I saw two cute pumpkins on social media and I just had to do them both.

For each project, you need to get yourself a nice big pumpkin.

Cut out the tops.

And pull out all those seeds.

Once they’re all cleaned out, you’re ready to go.

The first is the Lazy Man’s Jack-O-Lantern. My friend, Bridget, posted it on Facebook and it is right up my alley!

I always struggle with deciding what sort of face I want to make. With this, there’s no thinking involved. Just use a skewer to poke out two little eyes.

Use the same skewer to score out a mouth…

…going deeper and deeper until you’re cutting it out. And that’s all there is to it. I think it’s adorable.

You gotta admit – he’s pretty cute when he’s lit up.

I found cool pumpkin #2 on the HGTV Instagram page. You’ll need your cleaned-out pumpkin, a box of wine, and some permanent markers for this one.

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My dear friend, Tram Mai, morning anchor on 12News, and I have filmed several little segments for her morning show recently. The first one aired yesterday.

Tram sent me a LINK. This one is all about how to easily peel soft fruits.

Future clips include proper table setting, how to grill pizza, a homemade all-purpose cleaning solution, packing hacks, and more.

Thank you for all the sweet birthday wishes yesterday! I want to tell you that I kept my word and didn’t complain about the heat for the rest of the day yesterday … but today is a new day and the photo below says it all!

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Four winners!

Many thanks to all of you who left comments these last few days for my Free Cooking Classes giveaway.

Before I announce the winners and show you the videos of the drawing, I have a few things to say.

So… today is my birthday. I pretty much love my birthday! I love everything about it, but the thing I love most is that it’s in October and it’s at the end of October.

What makes that so special is in late October is when it finally cools down in the Arizona desert and life becomes enjoyable and the outside becomes bearable again. October is the best and the end of October is the very very best!

That is until this year.

All I can say is what the hell is this!?!!! This is the worst! How is it even possible for this to be possible? One HUNDRED degrees on October 27th is not right! Not right at all. I am mad and this is ruining my birthday!

Alright. I’m done. I just had to get that off my chest. I’d love to say I feel better now that I’ve said it, but I don’t. I’ll try not to complain about it for the rest of the day.

Now, on to the enjoyable task at hand… giving away fun stuff!

Yesterday, after the entry time ended, I wrote the eligible names down on slips of paper and took them over to my neighbor, Karin’s, house. She and I are finishing the last-minute details on our neighborhood Fall Festival, which is this Sunday. I had Karin help me videotape the drawing. I held my iPhone, while Karin folded up all the slips of paper, put them in a pot, and drew out the winners. I used the time-lapse feature on my phone for the first time.

I did… OK with it. Not great, but sufficient.  Here, you can judge for yourself:

Winner #1 for the cooking class on Tuesday, November 8th is…

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Tomorrow is the drawing for the Free Cooking Classes, so be sure to get your comments in today!

In the meantime, I have some delicious photos from Sunday’s Les Dames d’Escoffier “Afternoon at the Farm: Cultivating Culinarians” fundraising event to share with you.

Hopefully, you’ve eaten before you see this because if not, it will have you drooling and running for the refrigerator!

Some of the photos are mine, some are lifted from Facebook and all the food photos from the sit-down portion of the afternoon were taken by Chef Stacey Schulz-McDevitt, who flew in from NYC to cook at the event. Thank you Stacey for allowing me to share them here!

I’ll put up the photos of the dishes in the order they are listed on the menu below. I’ll post portions of the menu as we go to help you keep track and identify the dishes and the talented women who made them.

Be ready to be amazed! Here we go…

Those were just the hor d’oeuvres … and the salsa station, above, wasn’t even listed on the menu. Each of the stations was accompanied by a different margarita and all the food for this portion of the afternoon was cooked and served by the students of C-CAP Arizona.

Now time for the sit-down, family-style lunch which was cooked on-site by some of the most talented and generous female chefs in Arizona.

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It’s contest time!

To be entered to win a free cooking class, all you need to do is leave a comment on ANY post on this entire site. You can leave a comment on a recipe you’ve made. Or one you want to try. Or on a party theme, you’ve enjoyed. Or on this very post. You can say whatever you want.  “This is great!” or “I want to win.” or “Come on pick me, I never win anything!”

Here is the low-down:

You are entering to win one of four (1 of 4) spots in an evening class that I teach at Les Gourmettes Cooking School.

It would probably be best if you actually lived in the Phoenix area since that’s where the classes are held … because airfare and lodging are not included. 🙂

Classes are demonstration, they begin at 6:30 p.m. and end at 9:00 p.m. At the end of the cooking demo, we move to the dining room to enjoy the meal prepared in class. The classes are held at:

Les Gourmettes Cooking School
6610 North Central Avenue
Phoenix, Arizona 85012

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It’s no secret that I don’t like to bake. I considered buying dessert for the German-Swiss Dinner Party. At the last minute, I caved. I was inspired to make a gingerbread cake by the beautiful gingerbread-like towns in Switzerland and Germany.

As usual, my baking experience wasn’t great. I coated the bundt pan heavily with softened butter and then coated it with flour.

Unfortunately, some of the cake STILL stuck to the darn pan. This, right here, is why I hate to bake! I really should rename this website that. Hate2Bake.com. I just looked it up and the name isn’t taken. Hmmm.

It’s OK, it all worked out because I carefully lifted out the stuck pieces and gingerly put them in place. See what I did right there, gingerly!

Along with the gingerbread, I served Swiss Hot Chocolate with Asbach brandy from Switzerland.

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This is the second side-dish that accompanied the Pork Schnitzel and the last of the savory dishes from the German-Swiss Dinner Party.

Did you think you’d seen the last of the recipes containing cheese from the extravagantly cheesy dinner? I’m afraid not. I do promise this is the last of it though, there was no cheese in the dessert, which I will post the recipe for tomorrow.

Then on Friday, get ready for another contest. This time, instead of winning cookbooks, if you live in The Valley of the Sun, you could win a free spot in a cooking class. Stay tuned!

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Today’s recipe was one of the two side dishes that accompanied the Pork Schnitzel at my German-Swiss Dinner Party.

It’s an extremely easy and quick recipe and a great side dish for just about any main course.

The other thing I’m sharing today is a few photos of a quick taping I did yesterday for Channel 12. I received a text message from one of Tram’s colleagues, Nico, at 7:45 in the morning asking if he could come by in a couple of hours to film a “how to set the table” segment. I told him sure, that I could be ready by 10:00.

I knew it wasn’t going to air until November, so I started pulling out the Thanksgiving stuff. Luckily, I’d just hauled the Halloween decor out of the shed over the weekend, so I knew exactly where the Thanksgiving tubs were located.

Next, I went out into the Miscellany Shed and pulled out the wood slabs to use as chargers and a handful of antlers.

Finally, I dug through the various china cabinets to round up the dishes, crystal and flatware.

One unfortunate thing happened though, I broke one of the wine glasses from my wedding crystal. I’d love to blame it on the cats (they were annoyingly underfoot) or on my rushing, but it was just general clumsiness. Even after sweeping twice, I kept finding glass, long after the shoot was over.

I didn’t get my Halloween decorations put out, which was my plan for the day before the text arrived, but I was ready when Nico arrived… and that’s saying something!

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I’ve been out of the practice of blogging over the weekend for quite some time now.

Today is an exception because I want to invite you to something wonderful!

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Until recently, in Germany and Austria, one was not allowed to call a dish Wiener Schnitzel unless it was made with veal. If the dish was made with pork instead, it needed to be called Wiener Schnitzel vom Schwein.

In 2009, they lighted up and a “Wiener Schnitzel” no longer refers exclusively to a veal dish, but instead to a breaded steak in general.

Since I didn’t want to offend or cause confusion, I just called it Pork Schnitzel on the menu skillet at my German-Swiss Dinner Party.

The recipe is an adaptation of a Tyler Florence recipe. From it, I learned a new technique for breading meat. Tyler suggests letting the breaded meat rest in the refrigerator, uncovered, for 10 minutes to allow the coating to dry out and adhere. It worked great! I’ll be doing that on all my breaded recipes from here on out.

Since I was cooking for 20, it was especially important to make this ahead. I cooked all the schnitzel, refrigerated and then reheated it and finished cooking it in the oven. If you are serving immediately, reduce the oven time to about 12 to 15 minutes.

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