Pumpkin!

Remember all those pumpkins we grew in the garden? Well, the ones that didn't get made into Jack-O-Lanterns were turned into pumpkin puree last weekend.  We took two huge pumpkins (I know you are supposed to use smaller sugar pumpkins, but we used what we had!) and cut, roasted, and pureed them to use in recipes all fall and winter long! I love pumpkin in so many things, so it was really exciting to be able to use our own pumpkins in this way. The hardest part of this was cutting through the pumpkin since we used such large ones. Patrick was at work, so it was up to me to slice them up.  Once that was done, we roasted the pieces at 350°F for about an hour.  

Then the blending!! We used, not kidding, every blending device in the house to try and puree this stuff. I got out the food processor (mine is not very effective, should have known it wouldn't work), the blender, the baby food processor, and then finally, the immersion blender (Winner!).  

In the end, we ended up with 15 cups of pumpkin, which I froze in individual bags so it would be easy to grab and defrost for recipes.  This was hard work and took the better part of an afternoon, but I can now add pumpkin to whatever my heart desires all winter long! Joy!

Post Halloween Post

So I know it's a few weeks after Halloween already (where does the time go?) but I wanted to post some pictures of our Halloween festivities.  The night before Halloween, we carved our pumpkins. We grew all these (and more) pumpkins in our garden this year. Pumpkins were about the only thing that did grow. But we got plenty for carving and the kids had a great time. Hanna had her own little pumpkin to color on. 

Here's Leah's. I'm really not sure what she was trying to carve. I think it started out as a face and then she got a little carried away with the knife. 

Kaiya did all the scooping, scraping, and carving herself this year.  She did a great job on her first solo pumpkin carving.

Here are the girls in costume before we left the house, then once we were ready to go out trick or treating with their friends.  By that time, they were so bundled up you could hardly tell what the costumes were. Good thing I spent an entire month working on them! The girls had a great Halloween this year and are already talking about what they want to be next year!