe inspired by a vampire movie. I had decided to hold off on posting because I really wanted to add it to the Hallowe'en stuff. That and I was trying to turn it into a video. Sadly for me, the video end of it just didn't  come together.

The movie in question is Underworld 2 Evolution. The scene where Michael goes into the tavern and orders food, refusing to believe he's been turned into a hybrid vampire. The tavern owner puts a plate of boiled potatoes and cabbage down in front of him.

Since I had already done potatoes and cabbage for a Foodn'Flix back few years ago, I went with another potato combination. Perogies and onions.

Sort of.  I stumbled across a few recipes on the Kraft Canada website for variations of perogi lasagna.

Ingredients

Mashed potatoes
Cheddar chesse
Green onion
Herb cream chesse
lasagna noodles
 
Cook noodles to package instructions, drain.

Mix the cheese, onion, herb cream cheese into the mashed potatoes.

Layer it like you would a normal lasagna.

Bake for about an hour at 350 degrees
depending on your oven.

The original recipe called for bacon, but I left that out given I'm vegetarian. If you do that, you should add a little butter or milk to your potatoes, because this will become extremely dry without the bacon. 

What that Movie Inspired Oct 2018

Spudguns!,  I've got one of the very long awaited recipes for the season. Inspired by the Munsters, I give you "Lily's Black Widow Tea".

This is inspired mostly by the 1996 movie Munster's Scary Little Christmas and the scene where Lily is offering Santa a cup of tea; which to his horror is made from the venom of black widow spiders. But, throughout the series Lily Munster was often heard talking about a nice cup of black widow's tea. This has been brewing in the back of my mind for months, and to be honest, it took me awhile to get the flavours right.

Ingredients

Silken Pu'erh
Organic Rooibos
Cinnamon sticks
Whole cloves
Dried blueberries
Black peppercorns ground and whole

I was making enough for 1 cup, so I only put a teaspoon of the Pu'erh and Rooibos each, 1 cinnamon stick crushed, about 1 teaspoon cloves, 5 large dried blueberries, and roughly a teaspoon of the black peppercorns.

Let it steep for 8 minutes. That will allow it to get a nice dark colour to it.

What you end up with is a rich spicy tea, that leaves a bit of a kick in your throat from the peppercorns; much in the flavour of a gingerbread.

As I said, it took me a long while to get the flavour combination right, as there were a few failed attempts with other loose leaf teas as the base note. Some were too bitter, some too sweet, others overpowered the rest of the ingredients.

That's it for the moment. I've got a few other recipes coming at you in a few days.

Random movie- Crimson Peak

movie: Crimson Peak
starring: Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston
genre: Drama, Crime, Thriller, Paranormal,
year: 2015
format: Netflix Canada

plot: A young writer, who has the ability to see ghosts, is swept up in a wild romance when she meets a young man and his sister. Having arrived in town to ask her father for a partnership on his invention, the English baronet begins courting her. Much to the quiet disapproval of his sister. After her father dies, the young writer, Edith, marries quickly only to run off to the English countryside with her new husband, Thomas, to live with him and his sister, Lucille. Edith's romantic notions are soon destroyed as the house is falling apart around them, and the fortune has long been lost on Thomas's inventions. As winter sets in, Edith finds herself isolated from the town, and begins to uncover the secrets the family are hiding. Namely, that she's not the first wife. Her ability to see and communicate with ghosts is heightened as she finds them in every corner of the house. Intent on figuring out why they were killed and by who, she realizes no one can be trusted.

I have to admit, I wasn't too sure on this one when I first sat down to watch. I'm not a fan of the lead female actor, and it took a few minutes to get past that fact. But, the story itself was completely worth it.

You get that feeling of isolation; not just from the sets but from the coldness of winter, the loss of her father and friends. It's just the right level of eerie madness. And you can't help but compare it to the Shinning from start to finish.  There's this great sense of uneasiness just in the love story itself. You're given a hint from the first scene between the characters of Thomas and his sister Lucille, that they are plotting something. Then as the film progresses, you're swayed away from Thomas and back again on whether or not to trust him.

The addition of the family dog appearing, which seems to irritate both siblings, is a wonderful little hint that they're not who they seem to be. 

Random movie - Little Evil

Movie: Little Evil
starring: Adam Scott, Clancy Brown
genre: Comedy, Horror,
year: 2017
format: Netflix Canada

plot: As a new step dad, Gary is convinced is his new wife's son is more than a little troubled. After their wedding photographer points out the priest spoke backwards in the vows and instead of asking the normal wedding vows, asks Gary to look after the son instead, Gary and his best friend Al; begin to investigate. They soon learn that the boy Lucas was conceived during a cult ritual. Before they know it, all the dads in the neighbourhood have to band together to fight the cult leader and keep the devil from rising.

This was a cute film I found it to be less horror and more horror spoof, and I think it would have been a great launching pad for a tv series.  50% Omen, 40% Rosemary's Baby, and 10% nods to other horror classics like the Shinning and Amityville.

Sally Field has a small role as the child services worker/cult member, and the nod to her tv show The Flying Nun, was quick but there none the less.  This movie is actually pretty fast paced given the amount of story that they manage to get across without it feeling rushed. We learn that the wife has a bit of a checkered past with keeping a husband, as they all seem to either die or runaway.

The one tiny detail that stuck in the back of my mind after the movie was over, was the priest. If he never actually referenced the wife, only the kid, why was that never addressed? It's set up in the beginning of the film but then never even used as a joke or anything afterwards. 

coffee talk oct 7th 2018

Spudguns!, we're 24 Days till Hallowe'en, and I'm feeling like my To Do List, is never going to reach any sort of end. Things just keep piling up more and more.

If you've been following me for any amount of time, you know I'm a big fan of Charmed. I'm actually looking forward to the new reboot next week. In fact, I spent the last few months re-watching the original series ready to compare notes. And realized that I missed an opportunity to have done a big review of the series. That shows you where my zombie eaten brains have been lately.

There will be no serial this week. I'll do my best to have both up next week for you though. (weekend of October 14th 2018)

That's about it for the moment. I hope to be back middle of the week with some of the Hallowe'en posts.

The Nosferatu Adventures s13 p13

The Nosferatu Adventures
page 343, chapter 343

Instability on Stage 5

Finn reached out and slapped the little silver box hard with his palm, causing the high pitched beeping to finally stop. Rolling over in the bed, the male yawned as he threw the covers off. He really hated mornings. Swearing, his left hand then slammed hard into the door frame as he nearly tripped over one of the cats. The large tabby hissed as it jumped up from it's spot on the floor, racing out into the hallway. Closing his own emerald coloured eyes, Finn rotated his shoulders trying to get the kinks out. Walking past the bathroom he told the locked door to hurry up as he continued on towards the kitchen.  "Ah you little shacking..." he shook his head as he spotted the trash knocked over and two of the black cats guarding their treasure. The two felines were batting around a large piece of watermelon rind like a couple of hockey players. "If I go into the other room and see the jar of catnip empty you're both in big trouble." Peeking into the dimly lit living room, Finn swore once again as he saw not only the jar of catnip knocked off the shelf, but tiny paw prints having left a trail of spilled oils leading around the window seat.

"By the way, your cats got into my stuff again." Bryon said too casually as he walked out of the bathroom and into the living room; which looked like it belonged on the set of a late night B-movie. Grabbing a silver skull shaped lighter off the coffee table which itself was coffin shaped, the dark haired goth lit a cigarette.

"And you didn't bother to clean any of it up?" Finn asked crossing his arms over his chest. The shorter male shrugged as he backed out of the room, moving his hands in circles.

"They're your cats." Bryon tossed the sentence over his shoulder, his teeth clenched tight around the stem of the cigarette. Smoke rippled from his nose as he did, putting Finn in mind of a dragon. Letting out a sigh himself, Finn dropped his arms before following his friend back into the kitchen. Leaning on the edge of the counter, the taller male changed the topic.

"Your groupies were by again last night." his short hair was the colour of wet sand streaked with grey and sun-bleached blonde. "You really need to take care of that. I can't keep covering for you." Finn commented as he tore a few paper towels off the roll and began cleaning up the trash.

"Just keep the doors locked. No big deal." Bryon replied as he stumped out the end of the cigarette pouring himself a glass of juice.

"It's a funeral home. Not really an option." he stretched his arm around one of the black cats as it purred contentedly licking it's whiskers. Finn rested his forehead against the top of the cat's head, making a soft purring sound himself.

"Sure you can. After 7pm, you lock the doors. No one needs to be there after that."

"Um...whatever man." Finn mumbled as he stood back up shooing the cats out of the way. "Look, my car's in the shop. I need to grab a ride to work with you."

"Okay. We just need to stop by the television studio on the way. I left my script there and I need to learn my lines before tonight."


Forty-Five minutes later...

The hearse: the one with the company logo, pulled up into the parking lot of the television studio; as Bryon checked his hair in the rear view once more before climbing out. Finn was nearly on his heels as he followed.

"I'm coming with you. Make sure you don't get sidetracked anymore than you already have." he pointed at the shorter goth as they crossed the threshold of the lobby. Tilting his chin, Finn pulled the little round sunglasses down his nose as he gazed around the place. The studio was empty and lent itself to a creepy feeling. "Any idea where you left it?"

"I must have dropped it in the props room." Bryon commented as he turned towards the hallway leading to it. Finn nearly slammed into his friend as he turned the corner to find Bryon hesitating at the doorway of the props room.

"We going in or what?"

"Yeah, just waiting for you." the tone was suppose to be sarcastic but came across with more queasiness than it should. He spotted the script about a foot from the edge of the mirror, but didn't move to collect it. The dark haired goth gulped a large amount of air rubbing his palms over his jeans.

"Are you alright?" Finn asked as he walked around the props room playing with rubber swords and feeling up the crushed velvet curtains that hung over a chair. "For the love of...lazy." Finn mumbled as he scooped up the script handing it to his friend. "Here you go my Highness." Snatching it from him, Bryon screwed up his nose before turning on his heels desperate to leave the room. "What is with you today?" Finn asked as they stepped out of the props room and back into the hallway; promptly slamming into someone.

"Bryon." Our heroine said smiling.

"See, groupies." Finn gestured towards our heroine and Edric.

"Oh my god, Finn." our heroine reached over hugging the taller male.


Tune in again for another installment of the Nosferatu Adventures starring your heroine...me (straight up story. Yeah, I know I'm over a week late with it.)