Pumpkin Party

Recently, the Residence Hall Association at our school put on a pumpkin party, and I was all gung-ho. I even volunteered to make the pumpkin cookies when the designated pumpkin-cookie-maker fell ill.

During the event, I wanted to try all the pumpkin foods, so the pumpkin-shake maker made me a huge pumpkin shake, with a huge swirl of whipped cream and a generous dash of cinnamon on top. I took my first pumpkin-y sip and then realized as the cold, creamy drink hit my taste buds that I don't like the taste of pumpkins. Surely, it's just the uncooked pumpkin pie filling I don't like, I thought, as I ate a slice of pumpkin pie that I later ended up spitting out. Maybe that pumpkin pie is a little stale since I had to buy it yesterday at Sam's Club, I tried to convince myself, while I choked down a pumpkin cookie I had just baked.

I found out I'm not a huge pumpkin fan, probably because I never ate pumpkin things growing up. My earliest and one of the only memories of eating pumpkin products was eating a pumpkin seed in the first grade. I sucked off the salt and then spat it out. I guess that was a pretty indicative incident....

Anyway, if you like pumpkin, you might like these cookies. They are cakey, and I'm told, taste like pumpkin pie.

Bright orange cookie batter

We had to continuously open the oven door to check on the cookies because the oven we used didn't have a window or a timer.
The cookies looked like little piles of vomit while they cooked, but don't let that stop you.

Pumpkin goodness. If that's what you're in to.

Madwizard's Pumpkin Cookies
From Recipezaar
Makes about 48 smallish cookies

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 cup pumpkin
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 large egg
• 2 cups all-purpose white flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
  

Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Cream the butter and both sugars until fluffy.
Add vanilla, egg, and pumpkin and blend.
Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Blend some more.
Scoop out the batter onto a baking sheet, a tablespoon at a time. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until they don't look glossy.

Commencement Chops

I'm excited to finally have my own food blog. I am a big follower of other people's food blogs, but until now, I've never documented the things I cook and eat, mainly because:
1) I infrequently cooked,
2) I usually don't document when I cook things,
both signs of a bad food blogger.

I still won't call myself a "food blogger" or "foodie," but I will officially start sharing what I've eaten with strangers on the Internet, starting with these pork chops my roommates and I made tonight following our disappointment with our school's cafeteria food.

The original recipe is from Everyday Food, a Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia production(!). We kind of changed the cooking style because we didn't know how to use the broiler on our oven, but we did know how to cook stuff in a pan on the stove. The amount of pork you want to add to the pan each time is up to you. I originally started to cook the meat in batches to get a sear on each piece, but then I got hungry and just started dumping it in and letting it cook.

The finished dish.

There always has to be a close-up shot, right?

Asian-Style Pork
Adapted from this Martha Stewart recipe.
Served 3.

• 5 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 3 boneless pork loin sirloin chops
• Oil, for cooking
  

Cut up the pork in 1/4 inch slices.
Add the rest of the ingredients except the oil in a bowl or some sort of container, mix, and add pork.
Marinate the pork (the original recipe calls for at least 1 hour, but we ended up leaving it in its plastic box for about 45 minutes while our rice cooked).
In a pan over medium-high heat, add some oil (we used about a tablespoon), and add the pork. Cook for about 1-1.5 minutes per side.

Serve with rice for a nice, collegiate 11 o'clock dinner.