gettin' our geek on

The Meatball is a geek, just like his Mutha.  So when we heard about this whole Pottermore thing-a-ma-jig we were all over that as soon as we could be.  Side note -- each member of our family landed in a different house, and given that we are all a teensy bit competitive that really adds to the fun.

The Meatball is also a kiddo who cannot play anything remotely videogame-ish for more than about 15 minutes.  Also all the end of the world, kid saves the day type stories that he loves oh so much are also things we have to limit due to severe hyperfocus issues.  Long story short, playing things like Pottermore are a brief, fun special treat.

I think fun special treats should always be paired with the proper fun special beverage.

Cue a web search for Pumpkin Juice.  Yeah, sooo not what I was hoping for either, but it is a beverage that features prominently throughout the Potter stories.  Perhaps it is also a common juice in the UK (?) but the Meatball and I had often pondered why on earth someone would juice a pumpkin, much less drink it.  Butterbeer sounded far more tasty, so I found a recipe for it too while I was at it (hot and cold butterbeer, yay!), but that is a post for another day!

So this is why I needed unicorn horn, er, I mean cardamom.  *rolls eyes* I found a cheap bottle for around $12, and it will last us a while.  We gathered our supplies, and while I was getting the blender out the Great Finger Massacre of 2012 occurred.  A slight delay in our plans, but once I was staunched, glued, and bandaged the Meatball needed something to distract him from his apparent conviction I was going to bleed to death from my index finger.

Ingredients:

15 oz can of pumpkin puree
64 oz bottle of V8 Splash Tropical Blend (we used about 32 oz)
1 T ground cardamom

Blend all the ingredients together and serve it chilled.  I don't have an immersion blender -- but I sure would like one -- so I had to use a regular blender.  We did not use all of the V8, only about half , and we thought it was good that way.  It already tasted mostly like the V8 Tropical splash with the half bottle, so we were happy with it.

Since neither the Meatball or I are known for patience, and I had made him wait long enough given my need for medical care, we served it over ice in my "fancy cups" and got our Pottermore on!