Homemade Pumpkin Puree

This year, as you well know if you have kept up on my blog, James and I grew a garden. In that garden we grew lots of wonderful fruits and vegetables and the one thing James was most excited about was the pumpkins. We managed to harvest about eight pumpkins (two actual Jack-O-Lanters and the rest are called Triple Treats), and we used four of them to carve on Halloween. The last four pumpkins I cooked up today and made my own homemade pumpkin puree. It was a lengthy process, but only because I had to gut, cut, scrape, peel, and puree the pumpkins. I got a good amount of pumpkin seeds, too (I found out that the Triple Treat pumpkins have hull-less pumpkin seeds that are great for roasting). On Halloween night, after we carved out pumpkins we also roasted the pumpkin seeds. To be honest, I preferred the Triple Treat seeds to the regular Jack-O-Lantern seeds. They taste kind of like popcorn, but without the kernels, and a bit meatier. They even swell and pop in the oven like popcorn. We put olive oil and some seasoning salt on them and have been feasting on them.

Today I got many more seeds that I harvested the same way. When they started popping in the oven I knew they were done. I pulled them out and immediately began tasting them...and kind of haven't stopped. Until now, of course. They are really good. We are definitely growing Triple Treat pumpkins in our garden next year. I also roasted the actual pumpkin until it was fork tender and then I pureed the chunks in the food processor. I was worried the pumpkin would be more watery, but that was not the case at all. In fact, I had to add about half a cup of water to get it a nice thick consistency, and still not be too watery. It turned out great and now I have a great deal of pumpkin puree with which to bake pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cookies, and pumpkin pie. Mmm! Pumpkin pie. I love that stuff. I don't eat it at all through the year, but when November comes it's all I can think about. I love pumpkin pie! I think I'll be making pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread tomorrow. I was going to make it tonight, but it might be a little too late now. I was going to make it for dessert after I tried a new recipe called Lasagna Soup. Since it snowed last night and it's still cold today (which I LOVE!!) I figured it was a great day to try a new soup. I don't know why, but I'm kind of on a soup kick lately. I made a homemade creamy baked potato soup last week that was to die for! So, I'm really excited to try this new soup. I mean, what's not to love with a soup that tastes, and has the same ingredients as, a regular lasagna? It should be good!

Halloween 2011

Well, Halloween seemed to come so quickly this year. I can't believe it's over now. James and I had a great time this month making crafts, hanging and enjoying Halloween decorations, watching Halloween movies, and carving pumpkins. It was awesome. Here are some pictures of our decorations and the pumpkins we carved last night.

And here are the pumpkins we carved:

Here are all the pumpkins together

James did this one

Here's one James created himself. It looks like the tree is coming out of the top.

Here's mine. A few bats.

Here's my other one.

We lit the tree behind the pumpkins. They looked cool!

Here's another with the tree lit behind it.

We had a good Halloween, and honestly we are sad to see it go. However, we are so excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is our favorite time of year, yet it always seems to go so fast. So, we try to have as much fun as we can. I hope everyone had a good Halloween!

Halloween Crafts

**Warning! This post might be very picture heavy, but it will be worth it. I promise!**

About a month ago my wonderful husband and I started to work on Halloween projects in preparation of the upcoming holiday. We love Halloween. I mean, LOVE!! It should come as no surprise to most people who know us, really. Our apartment is completely decked out in Halloween decorations that would put most houses to shame. We just love the decorations, the festiveness (I think I may have made that word up, but just go with it), and the opportunity to do something fun to take our minds off our "normal" problems. I wanted to show you the Halloween crafts we made to make the holiday even more fun.

We made some Halloween jars with a variety of labels on them and placed them on a shelf in our kitchen. We filled them with various objects, and have had a blast looking at them, using them, and seeing them sit on the shelf. Here are a few pictures of them. James made the labels and I put them on the jars.

Go ahead and click on any of the pictures to make them larger and see them in more detail. These were so fun (and quick) to make. James' favorite is the Ghost in a Bottle that has eyes in the back, and mine is the Dragon Tears that you can shake. They are cool, if I do say so myself.

Another project we did was for our mini Halloween graveyard. I purchased these Styrofoam gravestones about six years ago to use at a Halloween party my brother and I had. Since then those gravestones have been pretty much everywhere. I used them at work a couple of times, as well as put them in a variety of locations in my home. Then James started to really get into creating this mini tabletop graveyard and that became their new home. With all the putting up and taking down they got kind of used, so we traced the shape of them and James cut them out wood and I painted them. Now they are totally durable and can be used for years to come.

It looks like I am a master painter, huh? Not so my friends! Do not be deceived. I had two sets of the graveyards. We cut them in half and glued them to the wood shapes, and then glued them to wood bases. If you look closely, you can see where the original gravestones and the wood ones don't quite match up. Not that I want to willingly point out the flaws, but I seriously do not want to disappoint people with my mad gluing skills. I'm just sayin'.

The next project I did was for friends of our. I wanted to make them a special Halloween gift they could use in their own home. They were coming over to help us decorate, so I started working on this first, but it was pretty time consuming what with all the painting and drying. Still, it was so much fun and I was so pleased with the way it turned out. It was an idea I got from Martha Stewart, and it's candy corn garland. I made the candy corn shapes out of foam blocks, and used baking wrappers for the candy pieces in between. Then we strung it up on some fancy string and gave it to them. They loved it and I have no doubt it will be loved and used in their home.

While I was working on all the painting and gluing, James was working on a project himself. James likes to paint, and he does a really good job of it. He decided he wanted to create a picture of pumpkins on a silver tray using oil paints. And create it he did! I am so impressed with his talent, and even more excited to have it added to our collection of Halloween items. It looks awesome!! He is working on building a frame for it, and once that's done we'll have the complete picture. It still looks really good on the wall right now.

I saw an idea online for a Halloween wreath that I thought looked so great, and I really wanted to try it for myself. I know my mom is going to love this one. It's a fabric Halloween wreath made from a bunch of fabric pieces. We got some fabric, cut it up into pieces, then tied it to a metal wreath. I have to admit that I didn't really like the look of it as I was tying all the pieces on, but after I was done it looked much better. Then we loosely wrapped some rich orange ribbon around the wreath and added some black and orange balls on it. We thought that would be it because it was so beautiful and we both really liked it, but then James found this wonderful little sign painted orange with gold glitter that said "Halloween" and we added that to the middle with some fishing wire. After that, we stood back and admired our work. We loved it. I'm excited to try one for Christmas.

Close up of some of the detail. You can see the different patterns of fabric we used.

And the last project we worked on for Halloween was something that is dear to my heart. When I was a kid my grandma sent us a set of these adorable Halloween ceramic figurines that had glowing and blinking red eyes. They were awesome! My brothers and sisters and I were quick to pick our favorite and claim it was "ours". We played with those figurines so many times that eventually they eyes stopped blinking and stopped turning on. We still loved them, though. Fast forward twenty or so years and my mom handed them down to me so I could display them in my own home. I didn't get a chance to try and fix them last year, so my one goal was to get them working. That, however, proved to be more difficult than I thought since technology has advanced so quickly since then and the pieces I had were so archaic people were scared when we showed them the pieces. I eventually turned to my dad for help. He is really good at trying to figure out how things work and how to repair items, so I knew he could help me. He's been working on them for several weeks now, and I am happy to report that they work! They are blinking again! Well, most of them are. Out of eight pieces, there were two or three that had to be completely rebuilt and they don't blink, but I'm just so happy to have these pieces working again. Everyone who has seen them has fallen in love with them. They really are cool. So to end my picture happy post today, I've included the pictures below. The video I had isn't working properly, so once I get it fixed I'll upload it for you all to see them blinking. They are so cool! I know my family will remember these pieces...and try to fight me for them. :) Enjoy!!

Before the lights were turned on. These are not all of them.

And now with the lights on. The wolf/cat and the mummy were the ones we had to replace.

Stronger

I saw a quote about a week ago that said, "Sometimes people cry not because they are weak, but because they have been strong for too long." I smiled a small smile when I saw that because I thought it was a fair quote. Then I started thinking about it and I thought it could use a little revamping. It should say, "Sometimes people cry not because they are weak, but because they have been strong for so long." That was me yesterday.

I don't think I've had to fight for something so hard before in my life. There were things I had to struggle through, and times when I needed to work hard for something, but this has been a serious fight for me and some people may think I'm crazy doing everything I've been doing to try and get some answers, some clarification, and someone to help me figure it out. Health issues are always a challenge, but when you spend 90% of your time trying your absolute best to figure out what the problem may be, it can become exhausting. Yesterday I went to have a neck ultrasound done as a part of the follow-up care to the thyroid cancer. The test was difficult only because of the crazy stretched out position they always put my neck in, in order to get the best results. You'll be happy to know the test came back as clean, and so other than a slight increase in the Synthroid dosage I take each day, and an elevated thyroglobulin level (which means there is still thyroid tissue and thyroid cancer somewhere in my body but no other test can find it), I am not expected back to the endocrinologist for another three months. One area down, another yet to go.

As I was driving back home from the test yesterday, I had a mini break down in my car. It wasn't anything too bad. I could still drive on the freeway and everything, but it was tiring nonetheless. Sometimes I try so hard to be so strong and brave and face whatever tests and medicine and doctors I need to face, and I do really well for a while. Then, in the small moments of quiet thought I break down a little bit and get it out of my system. It's hard doing all this stuff. Sometimes I just need to cry.

Today I went to yet another doctor's appointment for an unrelated issue that has consumed my world for the past four years now, and caused me such heartache. I am hopeful this doctor will help me to figure out what this issue is. I'm not going to go into detail as to what is going on, but suffice it to say that it has been such a struggle. And it still is. I'm hopeful this doctor can help me figure this out. I'm trying to remain strong. I'll do whatever it takes to get this figured out, and I'll let you know if they find anything this time. Thanks for staying with me. You have no idea how much writing all this out helps me to cope. Thank you.

A Bountiful Harvest Indeed

We are in the final week of our garden this season, and we have had so much fun. We've been able to watch the garden grow and produce so many wonderful things in just a little over five months. Plants are amazing, and we have loved growing a garden. We hope to be able to grow one again next year and have already begun talking about what we want to plant.

Last week the weather turned cold, so we went and harvested almost everything. We'll be finishing up the last of it this weekend. Here are some of the items we harvested:

Look at all our wonderful tomatoes. Some of them were red and ripe, but since it was so cold and the garden was no longer being watered, we decided to pick them. We'll see if there are any more left (or that have since grown) when we go back out for the final time this weekend, but this is quite an impressive haul. We counted them all and there was a total of 450 tomatoes!! They are all different sizes, but James' mom is letting them ripen at her house and will be canning them into spaghetti sauce. Thank you, mom!! :) You can also see some of our watermelons in the picture, too. They weren't fully developed, but still so cute. I'm impressed they grew so well since we planted them later. Next year we'll plant them earlier.

These are the pumpkins and the sunflowers we were able to harvest. There were eight pumpkins total (nine counting the one we picked a couple of weeks ago that is currently sitting amongst our Halloween decorations). James is so excited about these. He can hardly wait to carve them and I can hardly wait to make them into pumpkin pies. We'll see how well they turn out. I'll be sure to let you know. Also, the sunflowers did so amazingly well that I feel like a proud parent! They not only survived some of the toughest conditions I have seen, but thy thrived! And just when we thought they were done, we find hundreds upon hundreds of seeds in them that we get to pick and roast. We need to let them dry out a bit more, but we've already taken the seeds out of two of them and we have a big wooden bowl half way full. We till have seven more sunflower heads to harvest seeds from. I'll be sure to post pictures once we have them all done.

The two pumpkins sitting in the grey planter are the from actual Jack-O-Lantern plant we planted. The rest of the ones on the deck are from the Triple Treat plant that we will be able to use for pies, to eat the seeds, and to carve for Halloween as well. It's so fun to look out on our balcony and see these vegetables sitting there, waiting for us to do something with them. It makes us happy.

Well, that's all for now. Like I said, we'll be making our final trip to the garden on Saturday to harvest the few remaining items (like the horse radish) and then that will be it until next year. I wonder what the garden will look like this weekend.

The End is Near

No, I'm not talking about 2012. I'm talking about our garden. The end is near; only a few short weeks away. We have about three weeks left and then we have to wait to plant another garden until next year. The winter is going to be long, but I don't mind that. Winter is my favorite time of year. It's cold, and crisp, snowy, and cold. I love the cold. Truly, I do.

At any rate, I'm kind of glad that the garden is about over for this year. It was a lot of work, but it was enjoyable. Now I'm ready to sit back and relax and use all the items we canned and froze throughout the year. I made some more blueberry zucchini muffins the other day. I made about 60 of them using only one zucchini. Our zucchini plants are fading now, but still using up the last bits of their energy to produce some rather large vegetables. We don't let them stay on the vine for more than a week. Well, one time we did just to see how big it would get but it didn't get any bigger than the ones we get each week, though it did have a pretty thick skin on it.

The sunflowers are on the decline as well, and we just might be a good deal of seeds from them. James cut off one sunflower to see if we could harvest the seeds, but it was still green and not ready yet. Within the next few weeks we'll take down the sunflower heads and lay them out in the sun to dry out. I'll have to update you on the end result of those.

One of the pumpkins was ready, so James picked it and he is now using it as inspiration for a Halloween painting he is doing. It's looking really good, and once it's complete I'll be sure to post pictures so you can see the amazing talent he has. The pumpkin was small, but there are several others that are about the size of the carving pumpkins you see in the store, so we know those are right on track. I can't wait to make some pumpkin pies and pumpkin chocolate chip bread with the ones James doesn't carve for Halloween, and to roast some of the pumpkin seeds. It will be good.

The watermelons are growing insanely fast. We were worried when we planted them that they wouldn't have time to grow before the season was over. I'm not sure if they have some sort of survival guide kicked in or something because every week we go to the garden they are at least three times bigger than the week before. Last week they were about the size of a cantaloupe. I'm optimistic that we'll get a decent sized watermelon by the end of the harvest time. We have so many growing, so if some of them don't make it, that's fine by me. Next year we plan on planting the watermelon much sooner. We've learned that watermelon grow fantastically well out there, so they are on the list for next year.

The tomatoes are doing well too. We've got a lot of canned diced tomatoes, and last week we were able to can about 13 jars of tomato sauce. Kudos to James' mom, though. Without her we wouldn't have so many wonderful jars of delicious fruit and sauce to use throughout the year. She has been able to keep some of the food as well and use it too, so it's a good trade off. We told her we would grow the items if she helped us can them and she agreed. So, I think in the end it was a good partnership.

Halloween is coming up quickly and James and I are so excited. We have some friends coming over soon to help us decorate and I am so looking forward to that day. I just love hanging out with that couple and being able to hang out and chat while decorating for Halloween just makes it all the better. I love Halloween, and I've actually been busy working on some Halloween projects that I'll post soon. I have a few more things I need to do in order to complete them, and then I'll post a Halloween entry. It's going to be awesome!! Enjoy your day, everyone.

Pumpkins in the garden

I think most people we talk to about the garden are super surprised to hear how far away it is. The garden is exactly one hour away, so every Saturday morning around 7 am we drive out to the garden. We talk excitedly about what we might find out there, things we learned the previous week, things we want to do, and heaven. Yes, that's kind of an odd subject to throw in there, but like I said, it's a long drive. Most of the time it's been me, James, and my brother but there have been a couple of times when it was only James and my brother, or James and I. Whoever it is, we always have a lot to talk about. When we finally get to the garden we ooh and ahh about what has changed, and then we get excited about what has grown. My brother gets super excited about his cherry tomatoes. James gets super excited about his pumpkins.

We have five pumpkins growing very nicely, and two more that are well on their way. We have two different kinds of plants; one is a triple treat pumpkin plant and the other is the standard jack-o-lantern plant.

Baby Pumpkin #1

Baby Pumpkin #2

The triple treat pumpkin plants are just as their name suggests. You can use these pumpkins to carve, you can use them to make pies, and you can use them to dry their seeds to eat. The jack-o-lantern pumpkin plants are only for carving and not suggested for any eating. We first purchased the triple treat pumpkin seeds and planted them and waited, but after a few weeks we realized that something had actually dug up our pumpkin seeds and ate them. So we tried planting a few more, and sure enough the following week we saw that the ground had been dug up and something had eaten the seeds. Just to be safe, we gave it a few more weeks before going to the store to purchase the jack-o-lantern starter plants and we planted those in a different place in the garden.

It took a little while for the plants to become accustomed to the new soil, and I didn't think they were going to make it, but sure enough they did and very quickly they started to stretch out their tendrils and begin to flower. In fact, it wasn't long at all until new little pumpkins had started to emerge.

However, one day, while picking zucchini, James noticed that one of the zucchini plants had little vines on it. I knew that wasn't possible and so began our search to figure out what type of plant it was. Perhaps it was a leftover plant from something that was planted the year before (before we were there), or perhaps it was a weed in disguise (we got a lot of those things). We decided to wait it out and within the next week it too had a pumpkin starting to grow on it. That's when we figured out that one of the triple treat seeds must have been sheltered by the zucchini plant and was able to grow without anything eating it. And truth be told, I think there are two triple treat plants next to our zucchini. The only trouble we have is trying to find out which one is the triple treat and which one is the jack-o-lantern, because when we transplanted the jack-o-lantern starter plants we put one in the front of the garden and one in the back where the triple treats originally were. Did I lose you yet? :)

I know for sure that this one is a jack-o-lantern plant since it is right up front:

What a great looking pumpkin

And these ones I am not sure which is which:

Regardless of which is which, I just have to tell you how excited James is for these pumpkins. He is thrilled to pieces, and I love, love, LOVE watching him get so excited about them each week. He has been known to drop whatever he is doing in the garden and rush over to the plants whenever anyone mentions there is a new pumpkin growing. He can hardly wait to carve them for Halloween, and I can hardly wait to watch him pick them from the vine, like a kid in a candy store. Our only trouble is that they stop watering the garden either on the first frost, or the first of October, which ever comes first, so we aren't too sure how long pumpkins last off the vine before cutting into them. I'll have to do some research on that, but for now it sure is fun watching them grow and watching James get so excited about them each week.

Canning

Since the grasshoppers attacked our garden, we didn't get to can as much stuff as we had originally hoped. As I mentioned earlier, we were able to get a small crop of red Norland potatoes (which were so creamy and delicious) with one plant still alive and hopefully producing more. We love eating green beans and hoped to get a bunch of green beans canned. However, those pesky grasshoppers took them out in one blow, along with our pole beans that were just starting to grow. Even though they took out most of our garden, we were still able to harvest a lot of vegetables and fruit.

We've had a TON of zucchini and a good amount of squash:

This is one week's worth of vegetables

17.5 inches and 10 pounds!

We've had a lot of pickling cucumbers that we canned and divided up amongst James' family and us:

These are a small sampling of our pickles

We've grown basil, thyme, sage, and parsley on our balcony and been able to use it not only in our everyday meals, but dry it as well to use later:

We've also been able to harvest about 65 or 70 tomatoes so far and James' mom was able to can whole tomatoes with the first round, and then we all canned diced tomatoes last week with half of what we picked that day. The other half was still a little unripe, so James' mom will be canning those into diced tomatoes once they ripen:

And James' mom also made us some strawberry jam as a surprise. It was a very welcome gift as we both love homemade strawberry jam:

Look at all that strawberry jam in front

I think I have about 35 bags of shredded zucchini and squash in my freezer, which makes me happy because I can use it throughout the winter for soups, stews, spaghetti sauce, meatloaf, breads, brownies, muffins, and cookies. Yummy!! So, even though the grasshoppers took out a good part of our garden, it makes me very happy that we were able to harvest so much out of the few remaining crops.