Putting up pumpkins and giveaway reminder......

(photo borrowed from Flickr)

Now I know that all you guys really thought I had this really great display going on out on my front porch but it's not mine. Mine looks way better!! NOT!!

My husband has some sorta phobia about me buying pumpkins for display purposes.

Says that there is no reason to buy a pumpkin that is not going to be carved into a jackolantern
or not to be cooked.

Says something about the fact that they will just sit there and rot away to a slimy mess and then we..ahem..he has to clean them up in the winter time and he is not happy with that task.

For the record I have never asked him to clean one of those shriveled little pumpkin faces up in the winter!!

Funny how I have had this conversation with other women and they all say the same thing about their husbands fussing about the same thing!!! Hahaha It's a girl thing I guess!

However he has won this fight.....you know I have to pick my battles with him and he has to win every now and again!! ;-)))

So I have resorted to cooking all my pumpkins that come onto this farm.

I reluctantly made my way to the grocery store yesterday, due to almost starvation, and stopped by the little road side produce stand between here and there. Instead of picking out one of those beautiful round orange globes that everyone else was sizing up and comparing, I went over to the ugly pumpkin bin.

The ugly, but oh so beautiful in my book, pie pumpkin bin!!

YUMMO!!

I bought 2 of those beautiful light orangey colored, far from round beauties just like the one shown above, behind the warty one and kissing the neck of the white one!!

While watching the Major League Baseball playoffs last night I roasted them in the oven, let them cool and scooped out all that flesh. I also had another small "pie pumpkin" that a neighbor gave me. I ended up with a huge bowl of yellow goodness.

Can't you just smell all the pumpkin cakes and pies and cookies and and and....

I had major plans last evening of making a small batch of Pumpkin Butter and canning it until I got on here and read this post

that is on Food In Jars blog about why Pumpkin Butter can't be canned any longer.

Now why doesn't our government just stop bursting my little bubbles???

I guess I will just stick all this pumpkin in the freezer like I usually do and enjoy it for a couple years just like I did the last batch. I froze a huge pumpkin in 2008 and just enjoyed a Pumpkin Cake the other day and it was wonderfullllll. I am not a huge fan of Pumpkin Butter anyway but I was craving it. As I am craving any fall food right now!

The Roasted Acorn Squash was wonderful that we had last night for our dessert during the game but it just left me wanting something more!!!

I am thinking a Pumpkin Pie today with homemade pie crust. I struggled for my whole life with pie crusts but I am getting better with them. I am sure that I will never top Leslie's Apple Pie that Danny was lucky enough to enjoy a couple days ago and he hasn't stopped talking about since. I will see how my pumpkin pie compares to hers in his book!!

She is an awesome cook especially desserts!

She learned how to cook from me!!!

hahaha

I am a little uneasy right now.............I have been suffering with ups and downs from this crazy crazy bout of shingles!! Talk about a roller coaster ride......I feel good, I feel bad, bad, good, bad, bad, good, good, go to the grocery store BAM before I get out of car feel bad and worse and then so good that I am so pumped and can't go to sleep til 3AM, then I don't want to get up and then I have a head ache due to my circadian rhythm being out a whack, feel bad again!

I CAN'T STAND THIS!!!!

I have to go back to work tomorrow too.

I will not take any meds tomorrow while I have to work!

I will not I will not, No Mam Mrs Dr Woman I will not take those crazy mess with your mind meds and go to work trying to take care of people!

I will start back on them tomorrow evening after work and finish my course but not during the day!! OK!!!

Now I have to get up and get something done....even though it is raining outside and I just want to go back to bed........ I can't do that cause I have to get some sleep tonight.

haha The sun just popped out oh so bright!! Thank You Lord! Maybe this will be a good day anyway!

DON"T FORGET ABOUT MY GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!!!!

Tell your friends about it on your blog and I will give you 2 chances to win!!

Please leave me a comment saying that you posted about my giveaway on your blog so I won't miss you! The drawing will be this weekend when I can get the Birthday Boy settled down enough to draw a name from a hat!!

ps. why does my blog post bunch together like one big paragraph? I ain't got much learnin's but I got enough to know how ta compose a blog post divided in paragraphs! I have them seperated by several spaces and when I post them they will either be bunched into one or have several inches of space between them. HELP!!

Now I really feel like a country girl!

I have had the most farmgirl morning today! I have been frugal and thrifty and I guess you could call it down right smart. Some folks would call it down right cheap or crazy I am sure.....hahaha!! What I am talking about is my "puttin' up" food today.

You see we have this fabulous grocery store with a really great meat dept. I am litterally in "hog heaven" in there!! I went yesterday and boy were they having a sale on most all of their meats which are priced well all the time. I bought a slew of family packs of chicken and pork chops and a whole pork shoulder to make my own sausage...tehhetehhe. Well I spent the morning puttering around my kitchen divideing the family packs out into servings for 2 and vacuum packing them with my Foodsaver. Let me tell you the Foodsavers are well worth the money! We are still eating corn from last year that tastes just like fresh from the garden....yummy.

I purchased a meat grinder attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer a while back to grind a meat goat for the freezer. Which by the way is DELICIOUS. I thought it would be great and frugal to make my own sausage because we were both raised on hogs that we butchered ourselves and we really miss it. (I have been trying to talk dh into letting me get a pig and he won't hear of it cause of his high cholesterol. oops! I forgot about that honey....)

So any way I cut up the shoulder and made 6 pounds of fresh homemade sausage!!! Wow that was fun! I felt so country girlish doing all this womans work and saving money! I figured it out that I had about 16 meals for around $1.25 each for the 2 of us. That's pretty frugal huh? And to have so much fun doing it. The whole time I was thinking about how fortunate I am to have such a sustainable setup here on our little ponderosa. Strawberries are about to come in, if we can keep the goats out of them. The said goat above that is in the freezer got them last year!! We have a wonderful blueberry crop that I was pondering over too!!!

..........

Just as I was sealing the last of the packs of meat a glanced out of the kitchen window to see some action in the blueberry patch.......all I saw were ears 4 really long ears. What? What? What is it? OMG the 2 dairy goats= 4 big ears!!! They were happier doing this than I was in the kitchen for sure. I went outside and they came running as if they were hungry hahaha they were stuffed to the brim. They are both very pregnant and getting huge anyway but the probably have another 20 lbs on them now. I really hope they didn't get into anything that will hurt them.

...........

Did I mention that a goat got in the strawberries last year? Well I did not check the strawberries yet. OMG I will be freezing goat this afternoon if the berries are gone!!!!!!! They apparently had been out all morning because there are little nanny berries everywhere but I forgot about the strawberries........I gotta go now and check the patch.........

Update: 5:38 PM -- The goats are safe in their pasture because the strawberries went untouched!!! The goats however really made their rounds this morning whilst I was oblivious to their little romp. I saw foot prints and droppings everywhere except the garden, well a few in the edge of the garden. I guess they turned around and started munching on the blueberry bushes and I spotted them soon enough that no damage was done there either! WHEW!!!

DH and I mowed our hayfield looking yard this afternoon. It was knee high because of all the rain we have been getting. It really needed to be baled afterwards!! No wonder the goats were so happy today, they had plenty to eat!!!!