Spending Halloween with Sandy King Carpenter

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Nicole 1 Comment

One Halloween post from Sandy King Carpenter just isn’t enough. Today, we bring you part 2 from this wonderful, extremely talented, and incredibly sweet person that we just can’t get enough of. This time Sandy is bringing us a vegetarian minestrone soup recipe (it was taste tested by yours truly and it was delicious!), some pictures from her own Halloween haven, and a really unique costume idea. If you missed part 1 with her super cool party ideas, check it out HERE.

Sandy’s Vegetarian Minestrone Soup-

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups dried kidney beans
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped finely or pressed
1 large onion, chopped
5 Tbsp. olive oil
3 large white potatoes, peeled and cut into large cubes
2 carrots, peeled and thickly sliced
5 medium zucchini, thickly sliced
1 cup string beans, cut into 1” pieces
3 medium leeks, sliced thinly (should be about ½ cup)
the kernels cut off one ear of corn—or more if you like it a lot
one 4” piece of parmesan rind (or just any size cut off the end of a wedge of
parmesan cheese)
salt and pepper to taste
fresh parsley, chopped
large pinch of celery seeds
2 tsp. basil—a Tbsp if using fresh chopped
1 tsp. oregano—double it if using fresh
a large pinch of marjoram
½ head of savoy cabbage, thinly sliced
½ cup long grain rice
6 to 7 tomatoes, seeded and cut into large wedges
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
½ cup dry white wine
3 to 4 Tbsp. butter

Directions:
Soak the beans overnight in enough water to cover. Drain and transfer them to a large soup kettle, with 4 quarts of water. Add the garlic cloves, the onion and the olive oil. Simmer for about 1 ½ hours on top of the stove.

Add the potatoes, carrots, leeks, zucchini, cut string beans, corn and parmesan rind. Season with salt and pepper, a little chopped parsley, the celery seed, the basil, oregano and marjoram. Simmer for another 45 minutes.

Add the savoy cabbage and the rice and simmer for an additional 20 minutes. If the soup is getting too thick, add more water. About 5 minutes before the soup is ready to serve, add the tomatoes, the parmesan cheese, the white wine the butter and a little more fresh parsley.

Serves 12

Now that you’ve got another great dish to make for your party this year,  let’s take a peak at the Halloween queen’s office during their annual bash!

Indoors on Halloween night starts with champagne at the front desk, hors d’oeuvres on the coffee table in front of the fireplace, and hot mulled apple cider on the stove in the kitchen. A gigantic bowl of candy that I found at a Halloween shop years ago has jeweled spiders all around the outside of it and sits by the front door.

We always spend Halloween evening at the office since it’s in a neighborhood full of kids and it’s a lot more fun.  Since we opened our office there, the whole neighborhood now decorates for Halloween and the adults roam back and forth between houses visiting and caging drinks from each other.

Dining table centerpiece with pumpkin.  Not scary, just kind of pretty.

Outside the office looks a little something like this.

Here is Sophie in the Poison Ivy costume I made for her last year to greet trick or treaters.  She’s Belgian and had never had a Halloween costume before.  She had so much fun and the kids loved her. Amazing what you can do with a floral supply store, a glue gun and a shit load of glitter…okay…some sewing, but just the kind you’d do to sew on a button.  We had so much fun. It didn’t hurt to have a stripper shop nearby on Hollywood Blvd.  That’s where we found the leatherette harness thing we attached the ivy to and the jeweled bra.  I wonder what that harness was originally meant for?  ;-)

And a close up of the headpiece.

Again, we can’t thank Sandy enough for sending us her Halloween tips and recipes. She’s given us some great ideas and we hope her and John have a killer time at their party this year! And lastly, stay tuned for some of our own recipes to be paired with some of Sandy’s films very soon!