There is Dried Pumpkin on my Tattoo

As I sat down to blog, I cast about for a title and came up with nothing. I then noticed that something from the kitchen had adhered to the tattoo on my right arm. As I thoughtfully flaked it off my arm (and onto the carpet, I suppose) I thought, "that's my title then."

The day started off big and stayed that way. We woke up at some reasonable hour (say, 7-ish) and crawled out of bed to get started on the day. I was heading up a "Take Back the Kitchen" demonstration and Chris was getting ready for a photoshoot. I got the boys to pick up the floor in the living room and vacuumed it while the first load of dishes ran. Then Gaye arrived to babysit and I drove over to Spring Creek park to be the photographer's assistant. We were taking Christmas portraits of a family from church. The area was so beautiful and they looked so photogenic that I made Chris promise he'd take photos for us, too. (That said, I won't let him do so until after my November haircut, so the trees are likely to be bare by then. Timing is everything.)

At any rate, this was a family of young boys, so we were completely done 40 minutes after we started. We stopped at Sheetz on the way home for a Diet Mountain Dew and then headed home.
I was worried about the tomatoes and peppers we'd harvested from the garden the day we tore the last of the plants out. Last night I managed to can the brussel sprouts (Charlotte, I pickled them per your recommendation) and the apples we'd bought a week earlier at Way Fruit farm (and longer and they'd have been no good). So today I needed to do something with the tomatoes, hot peppers, and the two Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck Pumpkins we bought for pie.

I divided the tomatoes into two piles--over ripe and just right. I'm trying to decide whether to make a soup for dinner tonight with the over-ripe pile or just pitch them. We had BLT's for lunch using the "just right." and they were delicious.

I sorted out the hot peppers.



I can't decide what to do with them.



Taking photos of them was pretty entertaining.



But I don't have a clue what to do with them. I grew them to go in salsa. But there weren't nearly enough tomatoes left by the time the hot peppers ripened. So. What now?


While I pondered that, I cut up one of the winter crookneck squashes and baked them in three batches. I pushed the cooked squash through a strainer and put the puree in quart jars. It takes two to three cups of this stuff to make one pumpkin pie. I think we'll have enough for 6 to 8 pies. Wow. Right now I need some cheesecloth to get the extra liquid out of the puree. But after that I imagine I'll free most of it while Max and I begin experimenting with pumpkin pie recipes.

Between batches of pumpkin, I worked on the backlog of dishes. By the time I was done with the last batch of pumpkin, it was past time to get some real workwork done, so I sat down to do that and . . . promptly felt like all I really wanted in life was a good nap. I really, really, really need to get some work done though, so I'm fighting back with caffeine as I write this.