Happy Halloween from Knight Guy!

And sorry this month was so sparse with updates! I've been updating Knight Guy once a week, trying to work on editing Alfred's Story, doing extensive research for my Personal History, and setting up a writing group!

Recipe #6: Crunchy Punk1n S33dz

This pumpkin seeds recipe may be plagiarized from somewhere else, but I can't remember since I can't find the original. So I'm just going off the assumption that, like many other recipes I've made over the years, it's probably a mixture of a couple of recipes I found. Which makes it original! (Please don't sue me)

Crunchy Punk1n S33dz

"Made with 0% olive oil! (Cuz olive oil's gross)"

 Ingredients

• 1 or more pumpkins
• Water
• Salt
• Cracked pepper
• Paprika

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Oh wait. Don't do that yet. They're not ready to cook.
2. Disembowel the pumpkins by cutting a hole in the top or bottom and scraping out everything inside. Set the seeds aside, discard the guts, and carve/sculpt the pumpkin and put it out on your front porch with a candle inside it.
3. Wash the seeds to remove as much of the pumpkin intestine as possible. This can easily be done just by swishing them around in a bowl of water. Drain as needed.
4. Put the pumpkin seeds in a large bowl with enough water to cover the seeds (they'll probably float, but that's okay). Add 1½ tsp. of salt to every cup of water in the bowl. Let it sit overnight.
5. Now preheat up the oven to 400°F in the morning before work. Drain 'n' strain the seeds.
6. Put the seeds in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with tin foil. Sprinkle with more salt, cracked pepper, and paprika. Put the sheet in the oven and let it roast for 15–18 minutes.
7. Remove the seeds from the oven. They may be done at this point if they're golden brown (one or two of the seeds might be burnt). If not, sift and turn them over on the sheet with a wooden spoon and return to the oven for 5–8 more minutes.
8. Done! Let them cool and then feel free to enjoy. If you want, you can spray them with a bit of oil and toss them with more seasonings like garlic powder, cinnamon and sugar, ranch powder and smoked paprika, or anything else. These are the crunchy variety of pumpkin seeds, not the chewy, oily kind. They'll be a great high-magnesium snack for you during your work day!

YIELD: 1 mess of pumpkin seeds per pumpkin used.
____

Washes down well with...  Water. Them's pretty salty, so you'll probably want to keep on washing 'em down.

Sculpture?

I don't know why, but until this year I've never tried to actually "sculpt" a pumpkin before. Unlike most art projects, I never really took pride in carving a pumpkin. I would just cut a scary face or an outline of Trogdor the Burninator in it and call it good for the year. But I've been missing out!

This year I tried actually making a pumpkin sculpture, varying thickness to make different brightness levels in the pumpkin when it's lit. It was surprisingly soft to carve, even though all I had was a cook's knife, a teaspoon, and a cutting saw from a pumpkin carving kit. Next year I'll hopefully have access to better tools so I can more easily transmit my imagination to the "canvas," as it were.

Not my best work, but it is my first work! I'm looking forward to a new tradition!

World of WarCraft login screen

I've been really in to WarCraft III lately, which happens once every year or so. It's my favorite game of all time, and the map editor in particular never gets old. Indeed, it only gets funner as I get more ideas and time goes by. While playing the Frozen Throne campaign again, I realized the game had just the right materials to make a remake of the original login screen for World of Warcraft. It didn't take long to make, but I like how it turned out. Listening to the music brings back good memories of the original game that no longer exists. Rest in peace, Vanilla WoW and BC.