Bites of My Life

Double post today and double bites today! Take A Bite went into hiding last week while I was working on getting my new site launched. A few technically difficulties set us back, but the time off built up the anticipation. Today is double the bites double the fun, to cover the past two weeks. I kept my bites condensed to not bore you with my life happenings. But heck, this site is about daily bites of my life, so lets get after it. 

-Halloween week naturally meant pumpkin everything, starting with this D@#% Good Pumpkin Soup. 
-Checked taking a food photography class off my to-do list! Need to brush up on some of the basics of my camera before I delve deep into Lindsay's tips.
-More pumpkin with this amazing Pumpkin Curry.
-Cured my halloween sugar coma and other things with breakfast tacos. 
-Naturally I went food related with my costume this year as a Pig in a Blanket!
-Ended the weekend crossing another thing off my Fall TDL, by enjoying the most gorgeous day riding bikes around downtown. 

-Molly and I decided to take our friendship from the Internet to pen and paper. Everyone loves getting mail and now it's even better with my bestie pen pal.
-Some lovey dovey pumpkin oats to start the day.
-Friday night wine and dine.
-Topped off with me, Ben and Jerry. 
-Kept the dinner and dessert trend going Sunday night with this incredible upside down pumpkin crumb cake, recipe to come. 
-And a big bowl of jambalaya and corn bread, recipe also to come. 

I hope you guys are enjoying the site as much as me. I have quite the pep in my step!

Annie

Live

Live from Oklahoma City, it's my new site design!!!!! Oh buddy this is a long time coming and I can't believe it finally happened. Isn't she lovely, isn't she wonderful? My sweet little DIY photoshop site I put together 2 years ago was in need of a little updating. 

Let's go through some new features and some of my favorite parts of the site. The Recipe Box feature in the right sidebar, so cute, right? All my recipes neatly categorized with themed pictures to organize them. The About page too, all my favorite things in one place. How great is the Instagram widget in the footer of the site? And finally make sure to subscribe via email (found in the right sidebar) to get Take A Bite sent straight to your inbox. I'm using a new service now that will make email posts look much prettier!

Last summer I started doing research on switching from blogger to a new hosting site. I would do research then realized it was to hard, then a few months later I'd do it again and realize it was too hard, then so on and so on. With 400+ posts I wasn't about to put 2.5 years of work on the line with the easy chance I would mistakenly delete it all somehow in the process. This summer I did a little more research and found blogging guru Bobbi, and realized with her help, it wouldn't be so hard to switch from Blogger to Squarespace. After some consultation with Peyton and Madison and hearing how much they have loved their Squarespace site I knew it was time to take the plunge.

Peyton and Madison are angels and took the ropes on all the design work. They took ideas I didn't even know I had and turned them into all of this! They are serious design angels. 

Huge kudos to Bobbi from Ready to Blog for taking all the techie ropes and peacefully transferring all my years of work to this beautiful new site. Ditto to Peyton and Madison for creating all design aspects and making the site look better than I could have wished, as well as to Peyton for being my Squarespace help center! She has an answer to all of my questions.

Stop in, stay a while, take a bite and enjoy!

  Annie  

Halloween Sluts

I don't mean to offend anyone, but I hate, HATE those slutty Halloween costumes you can buy at the party store. You know, the sexy Alice in Wonderland, sexy kitten or sexy fireman? Fireman are supposed to be respected, not turned into skimpy sexy outfits for girls to parade around in on Halloween. I've never seen a fireman walking around in knee-high socks and heels with a little red skirt and fireman hat on. At least not in Oklahoma.

These Halloween brownies are slutty, but not in a slutty costume kind of way. I'm on a slutty brownie kick and pretty much think they are going to be my go-to dessert from now on. Don't be surprised if Christmas, Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day slutty brownies pop up in the future. Thank goodness Oreo likes to celebrate as much as me and provides themed cookies to go with each holiday.

Third times the charm because this batch turned out perfect! Tips I learned: make sure you use a 9x9 pan, an 8x8 won't cut it. Double layer your foil, for easier removal from the pan, and 35 minutes is the baking time that has worked best for me to get fully cooked slutty brownies.

Halloween Slutty Brownies
yields 16-20 brownies
Recipe stays the same as the original just sub holiday themed Oreos for the regular ones and add holiday sprinkles!

Annie

#TBHT

In honor of throwback Thursday, a Halloween throwback seemed appropriate. Happy #TBHT!

I was always the cutest, sorry sistas.

I mean, c'mon? I even had little chopsticks in my hair.

 

My little neighborhood clan and trick-or-treating sidekicks. This costume is still talked about because my dad, yes my dad, sewed my cowardly lion costume. He's a man of many talents I tell you.

I always had an affinity for inanimate object costumes...here a cup of hot chocolate, below a present, not pictured the year I was a flower in a flower pot.

Ahh the glorious middle school days. We will stop here. Happy Halloween all!

 

Annie

Pumpkin Curry

I warned you about all the pumpkin posts that were going to happen this week. Pumpkin soup yesterday, pumpkin curry today, and more pumpkin tomorrow. Halloween is three days away for goodness sake! Y'all know me and holidays, they must be celebrated to the fullest.

This curry is amazing.  Like really really amazing. Kathleen back me up here (she had the luxury of joining me for dinner).  I'm a huge curry advocate. Throw the word pumpkin into the recipe and I'm sold. What I love about this recipe is how thick the pumpkin makes it. My past experience with making curry has always left me with a really soupy consistency. I can never get it as thick and creamy as the restaurants, until now. 

One of my friends from work showed me this recipe. We are both equally pumpkin obsessed and love coming in to work to show each other what we made for dinner the night before. I added chicken to mine but you could easily swap out for veggies or tofu. Serve over basmati rice and garnish with toasted pumpkin seeds and lots of cilantro. I recently purchased a rice cooker and it is kind of the best thing ever. I'm looking for any excuse to use it. For $20 you can get perfect sticky rice, fluffy quinoa and you can even use it like a slow cooker.

Pumpkin Curry adapted from
A Beautiful Mess
serves 2-3

Ingredients:
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 white onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 leek, halved and thinly sliced
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 can (13.5 oz) coconut milk
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. cayenne
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups shredded chicken, tofu or veggies (broccoli, red or green bell pepper, baby corn, pumpkin etc.)
1 cup basmati rice
cilantro and pumpkin seeds (pepitas) to serve

Directions:
Cook the rice according to the packaged instructions. Easy rule of thumb is one cup rice to one cup water. 
Mince the garlic, finely chop the onion and thinly slice the leek. Heat the oil over medium heat and sauté the garlic, onion and leek until soft and fragrant. About 3-4 minutes. Add the coconut milk, pumpkin puree and all the spices except the salt and pepper. Whisk together and cook over medium heat until everything is warmed through and thick. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add more of any of the spices if you wish. It's up to your taste buds. Once you get the flavor you like, stir in the shredded chicken. Serve the curry with rice and topped with pepitas and chopped cilantro. 

Annie