Pumpkin Day

Last night the girls went and picked out their pumpkins and today we carved them.

Miriams Cat Pumpkin

Lily's Ghosts

Rosie just wanted a Big Smile

Then we roasted the pumpkin seeds

To roast your own rinse pumpkin seeds under cold water and pick out the pulp and strings. (This is easiest just after you've removed the seeds from the pumpkin, before the pulp has dried.)

Drain in a colander to remove excess water. Toss with just enough oil to coat and lightly salt. Roast at 450 about 25 minutes, stirring half way through, until light golden brown in spots. Remove from the over and stir again. Allow to cool and enjoy.

If you let them cook too long and they turn dark they will taste like burnt kale chips. Not tasty.

And ended with pumpkin soup for dinner

Pumpkin Black Bean Soup

2 Tbsp. Olive oil
1 large red onion, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and chopped
One can pure pumpkin puree (15 ounces)
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. black pepper
Salt to taste
4 Beef bouillon cubes
6 cups water
2 cans black beans (15 ounces), undrained (I sometimes use pinto)
1 can corn, drained, or 1 c. frozen
1/4 c. uncooked grain (rice, barley, quinoa, whatever)
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 Tbsp. Taco Bell Taco Sauce (Or about 4 packets

Greek Yogurt or Sour Cream

Heat olive oil. Add onion and cook until onion is translucent. Add apple and cook slowly over medium heat until starting to brown a bit and is looking tender all the way through. Add the garlic and cook JUST until fragrant and then immediately add liquid. Water and then bouillon cubes.

Add the cumin, cinnamon, black pepper, corn, beans, pumpkin, and grain.

Simmer until grain is tender. Stir in taco sauce and lemon juice. This is also really good if you reduce the liquid (and beef cubes) to 1 cup and serve it as a sauce over rice.

My Roses

Perfect French Country Cooking

A friend loaned me a neat looking cook book yesterday . First off I have to say I love the way DK publishing not only has a picture of every recipe, they also have step-by-step pictures as well.

That being said, there where three recipes that stood out the most to me.

Pork Chops with Mustard Sauce

Zucchini Tian

Snow Eggs

The first is pretty descriptive, Pork Chops in a Dijon sauce. The recipe also includes bacon and bouquet garni so those flavors are there too.

The Tian is basically pan seared zucchini baked with cooked rice, eggs, parmesan cheese.

And last but not least the snow eggs. Eggs whites and sugar whipped into a meringue, poached, and served with a tasty sauce. The French Cookbook poaches them in water and then serves them with vanilla custard and caramel sauce. Martha Stewart poaches them in milk and serves them with raspberry sauce.

There where lots more interesting recipe, those are just the ones that I plan on making soon, the mustard pork chops for John especially.

And in other news (and other country) I went with a friend to the Greek Festival in Savannah today. It was pretty small, with only a few vendors, though TONS of people. The food was amazingly good. We got pastitsio, spanakopita, gyros with tzatziki, loukoumades, Koulourakia, and of course Baklava.

Thanksgiving Balls

I saw a recipe a long time ago that looked pretty good, I think on TV, though at this point I can't actually remember where, for Thanksgiving Meatballs. It was a combination of stuffing, poultry seasoning and, and ground turkey. I just removed the meat from the equation. While my version was not vegetarian they are certainly very adaptable with very minor substitutions.

The stove top brand stuffing isn't vegetarian so make sure whatever brand you buy is if you don't consume meat.

1 large carrot, chopped pretty fine but not as small as grating it
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
4 Tbsp. butter
1 box. Stovetop Savory Herb Stuffing
2 chicken bouillon cubes (Or imitation)
1/3 c. red lentils
1 can garbanzo beans
splash milk
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning
dash black pepper

Combine lentils, 1 chicken bouillon cube and 2 cups water. Simmer until lentils are very tender. Drain any excess liquid.

Melt butter in a large skillet. Add the carrots and saute over medium high heat until the are starting to brown a little. Add the onion and celery and cook, stirring until the onion is tender making sure not to let the onion burn. Add 1 1/4 cup water and 1 chicken bouillon cube. Bring to a boil, add the stuffing mix, cover and remove from heat. Let sit 5 minutes.

Drain the garbanzo beans, Remove 1/4 of the can and puree with a splash of milk. Lightly mas the remaining beans to break up into smaller pieces but not made a paste.

Combine the cooked lentils, stuffing, pureed beans, mashed beans, eggs, and seasoning. Form into meatball sized balls and bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 2o minutes, turn over and bake an additional 10 minutes. Serve with Gravy

Onion Gravy
4 Tbsp butter
1 large onion, sliced
1/4 c. flour
2 c. chicken broth (OR imitation vegetarian bouillon cubes dissolved in boiling water first)
dash black pepper
3 Tbsp. heavy cream

Saute onions in butter until translucent. Turn heat to medium and continue cooking 20 minutes more, stirring occasionally until golden brown. Add the flour and cook 2 minutes more. Slowly whisk in the chicken broth and black pepper and cook and stirring until combine and thick. Whisk in the cream and and heat through

Eggplant Parmesan

I went to Savannah for the day to run a few errands. One of which took me into the Fresh Market, A kinda upscale specialty grocery store. On a side note, they have a fairly decent bakery section too, thought their cakes are as bad as every other grocery store with the lard frosting to match. They do make a nice strawberry rhubarb pie, John and I's favorite. Anyway, I saw a box of eggplant cutlets in the freezer section that just seemed to be begging me to take them home and make them my dinner. So I did. I was not disappointed in the slightest.

They. Where. GOOD!

I made myself a very tasty plate of Eggplant Parmesan. The sauce went perfectly with them, great tomato taste and not too many herb to overpower the taste of the eggplant (a whole lot of garlic though!)

I found I needed to bake them longer than the box called for but other than that just make according to package directions and serve over pasta with tomato sauce and a dusting of freshly grated Pecorino Romano.

My box contained 7 large pieces

My Sauce recipe:
1 can diced tomatoes
Freshly Cracked Black Pepper
1 1/2 tsp. granulated garlic
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 beef bouillon cube

Drain tomatoes and squeeze out the excess liquid. Puree and combine with remaining ingredients. Simmer while the eggplant is cooking, about 20 minutes.

This is so fast to put together, two pots, on to simmer the sauce (which requires very little prep work) and another to cook the pasta in. Then just bake the eggplant (it doesn't leave a mess on the pan that is hard to get off either) and then PRESTO (PASTA NIGHT) you have dinner!

Thanks Helen of Fuss Free Flavors for hosting!

Chickenless Chickenish Stew

A tasty version that is cheaper, faster, and easier than regular stew. I used bacon drippings instead of olive oil when I made it the second time. It was quite tasty and very hearty.

Any type of bean really would work in here, the garbanzo are just a better color for chicken. Try adding beef broth and using kidney beans for beefy stew, just skip the cream soup and use Steak Seasoning in place of the chicken.

1/2 onion, chopped

1 stalk celery, sliced

2 carrots, cut into coins

olive oil

1 can garbanzo beans, drained (White beans work too but have more of a bean taste)

1 can corn, drained

1 c. frozen peas

1 can cream of chicken soup, undiluted (Or other cream soup that's vegetarian)

5 c. water

3 chicken bouillon cubes (Vegetarian imitation works just fine, still has the taste)

3 potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1 1/2 tsp. McCormick Rotisserie style chicken seasoning

Large dash black pepper

1/4 c. flour

Saute onion and celery in oil until starting to get tender. Add carrots and saute 4 or 5 minutes more. Add water, chicken cubes, soup, corn, peas, beans, potatoes, and seasonings. Simmer until potatoes are tender. Mix flour and enough cold water together to form a thin paste. Stir that into the hot stew and cook, stirring, until thickened. 

Update - You can replace the cream soup with 1/2 c. milk with equally, if not more so, delicious results. 

The two different pictures are from different batches of stew on different nights. You can see I make it quite often.

Mint Cream Pie

We used to spend most holidays at my maternal grandparents house in Maryland. And my Grandpa always made Rum Creme Pie. I don't drink rum, or even like how it tastes (except Fannie May Egg Nog creams), so I changed the pie up a bit.

First I made it with maple. I made a crust out of the maple leaf shaped maple cream filled cookies you get at the dollar store. BTW I love those cookies. Then I used real maple extract and I think maybe some vanilla in the filling. It was really tasty.

Then I made the cream filling with just vanilla as the flavor and folded in fresh strawberries, and raspberries.

That was so good I made the filling lemon and folded in blueberries.

You get the idea. It's very versatile. So be creative. But wait, I have one more. I think it's the best one yet. It even won the Pioneer Day Pie Bake Off in my ward. Though in all fairness this year I made three out of the four pies being judged.

Mint Cream Pie

6 egg yolks
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 (.25 ounce) packages unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups heavy cream
2 drops Peppermint oil
peppermint extract to taste
green food coloring (optional)
1 c. crushed mint chocolates (York pieces, Mint M&M's, andes mints, mini chocolate chip)

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until they are light and fluffy and kinda a pale yellow color.

In a saucepan, soak the gelatin in water until the gelatin is no longer opaque. Bring to a boil.

Slowly beat the hot gelatin into the egg mixture. Set aside

Whip the cream until still peaks form, add peppermint oil and the peppermint mint extract to taste and food coloring to desired shade.

Fold the mint flavored whipped cream into the egg mixture. I found a hand whisk was the best for that. Don't use an electric mixture, it will break down the whipped cream and leave you with a runny mess.

Fold in chocolate candy. Chill mixture until it is firm enough to keep a bit of shape. Spoon filling into pie shells. Serve after chilling for several hours.



This is good in a baked chocolate oreo crust or a regular pastry crust with a chocolate layer spread in the bottom. When the pastry comes out of the oven I just sprinkle it with chocolate chips and let it sit for a while. When they are melted I spread them out.



It makes either two flat pies or one really heaped up pie. I use the latter. The pie pictured above is only half of the filling. I used the other half in individual mini tarts with the same oreo crust. It made about 8.

You can eat it like it is or if you wanna get fancy and garnish it I would use whipped cream or Swiss buttercream pipes and more crushed chocolate candies, crushed or mini oreos, chocolate curls or a dusting of cocoa powder.

Some other ideas I though up that look good are

Coconut - add a dash of coconut and vanilla extract in and fold in flaked coconut

Egg nog - Fold nutmeg and vanilla into the egg filling

I love caramel, though I am not sure what I would add to it to make it that flavor. Maybe Italian soda syrup as the flavoring? And then fold in some caramel ice cream topping just enough so that it swirls in but not mixes in fully? Maybe with some honey roasted cashews too...

Anyway, experiment, have fun, and let me know what you come up with