Using Pumpkins After Halloween

We carved our pumpkins, Halloween came and went. Then it's time to cook the pumpkin! Pumpkins are food after all. They're a squash.

I should note before this year I haven't had outdoor space so I only cooked tiny pumpkins, usually for pumpkin bread or something.

This year though, we had two big pumpkins! And I had no idea how much pumpkin you get from one. I was planning to use both for a pumpkin mac and cheese. After one the crockpot was overflowing...

I might use the other for a pumpkin soup or something.

I cut off the carved part and threw that away, cleaned out the inside and worked on cutting off the skin, just like any squash. Be careful when you do this, I slice my thumb a bit, which was unfortunate.

For pumpkin #1 I ended up combining these recipes a bit: Crockpot Pumpkin Macaroni and Cheese Recipe and Creamy Crock Pot Butternut Mac & Cheese. Essentially I wanted to use spices that make sense with pumpkin, but I liked some of the other ingredients with the butternut mac & cheese.

Add the same amount of water as butternut squash.

Comments

Fall Photos

After admiring the leaves on our runs and my bike to work, we recruited my parents to take some photos of us there this weekend. After these photos (and tackling some IT issues for my parents) we went to a birthday gathering at the jazz festival on Cherokee Street. I liked it more than I thought I would. As the night wore on, I started chatting with one of the friend of a friend's there. I started going in to what a crazy year and some change it's been and, whew, it really started to overwhelm me. This morning, Mike woke up overwhelmed by our world/specifically our country. I woke up with that conversation still in my head and also felt overwhelmed. We treated ourselves to Sump Coffee and had a chat. It's not always we sit down and talk about what we want and steps to get there. Fall feels like the perfect time to reset. As we went through the day I also thought, it's okay to miss things in the past, but it woul...

Kitchen Safety

We moved! We're in our new place and we just got wifi. Wahoo! I definitely broke in the kitchen quickly. I was making a panini type sandwich for a potluck get together so I preheated the oven. The next thing I knew the fire alarm was going off. Let me tell you they did not skimp on a very loud fire alarm. Ahhhhhhhh I opened the oven, which I know you're not supposed to do. In the moment, I think I needed to see what I was dealing with. There were definite flames. Ahhhhhhhh So I called Mike while trying to google what to do. He was super calm the entire call while I freaked out (it probably helped that he couldn't see the smoke billowing out of the oven). He said to throw baking soda on it. I did. It seemed to fizzle but came back. I searched the apartment for a fire extinguisher (maybe I should have looked for one before this moment). This is while I kept trying to silence the fire ...

Concerts = ♡

Last week was an exceptional concert week for me. I was lucky enough to catch San Fermin, The Mowgli's, & American Authors. In one week! My sister, Karen, and I found out San Fermin would be in Chicago at LouFest when we went through the artist signing line. (Correction: Karen participated in the artist signing line, while I hid behind her shoulder and Ellis, the composer/writer, reached out to me to introduce himself. This band is full of quality people. Just sayin'. I get awkward around bands.) So we followed through. Found their show at the Metro (which could not be more convenient for us) and met up with Rubina, my friend, to enjoy their show. So good. We were not disappointed. I was only minutely disappointed because for some reason I assumed they were headlining so when they didn't come out for an encore I was confused. But then I realized they were the middle act and it made sense. ...

Vida

Search This Blog