.png)
Join Van & Paley's Movie Night! Make Harry Potter Snacks!
Your Fantasy Portal welcomes you to Van and Paley’s movie night!
For those of you not familiar with D. L. Armillei's Anchoress series, the main character is teenage Vanessa Cross. She and her best friend Paley Ash decided to hang out tonight and watch movies at Van’s house otherwise known as "the manor."
Imagine yourself there with them, and immerse yourself into their world by following along with the video.
In the spirit of it being fall, the time when witches and wizards head back to Hogwarts, the girls decided to binge-watch all eight Harry Potter movies.
As Paley would say, where there’re movies, there’re snacks!
But Van’s stepmother Genie is off-island on a shopping trip and the Cross’ housekeeper, Luma, is off for the long holiday weekend, leaving Van and Paley to fend for themselves when it comes to making snacks.
Van wants to make something to match the fall and Harry Potter themes so she suggests making snacks using pumpkins. What snacks do you want to make?
Paley immediately agreed with Van and is excited to make Pumpkin Pasties like the ones in Harry Potter. They also decided to make fresh Iced Pumpkin Juice.
Naturally, the recipe has to be easy since the girls are not cooks.
Here is the simple recipe Van and Paley are using right now to make Iced Pumpkin Juice. To follow along you’ll need:
4 cups apple juice or apple cider
1/2 can pumpkin puree (15oz)
1/8 cup maple syrup
1/8 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
pinch of salt
Combine pumpkin puree, maple syrup, brown sugar, 3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice, salt, and 1 cup of apple juice in a large pot over medium heat. Bring to a low simmer then remove from heat.
Add the remaining 3 cups of chilled apple cider to the warmed pumpkin mixture and stir to combine.
Pour the mixture into a glass serving pitcher and let it sit in the refrigerator for an hour or until cold. (you can drink it warm if you want but Van insists on it being iced)
While they’re waiting for the pumpkin juice to chill, they’re putting together the ingredients for the pumpkin pasties.
Here’s what you need:
For the Pumpkin Filling:
⅓ cup – sweet potato, peeled, diced (uncooked)
⅓ cup – Yukon Gold potato, peeled, diced (uncooked)
¼ cup – medium-sized onion, finely diced
2–3 – garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp – olive oil
¼ cup – vegetable broth
2 tsp – cornstarch
¾ cup – pumpkin puree
1 tsp – tomato paste
1 tsp – dried sage
1/2 tsp – dried basil
½ tsp – paprika
½ tsp – salt
¼ tsp – ground black pepper
⅓ cup – vegan cheese (or regular cheese) (optional)
For the crust:
1 box pre-made puff pastry (usually have two sheets)
parchment paper and a small bowl filled with water to dip your fingers
Preheat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit.
In a small bowl add the vegetable broth and cornstarch mixture. Stir with a fork to combine. Set aside.
In a medium-sized saucepan, heat the tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat.
Add the sage, onions, and garlic, and cook for a few minutes until the onions are just turning translucent.
Next, add the diced potatoes and cook until they’re soft, time will depend on how small you diced them, check after a few minutes. Don’t cook all the way through bc you’re baking them in a moment.
Then add the pumpkin puree, tomato paste, basil, paprika, salt, & black pepper. Mix until well combined.
Then pour in the vegetable stock/cornstarch mixture and mix well. Cook until the ingredients thicken.
Remove from heat and allow the mixture to cool completely before moving to the next step.
Prepare the baking tray by covering it with parchment paper or mist the tray with a nonstick cooking oil spray.
Set up your work surface. It can be a cutting board or parchment paper on a counter or table. Once the filling is cooled, place the small bowl of water and the filling next to your work surface.
Take out one sheet of the pre-made dough. The pre-made dough is pre-dusted so you can unroll the dough over your work surface and cut out 4 rounds from 1 sheet. Repeat for the other sheet.
Scoop a tablespoon of filling and place it in the center of the dough circle. Be careful not to overfill so the filling doesn’t touch the edges of the dough. If using cheese sprinkle on top. (Since Van is on a perpetual diet, she and Paley omitted the cheese)
Brush the edges of half of the circle with water using your fingers or a pastry brush, and fold over the other half.
Press the edges lightly with your finger then take a fork and crimp the edges to completely seal them together.
With a sharp paring knife, carefully score 3 vents at the top of the pasties and place them on the prepared baking tray. Repeat for the other sheet.
Roll out the extra dough you cut off and repeat the process. All in all, it makes about 12 pasties.
Place pasties on the parchment-lined baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the dough is cooked through and golden brown.
Remove from oven. Cool on the baking tray for 10 minutes.
Now’s the time to grab the Pumpkin Juice, which should be nice and chilled.
Serve in special movie night glasses over ice!
The girls made theirs fancy by sprinkling the remaining pumpkin pie spice over the top of the juice and tucking a slice of apple on the side of the glass! Mmmmm!
Serve with the pumpkin pasties. They look just like something out of Harry Potter! Remember, they don’t have to look perfect—nothing in the Wizarding World is perfect-they just have to be yummy!
And yummy they are! The Pumpkin Pasties came out delicious—far better than Van imagined they would. Paley gives them a thumbs up as she has already stuffed two into her mouth.
The girls grin as they’re guzzling the delicious Iced Pumpkin Juice and eating the Pumpkin Pasties as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone movie begins to play in the manor’s home theater. The whole setting is enough to make the girls feel like they’re sitting in the Great Hall at Hogwarts!
There you have it! Movie night with Van & Paley!
Let me know how your movie night went by leaving a comment!
*Click here for the products used to make the Pumpkin Pasties—> https://amzn.to/3xqCVwS
*Want to learn more about Van and Paley? Get started reading D. L. Armillei’s Anchoress series —> https://amzn.to/3dgVMnq
*Harry Potter: The Complete 8-Film Collection —> https://amzn.to/3S5ZPSk
*These are Amazon associate links, Amazon throws some pennies my way at no cost to you.