.:: Fire The Housewife ::.

My back yard looks like this.

It’s most definitely fall. This is why I decided to bake something today.
I decided it was high time I cook something with a real pumpkin. Today, I did just that.  I trekked all the way (a block and a half, almost two really!) to the farmers market and purchased a pumpkin.  Then I came home and the dad said “OH NO WAY! THAT WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH PUMPKIN FOR ANYTHING!” so I trekked all the way (another block and a half, almost two really!) back to the farmers market for another pumpkin. . . that’s when the adventure started.

It was quite fun peeling the insides out of a pumpkin with my bare hands. Or my bear hands.  Whichever makes this experience more pleasant for you. (sidenote, I do have bear hands, and so do bears.)

Did you know that it takes OVER AN HOUR to bake a pumpkin? I didn’t either. I thought I was probably going to die in that hour and a half I waited.  Though, then I started listening to Foreigner and the time melted away…then Arlo Guthrie…then Dr. Hook. all on vinyl.  oh and also a little Rocky Votolato.  It was rough, trust me… BUT THEN!

The pumpkins came out of the oven, I used an ice cream scooper to get out the insides, and then blended them in the dad’s blender. GORGEOUS.  It really kinda tasted like sweet potatoes, mildly disappointing.  I really imagined myself dumping this blender full of pumpkin into my mouth while I squirted whipped cream in there too because it would taste EXACTLY LIKE A PUMPKIN PIE! I was wrong.

So before all that baking I threw the seeds in a bowl and mixed them with ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon and a little oil for baking later. (oh and also note that in that sentence I made these typos . . . bowl = blow, ginger = giner. Wow, just wow.)

Mmmmmm

So first up, I made a pumpkin marble cheesecake.  It is gorgeous, and doesn’t taste too bad…

before…

and after…

drool, I know you need to.  Just watch out if you click on that picture to see the enlarged version…oh la la!

Finally, I made some pumpkin bread, which I mostly made into muffins, I think I’m glad I did because something is wrong with our bread pan, seriously 5 minutes after I pulled it out of the oven this is what it looked like…

I don’t know what happened. It wasn’t my fault, I can  tell you that.

So here are my beautiful muffins with my toasted seeds on top to say good bye!

What have I learned from all of this? Cooking with real pumpkin is not nearly as hard as people let on, it is time consuming, but mostly when you can only put one tiny thing in your oven at a time so you’re baking all day, but really only working an hour or two.

So, for Amelia’s big ole 3rd birthday party there is a Pigeon theme, as in Pigeon books by Mo Willems.  I made the prototype for the invites just now.  It’s a bit labor intensive, but that kid better love it…

First I took the paper and a dyed it (died.)

The paper, remarkably turned out the perfect color after only 2 tries.  drying the paper was the best part, note to self, fan will leave marks on food coloring dyed paper.

These are the first couple tries/ideas for the pigeon invite.

I chose my favorite pigeon and cut him out to use as a stencil.

Then I cut, paste, and drew him in.

I don’t have the info on the back yet, but I think the front looks pretty fabulous! (Rebecca, you can click the links for the pigeonier image (bigger))

So, Amelia took the following pictures with my camera, I’m pretty certain she’s a budding photographer. . . be impressed.

So lesson learned, my niece is a better photographer than I am, and can take better portraits of me than anyone else. lollerskate.  She’s the next Ansel Adams.  or Margaret Bourke-White.  oooh I can’t wait!