Squash Tales

I have been cooking a lot of squash this Fall.  I have never been a big fan of squash in the past, but then again I had never really tried many varieties or different ways to cook them.  I've decided that, although squash is not my favorite fall vegetable, I definitely enjoy cooking and eating it.  Here are some of the squash squashes I have tried so far this year.

Question:  Plural of squash?  Squash or squashes? Hmmmm

Large pumpkin, small pie pumpkin, acorn, and buttercup

The large pumpkin we used for Halloween.  The Hubs did the carving this year.  I have done the years before.  This year's carving was a kitty.  Below are pics from years past. 

2009

2008

 2007

The small pie pumpkin I used to make a pumpkin pie!  Oh yeah!  I cut it in half and roasted until soft.  Then I cut out insides and mixed in blender until smooth.  I used most of the same ingredients that a recipe from canned pumpkin would use:  condensed milk, pumpkin pie spices, etc.  I used the crust recipe from a few posts ago and a marthastewart.com recipe (of course!) for the filling.  It was very delicious.  Since then I have cooked and frozen two more pie pumpkins so I can have a pie for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Just looked squash up in online dictionary.  Plural is squashes.  That is what I thought, but kind of sounds funny now.  Doesn't it?

The acorn and buttercup squashes were roasted...sometimes with butter or honey or both drizzeled over them.  We have found that the longer they are cooked and softer they are...the better for eating.

After this initial experimentation with squash, I bought a butternut and an interesting black futsu (japanese heirloom variety).  I used these for pear and squash soup.  Sounds like a weird combination, but it is very good.  Again a recipe from my Martha Stewart cooking school book (she is getting a lot of free PR from me...hahahaha).

Currently, my Turkey Lady has a buttercup, acorn, and another variety that I think might be a carnival at her feet.  The acorn we are cooking for Thanksgiving.  I am not quite sure what I will do with the others yet....suggestions welcome.

OK the word squash just sounds and looks funny now, doesn't it?

P.S. Good website

Latest Knitted FO

Lately I have been filling my time with some knitting projects.  I recently finished this hat from the Fall 2007 edition of Knitty.  

The name of this pattern is Foliage and I have been wanting to try it for a really long time.  I used a Lambs Pride superwash 100% wool, colorway Fuchsia Blaze.  I have to say, this is already one of my favorite hats!  I love it!  I love the color and the way the hat just closes in around my ears.  The hat starts from the top and is knit in the round.  I was unsure of how hard the leaf/lace pattern would be for me, but after the first repeat I had the hang of it.  It took me about a week to knit the hat.

 

Tomato Soup and Pâte Brisée

Just a few quick photos of some new recipes I've tried recently.  Fall/Winter is in the air.  I have even started a knitting project that may be duplicated for holiday gifts.

I love tomato soup!  I had never tried to make any myself, but with the cold weather in the air I was craving some and wanted to give it a go.  So....here is my first attempt.  I have to say it turned out very well.  I have since made another batch and how have a couple of jars in the freezer.  The only ingredients I used were shallots, butter, tomatoes (~ 2lbs, blanched, peeled and cut up), chicken broth, salt, pepper, dried basil, and heavy cream after pureeing the mixture.  YUM!

I made my first apple pie of the Fall season last night.  I used a new recipe for the crust from my Martha Stewart book.  My heart cut-outs got a little burnt, but hopefully they will still taste good.  Pâte Brisée in French means "broken pastry".  Martha says this is a must-use recipe for homemade pie crust and promises that the crust will be tender and flaky.  We are about to try it very soon, so I will let you know.

  

I LOVE Fall

Reasons why I love Fall:

1) Fall weather and changing colors. These are some pictures from a nature walk I took a couple of weeks ago when the weather was still warm.

2) Season of my b-day. Thanks to everyone who sent a card or well wishes. I feel so loved!

3) Fall Decorations

4) Start of the celebration season....MWH b-day, anniversary, my b-day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's...whew. Need to get out those knitting needles.

I hope everyone's Fall is starting out well!

Food

Have we been doing any fun cooking lately??

Yes, of course....:)

Here's a few things we have done in the past couple of months:

Pasta, pasta, pasta....we made some more ravioli. This time with sausage filling. We also made some regular noodles that we dried. It is so fun to make your own pasta. And, it is so amazing to me that I can taste the eggs in the homemade pasta. YUM!

I made some more marinara sauce from Martha Stewart's recipe. This time I also put in some red bell peppers. This sauce is really easy and quick to make. I froze all of these jars for later use. With one of them I cooked down the sauce and we used it to make this very delicious pizza.

Our patio garden is coming to an end. Here are some of the vegetable we were able to harvest. We also had quite a few green beans. One of our tomato plants still wants to produce fruit. It had new flowers even with this cold weather we have had in the last week.

Lastly, I made this yummy cake for MWH's b-day. It was the second recipe in the dessert section of Martha's cookbook. The first recipe was for a drop cookie.

The latest new cooking thing that we have been doing is sauteing. We bought a cast iron skillet and have been using it a lot. We use it for pancakes, veggies, steaks, and lamb chops.

I am hungry now...haha.

Books

This past summer I read a lot more books than usual. All of them were so good, I thought I would write a little something about each one.

I read these two books at the beginning of the summer. MWH (my wonderful husband) and I had gone to see the movie Food, Inc. and had started to think more and more about the kinds of food we were eating and where it was coming from. Food, Inc. will totally cause a change in the way you think about food. It was a great movie that I recommend for everyone. These two books by Michael Pollan were also excellent. I especially like The Omnivore's Dilemma. MWH and I had been eating at home a lot more before reading these books, but we were still eating a lot of processed foods. Now, we stick with more local fresh foods and have learned so much about how different foods are made (yogurt, cheese, butter, buttermilk, bread, etc.). We have also started "putting up" some food for the winter months.

After reading the books above I moved on to: Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. I wanted to read the book before going to see the move...good idea. After seeing the movie MWH bought Julia Child's MTAOFC. I haven't used a recipe from it yet (we are still reading Martha Stewart's cookbook as well), but I read a few passages about lamb and Julia really lays it out there for you...just like she is having a conversation with you and telling you her cooking secrets.

Next was:

This book was soooo good. I really like Barbara Kingsolver's writing. Before this I had read her book The Poisonwood Bible, which was also very good. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is a story about Kingsolver and her family and how they made a pact to live for one year off of food that they either grew themselves or could get within a 100 mile radius of where they lived. She talks about heirloom vegetables, eating with the seasons, raising laying chickens and a flock of heritage turkeys, and there are excerpts and recipes written by her daughter for different seasons of the year. Just a great and fast read. Now I want to have my own little spot of land where I could do the same thing.

After all those food related books, I had to switch to some fiction.

This was and still is one of my all time favorite books. The emotion and story of the characters is so real and just seems to speak to me. The first time I read it I just cried and cried. I did shed some tears again this time. Now I need to convince MWH to go see the movie with me.

This is what I am currently reading:

A gift from MWH.

This is the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse series of novels by Charlaine Harris. The HBO series True Blood, which is also very very good, is based on these novels. Only just started, but so far a good read.

Updates

Has it really been so long since I last wrote??

Lots of little updates / thoughts in the next couple of posts. I have just been busy with normal life stuff lately.

Can you believe tomorrow is October? I've already been thinking of Holiday gifts. :)

The Story of Kaya

Kaya is a beautiful, smart, funny, and energetic dog. She is also a dog who is dominant and a little aggressive and very stubborn. I am sad to say that she was not the dog for me and we made the decision yesterday to bring her back to the family that we go her from. She is already in a new home with two parents and kids and I hope she is so very happy.

Everything with Kaya started out well. She was going potty outside and playing with her toys. We went on some long walks and she was getting use to her kennel. I guess the red flags that she may not be the dog for our family started very early on, even before we got her, but how can you not love a puppy? and think that you can not mold it? Well for Kaya being a dominant dog, she needed a dominant leader and that is something I was failing at again and again. Kaya was mouthing a lot and it seemed the only way she interacted with us was by chewing our hands and biting our ankles and clothes. We were able to play ball with her a little but mostly it was a lot of biting, especially for me. We think that she may have been taken away from her mother too soon and didn't learn some basic dog things about biting, playing, and more importantly obedience. It was going to take a lot of training and constant vigilance to keep her from asserting herself and trying to get higher in the pack order. On Saturday, my husband worked with her a lot and he had a break through where he thought it was going to work. Sunday morning was not any better for me, however, and it got to the point where Kaya started mounting and humping my arm as a sign of dominance.

Making the decision to bring her back was one of the most awful things I have ever had to do. So many things went through my head.

I am failing Kaya. We decided to care for this life and I am abandoning her. What is wrong with me that I can't interact or deal with an 8 week old, 12 lb puppy? Why is it so hard for me? Will I ever be able to have a dog? Will I ever be able to have a child? Did I give up to early?

Overall my gut tells me that Kaya was a great puppy and is going to be a great dog, but she just wasn't the dog for me and it would not have been fair to her or me or our family to keep her. This whole last week my stomach has been tied in knots, I haven't been able to eat very well, and I have just had bad feelings. I don't think having a puppy is supposed to make you feel that way. I am who I am, and Kaya is who she is. I don't think I have cried this many days or this hard in a very long time, if ever.

This morning I am thinking of Kaya and missing her a little. I really did love her in some way and she touched my life. I hope she is happy with her new family and continues to be a happy dog.

Kaya Is Here!!!

Yay! Kaya is here. She is sleeping in her crate as I type this. We were planning to bring her home this evening, but ended up getting her two days early, Sat. evening. It was good we brought her home during a weekend. Sunday I was so pooped by the time I went to bed. She is only sleeping about 3 hours at night. My wonderful husband stays up with her until about 1 or 2 am. I go to bed early and then get up with her at 4 or 5am.

We are kennel training her and so far that is going well. I have never tried to do this with a dog before. She has only went in the kennel once by herself to sleep. Usually we wait until she is tired and then put her in there. All the books say you should never let the puppies out when they are whining. She has done that only a few times. Today was really hard at lunch time. I was able to come home and let her out and then when I had to leave she really didn't want to go back in the kennel so I had to kind of push her in. She was quiet for a few seconds when I shut the door but then she started crying and howling. I had classical music on for her when I left. When the husband go home he said she was quiet. I hope she does well with this kennel training.

She is doing great with potty training so far. We have been watching her very closely and bringing her out a lot. So far NO accidents in the house or her kennel!!!

I better go check on her. More news and pictures soon.

Growing Puppy

This past Saturday we had a chance to visit and play with our new puppy Kaya. Here are some pictures of our little girl growing up.

Playing with her sisters (she's the one biting the other's neck)

Down time with Dad

Pointing

Our smart Puppy

Nap time

Awww.....

Summer Vacation Part II

The second part of our summer vacation was spent up north in the place where I grew up. We picked a really good week to visit. The summer weather had been cool and fall like (even where we live), but this past week was in the low 80's and sunny. :)

We left on Monday and decided to take a different route than normal. We went up through the Twin Cities and Duluth and then cut across northern WI and the UP of Michigan. We left at noon and were lucky to miss all the road construction back ups and heavy traffic. We almost got into a fender bender in the Twin Cities near dowtown St. Paul, but the brakes on our little rental car work well! We never quite figured out what caused the congestion there. One thing that is great about driving north is the changing landscape from open areas to miles and miles of tree lined highway. We saw a few deer on the way, but never came close to an accident with them. When we arrived at our destination on Monday we were greeted by my Dad and a happy golden/lab mix, old boy Cody.


The next three days were spent with slow relaxing mornings, a run each day, sightseeing, and visiting with family and friends...

Tuesday we ran along the lakeshore of Lake Superior. Marquette has been building up townhouses and condos along the lake and has created some really great trails.



Another great new addition to the downtown is the Food Co-op and Farmer Q's. Before leaving home I had checked Local Harvest to see what was available. We bought some granola, cashews, fruit, and milk from MN at the Co-op after our run. That evening we went to one of my aunt's houses to meet my mom and some of her family. My mom had planned a surprise get together, which was great!

Wednesday started much the same way as the day before. After some breakfast and coffee we went for a run along the lake again. This time in the opposite direction. We checked out Farmer Q's and bought some local blueberry jam and fruit. In the afternoon we went out to Presque Isle and walked a bit on the breakwall. There was a little family of ducks battling the waves to eat the algae caught along the wall. Those little ducklings seemed like they would just get carried away, but they managed just fine.






That evening was spent with friends and their growing families. It was so great to see everyone! I wish I was closer so I could watch the little ones grow day by day. I hope we can start a new tradition of getting together at least once a year.

Thursday was our last day in town. After our morning of breakfast, coffee, and a little frisbee with Cody we drove out to Presque Isle for our run. This was the first time I had ever done that and I'm kicking myself for not taking more advantage of the time when the island was closed for walkers/runners/bikers only while living in MQT. After the run we took more pictures of the lakeshore, of course, and caught a ship setting out from the ore dock.



That afternoon we went to the Marquette County History Museum. They have an exhibit titled "Anatomy of a Yooper". Ha! It was interesting to see the history of all the different immigrants and melding of traditions.

We ended our trip with an evening downtown for ice cream (Mackinac Island Fudge in a waffle cone! YUM!) and walking around with my dad. Here are some more pictures from our trip. Can't wait until we come back!



Friday we heading back in our little rental car (don't have a picture of that surprisingly). We drove through WI and stopped along the way to visit the in-laws. We spent about 4 great hours visiting with everyone. The last stop we made was to visit our uncle. He has been retired for a while and for fun he built, by himself, a little wood cabin in his backyard complete with stone fireplace. It had that great wood smell and was amazing to see.