Save Your Creepy Decorations For Someone Else and Give Me Flowers and Sunshine and Ash-E Reshteh

It's Halloween!

I feel as though I am in a minority in our Halloween-loving society, but I dread this day(/week/month) every year. Believe me, there's no place I hate more than Halloween stores. I had to go into one yesterday for the finishing touches on my dog's costume (ya, more on that in a bit) and I felt like I was going to faint. My pulse races, my blood pressure drops, and I get so, so cold. I abhor anything to do with violent death, blood, gore, and the undead. Halloween now is pretty much everything I dislike all wrapped into one.It didn't used to be this way, right? Am I viewing the past with rose-coloured glasses? Maybe my parents just did a good job of keeping me away from it all. It just seems like the decorations and costumes of today are so over the top in their scare-factor. Why can't we all dress up as nice witches and firefighters anymore?

As much as I've always tried to put on a brave face for my daughter and make all the ghoulish things fun, she despises it all, too. It must be genetically determined and we're just not made for this. Give us flowers and sunshine. They are what sustain us.

This year, my daughter wanted to be Belle for Halloween. When she first told me, my heart skipped a beat.

That yellow gown.

I had coveted that dress since I had first seen the original movie when I was her age. I couldn't believe I could finally live vicariously through her.

Then she shot my dreams to the ground.

"I want to be Belle in the blue dress."

Why, child, why?

To be fair though, her reasoning is pretty legit: "Belle in the blue dress loves to read and sing and I love to read and sing."

Fine. Blue dress it is. Fingers crossed for next year ;)

The challenge was then finding the blue dress as most stores are all about that yellow one. We found a few online, but they weren't "just right." I admit, I indulge our daughter when it comes to finding the right costume. As she's been a princess every year since she discovered what they are, it's important to her that her costumes look like the movie they are from (it's the details, people), and I am okay with that. It's probably the most extra thing she and I do. But I'm only crazy within reason. Her costumes are $35 tops, all in. However authentic she may want them, I'm not willing to spend a boat load. And if I want my husband to tolerate our craziness, then we are definitely sticking to a budget. That may still be a lot of money for a costume for a lot of parents, but my daughter loves her costumes and wears them daily. For years. I took Rapunzel grocery shopping last month. Ariel joined me for dinner last week. We get every penny out of those costumes.

So the challenge was set. Let's all remember that Belle was a peasant. The blue dress? a simple peasant dress. It's not your typical princess frock and retailers know that so they all glammed it up a bit to make it appealing. We found versions featuring dark blue silks, embroidered roses, and sequins. Nope, nope, nope.

The only choice left was to make it.It took me a while to dust off my sewing machine as it has been years since I last used it.

But I make it I did.

It took about 12 hours in total. No pattern, no clue what I was doing.

I winged this sucker.

I channeled my inner grandma and I got it done.

I started early in the mornings and worked on it throughout the day when I could.

I forgot how much I love sewing.

I didn't say I was good at sewing but besides the time crunch, I enjoyed myself.

And. I. Did. It.

I'm pretty damn proud of it.

And as for my daughter? She LOVES it! Oh my heart, I'm so happy that she's happy. It was all worth it.

And I nailed the spin factor.

Nailed it

."Look there she goes that girl is so peculiar
I wonder if she's feeling well
With a dreamy, far-off look
And her nose stuck in a book
What a puzzle to the rest of us is Belle."

Those lyrics could easily describe our daughter.

God, do we love her.

She is curiosity personified, she breathes questions, she lives in an imaginary world for most of her waking hours then tells us excitedly of her dreams in the mornings. Books have always been her favourite things. Through stories and imagination with a touch of magic is how she lives her life.

She is wonderful.

She also chases seagulls. A big thanks to her daddy for that hobby.

I think this must have been in the deleted scenes in the movie, right?

I'll share stories of John and birds on another day. There's truly too many to share right now.

I'm not joking: water fowl hate him.

We also couldn't find a horse to play Phillipe so we went local and Belle rode Ogopogo to the Beast's castle.

One of the additionally "extra" things my daughter and I do is a photoshoot in her costume to capture the character. Here's her two previous years:

I hope she'll cherish them when she's older as much I do.

But with Halloween also comes the end of October. How can this beautiful month already be at an end? Fall is almost over and (dare I say a bad word?) winter is on its way.

In my house when I was growing up, "snow" was a swear word. If you said it, you had better be out of punching radius of my moma or she'd slug you right in the arm. My brother and I would say it then run. (I only admit this, of course, because it was all in jest. My moma would never actually hurt us, it was all just in fun, put your pitch forks down.)

To me, the colder weather means soup, and stews, and all things roasted. But sometimes, when the sun in shining through the windows and the sky is blue, I often fool myself into thinking that it's warm outside. Does anyone else so this?

It may just be a "me" thing. I get it. Our Belle comes by her weirdness honestly.

Even though the air is colder, when the sun is shining, it makes me crave fresh crisp produce. Maybe I'm just not ready to give up on the summer we never had. If you're like me, then this soup is for you.

Ash-E Reshteh.

It's a Persian Legume soup.

It's divine.It is usually served for the Persian New Year but I eat it as often as I remember to make it in the winter. It is full of beans, herbs, and noodles.

A quick Google search for a recipe will show you millions of variations. It's like any staple dish of a culture: everyone has their own take.

My recipe is based on taste memory from the first time I had it. I don't even remember where that was any more. But I remember how it tasted. I don't think I'll forget. I think it's one of my favourite dishes of all time.

However, I've never made it properly because I've never been able to source "reshteh" or the special type of noodle used in the soup. I have tried using store-bought egg noodles in the past but this time I blended my heritage with that of the soup's and used spaetzle. And it was the best Ash-e Reshteh I've ever made.

I don't have a spaetzle maker, so instead, I use a box cheese grater. It looks like this:

Using a silicone spatula, scoop a dollop of batter onto the large-holed side of the grater and smush through (these are all technical terms). Keep going until all of the batter is gone, stirring the noodles around periodically. Yes, it'll make a bit of a mess, but it's worth it.

The biggest draw for me to this soup is the absolute abundance of herbs in it. It tastes fresh because of it, but it's still warm and comforting. It is undeniably perfect for this time of year.

This is also a sneak into what our life looks like while I cook: Tiny person does something at the counter (like playdough) and I cook and we talk and joke and sing. It's one of the best times of the day.And she totally uses my mojito muddler for playdough. But come spring when fresh mint is back, that muddler is solely for my use only.

This soup is deep, rich, and satisfying.And beloved by my little.

I swear I have a pile of pictures of her doing things other than eating. You'd think that's all she does. Although right now, she's out eating me every day, so that is pretty much her only pastime. Thank you, yet another growth spurt, I'll have to go find her some longer pants. Again.

But we all love Middle Eastern food in this house. We love the complex flavours, the unexpected spices, and the rich traditions steeped into every dish. I like to think of Middle Eastern flavours as my "culinary roots." I don't think that way because I'm culturally from there, or even that I cook that way that often, but it was because of these flavours that I started experimenting with other cuisines of the world. And when I'm stressed or sick or just need comfort, these are the dishes I turn to. They were the ones that opened my eyes to the whole world of what other delicious foods are out there that I've never even heard of.The first "real" cookbook I ever bought (minus the obligatory 'finally-living-on-one's-own Company's Coming' cookbooks) was called The Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook and it's still a favourite.And I only found these flavours because of a favourite prof of mine who taught a course on Middle Eastern Narratives and would always offer a date when you visited his office with a question. It's been six years since that course and I feel that influence daily by the staple ingredients in my pantry and fridge: tamarind paste, pomegranate molasses, rubbed mint, baharat, numerous legumes, eggplants, dates, cardamom, bulgur, sumac, etc. I love how life connects things.

I realize I've been throwing around the term "Middle Eastern" like it's all one type of cooking, but within that title falls so many types of cuisine that I would run out of space trying to name them all. This is a general term that hardly does justice to the diverse flavour profiles of the different regions and countries. When I share a "Middle Eastern" dish, I'll always specify what area it is coming from or where my influence is pulled from.

As I mentioned, this is a Persian dish. Persia was a previous name for Iran. There still very much exists a cultural difference between Persians and the rest of Iranians. I certainly did not know that one existed until one of my first profs in Dawson very proudly told me of her Persian background. There's so much about the Middle East that I don't understand, but would I ever love to.

For now, I'll just explore it through the flavours I recreate here in Canada.

Recipe for Ash-e Resteh Serves 4 with a side salad

1 onion, diced
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 500 ml can of mixed beans, drained and rinsed*
1/2 cup dried green lentils
3 cups vegetable stock
2 cups water
1 tbsp. tumeric
1 tbsp. dried mint
1 cup parsley, finely chopped
1 cup cilantro, finely chopped
1/2 dill, finely chopped
4 cups spinach, finely chopped
Salt and pepper

Spaetzle, recipe to follow

1. In a large pot, saute the onion in the oil until beginning to brown.
2. Add in everything else. Cook for 15-20 minutes until the lentils are cooked through.
3. If you are adding spaetzle, do so when the lentils are cooked. If you are adding other noodles, add them in at the appropriate time according to their cooking directions.

*If you have a variety of leftover or frozen beans, feel free to use them here. While I prefer to use dried beans and cook them myself, it's not often I have a myriad of them ready to go, so canned makes it easy. However, you could just use one type of bean, but something would be lost in the soup as the variety adds to the deliciousness of the recipe.

Recipe for Spaetzle

1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1/2 cup whole grain flour (I use sprouted spelt)

1. Using the scoop and smush method described above, add your spaetzle to the soup just before serving. They are cooked when they rise to the surface or, since there's so much stuff in this soup, they look solid and have a good mouth bite when tested. Super scientific.

Ash-e Reshteh is commonly topped with a dollop of kashk, a strained, thick yogurt. I choose not to use it, but if you wanted to try it, plain Greek yogurt would be an appropriate substitute.

And that's that. Let me know if you make it! I really do enjoy feedback.

Now I'm off to make school snacks for my tiny's class. Let's all hope the rain disappears and it clears before we have soggy princesses and ghosts running around on our streets.

I realize that I took a rather long time getting this post up, but I should be back to a more regular schedule now that I'm finished making my princess' dreams come true.

Happy Halloween!