Pumpkin Soup

Yesterday Puddleglum and I baked one of the pumpkins we bought with the boys at the pumpkin patch. It was a medium large pumpkin. We cut it into quarters and baked it in a 350 degree oven for about an hour. Then we turned off the heat, and we went to the park by our house. It is a small park that is usually pretty empty of people. It has an inline hockey court, a tennis court, a basketball court, a volleyball court, an area for baseball, a covered area with picnic tables and a nearby grill, and a small playground. It is right next to a cotton field. Puddleglum brought his roller blades and his hockey stick, and the boys brought their skates. Baby had his three wheel scooter. A few years back (before I got pregnant with Baby) I bought a pair of roller blades on sale at Target for $10. They are well-made, good skates. Then I got pregnant and couldn't use them, and then I was too big to use them. I got them out of the box, and I had so much fun with them and the boys. Puddleglum and I couple skated around the rink while we sang "Once. Twice. Three times a lady..." It was just like those old roller rink days of the late 70's/early 80's. The boys had their hockey sticks and played around. It was fun! Then we went to get ice-cream. I wasn't going to get any, but when Puddleglum asked them to put coffee ice-cream in his sundae, that sounded so good. So I had one scoop of coffee ice-cream in a cup. It was dee-li-shus.

When we got back to the house, I took the pumpkin out of the oven. Puddleglum and I peeled off the skin. Then I got the idea that we should have pumpkin soup. I put 3/4 stick of organic salted butter in our ceramic soup pot (a Le Creuset knock off that is pretty good). Then I put in 1/2 a large yellow onion chopped. When the onion was very soft, I added one 32 ounce carton of Pacific Foods organic chicken broth. When that came to a low boil, I turned down the heat and pureed it all with a hand blender. I had to keep checking the consistency with a metal spoon to make sure the onion was fully pureed. Then I put half of the baked pumpkin in the pot. I used the hand blender again to puree it all together. I used the high speed after it was all mixed. You want it to be very smooth. At this point I wanted to put in some brown sugar, but we were out. So I put maybe 1/2 tablespoon of black strap molasses (not too much). Then I stirred that up. It was very thick at this point. 1/2 a medium large pumpkin is actually A LOT of pumpkin puree- like maybe four cups atleast. I added milk until it had the consistency of a thick and hearty soup. I added maybe 1/4 cup of organic maple syrup, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and a dash of sea salt. This made enough soup to feed about 12 people! I had one I Love Lucy moment when the soup started to boil, and it was so thick a big bubble made some of the soup splatter the back splash and me.

When I served it to the boys, I added more milk. For mine I added some tumeric and curry powder. It was so good but also really rich. I could only eat one bowl. I had a bowl after church today, and it is even better the next day! Baby liked it so much, he decided the spoon was too slow.

Another Cool Cooking Site

Back in January I wrote a post that linked to a neat Norwegian website where you can watch videos of them cooking different dishes. I like the videos because they are quick and to the point. I found an Italian website with similar videos. They are narrated in English and maybe a minute each. The narrator has a pleasant Italian accent. Here is the link http://english.incucina.tv/ and you just click on the video recipes page. All the measurements are European and some of the ingredients are a guess, but atleast it would give you an idea, and I always like to learn better technique.

Real Men Make Quiche

Here is a photo of the quiche that Puddleglum has made. Puddleglum has perfected some dishes, and quiche is one of them. To save time he uses Pillsbury's pre-made pie crust that is in the refrigerated section. You just unroll it and put it in the pie plate. It is very good, flaky crust. He will use leftovers or frozen or fresh veggies, so it's different every time.

Healthy Breakfast

Puddleglum has been a gourmet this week. This week he served delicious baked chicken with rice, chili and cornbread (Puddleglum doctored some organic turkey chili with butter beans, red beans, and corn, and he put fresh grated parmesan on top), homemade pizza (everyone got to make their own pizza and the boys all loved smoked oysters on theirs except Baby who ate them off his pizza before it could get baked), our version of taco salad (fried tortilla bowl filled with rice, seasoned ground beef, lettuce, tomatoe, black olives, cilantro, avocado slices, cheese, sour cream, and salsa), and last night he made pulgogi. It was funny. A couple of weeks ago he went to the Korean market to buy ingredients for pulgogi marinade, and the owner said, "why don't you just use this? This is what we use." He uses a commercially prepared marinade. It is delicious. Reminds me of back when Puddleglum and I used to make our own homemade mole sauce (pronounce m0e-le not mole). It's a Mexican sauce that is a true process to make made with ground nuts, Mexican chocolate, and dried chilis (which are roasted, and then reconstituted, and then pureed). When I was talking to my friend, Juana, who grew up in Mexico, about it, she said, "Why don't you just buy it in a jar and add a little peanut butter. That's what I do." That's what we've been doing ever since. Simplify. Right?

This morning Puddleglum made pancakes with homemade strawberry sauce made from fresh strawberries, and he served it with fresh peach and kiwi slices. It's hard to stay low carb around here, but I only ate one bite. I am sticking with my low carb breakfast and a hot cup of coffee this morning. It's not bad. I cut a pita in half, then stick each half in the toaster. I drizzle in a bit of olive oil and put a fried egg in each. Eat it while it's hot. It grosses Puddlegum out that I like the yolk runny. To each his own.

Before and After Kitchen

Puddleglum is very handy when it comes to home remodeling. He built a wall around the opening to the basement because the rod iron railing around it was not safe for little kids. He just knew how to do it, and I was amazed. Here is what he did with our dining room and kitchen. The "Before" picture is one that we took when we were deciding on whether or not this was the right house for us. It definitely is.

Shish Kabob and Scorpions

I never make shish kabob, but Puddleglum does, and he does a great job with it. Sometimes he uses pearl onions, green peppers, cherry tomatoes and beef. Other times he has used chicken and tried different combinations. Here is a picture of his latest creation. He used large sea scallops, shrimp, pineapple, and maraschino cherries. Yum. He served it with rice and tater tots. Not what I would have chosen, but if you have little kids, it's a good choice. For future reference the only thing that would have made it better would be to go ahead and use onions too. Pearl onions would be good, or even squares of red onion or 10-15s would be yummy.

Also, I wanted to mention that I got stung by a scorpion Thursday night. I was wearing short pjs, and I jumped into bed. The next thing I knew I felt something like glass tearing into my skin on the front left side of my upper left thigh. I quickly jumped out of bed knowing something had got me and brushed around the area. Not seeing anything on me I pulled back the sheets, and there it was. It was one of the biggest ones we've seen. I yelled for Puddleglum. He was my hero. He grabbed my little pink house slipper and killed it. We were thankful to God because Baby had been in our bed earlier in the day watching a video.

The sting wasn't that bad. Puddleglum said that I probably was on top of it, and it didn't have a chance to grab a hold of me with it's pinchers. Again, thank God because then it could have been very bad. Speaking of scorpions, I'd like to remember one of my old favorite bands, the Scorpions. Wind of Change is a classic.

German Sausage Dinner

I made sausage with fried potatoes and red cabbage. Not low cal, but it sounded good. Puddleglm was going to make mashed potatoes for the barbeque chicken yesterday, but he would up making spanish rice and refried beans. He had already boiled the potatoes, so I told him I'd make fried potatoes today. I decided that a German meal would be good. The red cabbage recipe I used is at Allrecipes.com. It has apples in it. I added more vinegar than the recipe called for and less sugar. Some of the reviews recommended that, and they were right. The recipe says 8 cups of cabbage, and that is one medium cabbage. I don't know why they didn't just say one medium cabbage. I used three apples instead of two, and I used brown sugar and apple cider vinegar instead of white sugar and white vinegar. For dessert we had strawberry shortcake. Of course we used real whipping cream. Ever since I found out what Cool Whip was made of (Mom's favorite), I can't eat it. Baby ate all his strawberries and some of mine, but he didn't care for the yellow cake. Tae and Jax loved it.