Pumpkins Galore

Please note: I wrote this and then for some reason didn't publish it?

My kitchen table has been taken over by pumpkins. It annoys Shinerman, but all I see is the yummy goodness I'm going to make. Can you say BPA-free Pumpkin Pie?

We've been going to the Coppell Farmer's Market for a while. They have a couple of organic produce vendors and it's all local. Except for the Wild Alaskan Salmon people, which they said is fished by a local family, but I think is a little out of place. The fish was fished by locals not Salmon People. sigh...I'm tired.

We've gotten most of our produce from there since we stopped getting the organic co-op. Oh, I didn't tell you about that? After our friends with whom we were splitting a share decided to stop, the delivery spot we went to dwindled and it was no longer cost-effective. Then we couldn't get a delivery close by on the weekend, yada, yada.

We also have been getting our meat and eggs there, it really has been great. This last weekend was bring the weekly email and get a free pumpkin promotion. So of course I did! And here is how we came to have a table-full o'pumpkins:

Me:Hey, I brought my email for my free pumpkin, can I just pick one out?

Market Man: Sure(he waves towards them) you want more? Take more.

Me: looking as if I don't believe him

Market Man: You want 3 take 3. You can have 10 if you want, we gotta get rid of 'em.

Say the above in an old Jewish Man's cadence; I don't know if he was or not, but that's how it sounds when I replay it in my head.

I took 3 'cause that's all I could carry and went and enlisted Shinerman and the Man. We got 9 total; I felt 10 would be too selfish. Add that to the two we already had and we had a table full!

We've now pureed several and started pumpkin wine out of a few, as well.

And the sun shines...

The last couple of days have been gorgeous! Unfortunately, the clothesline is out of commission again. Shinerman had it fixed for a couple of loads of laundry before the rain knocked it out. We're hoping the ground will dry up enough to really fix it later this week, 2x4 braces may be in our future.

For a few months now I've been doing a knitting night with my much more crafty friends. I decided that I wanted to learn to knit and what better way to do that than with good friends and wine (or beer)? So far I've made two dishclothes, one mishap that was supposed to be a

fingerless glove, and an ACTUAL fingerless

glove. I wore it for the first time today.

Yes, it was 80 some-odd degrees outside, but inside my office it was a wintry 65 degrees. My cube neighbor was jealous of my one glove.

We also had a napkin party. My really nice friend let me use her sewing machine to make three new napkins. I'm still using the winter ones and am looking forward to a change of pace; the ones I made are really cute and spring-y. We stopped using paper towels the winter of 2007 (wow, I can't believe it's been that long!!). At first we just used dish towels at the dinner table, and that worked fine. Then I remembered that I had a bunch of napkins in the buffet and that was more socially acceptable. I must say this green choice was much easier than I thought it would be. There isn't a noticeable increase in the laundry amount. I clean any really nasty messes with old rags and either rinse them out or, if it's beyond bad, just throw it out.

You make anything lately? Do tell...

Breakfast for Dinner

Tonight the littlest man asked for pancakes for dinner. I did this randomly last week and the look on his face was priceless. He was so excited. So when he asked for it tonight, I figured I can get dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow out of the way. I essentially use the buttermilk pancake recipe out of the Joy of Cooking. I love this book, I got it for the first Christmas after Shinerman and I were married from my mother-in-law. I use it so much that I rarely put it away.

I usually put vanilla extract in there, but we had some orange sections I needed to get rid of, so I decided to use those instead. It turned out well, just a hint of orange in the after taste. I think that next time I would add in some orange zest and see how that goes. When I have blueberries I add those in at the stove. If you sprinkle them on after you pour the batter in the pan, you avoid any crushing or juiciness in the batter - plus you get to decide how many you want!

The littlest man helped, of course. He's gotten much better at measuring, he doesn't fling the measuring cup up out of the canister as if it's empty, thus spilling {insert ingredient here} all over the counter. He's also able to name the ingredients, including the baking powder and baking soda.

You can use regular milk for this recipe, but I highly recommend trying the buttermilk. If you use regular milk, skip the baking soda.

Orange Pancakes

1 1/2 cups flour

3 tbl sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

3 tbl butter, melted

2 large eggs

3-4 tbl fresh squeezed orange juice

Whisk dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk wet ingredients together. To make sure the butter doesn't seize when you mix it in with the cold milk, mix in a little bit of milk in with the melted butter. This will make sure they are closer to the same temperature. Pour wet ingredients into dry, whisking until just combined - as Alton Brown says, lumps are ok!

I heat a comal (a small flat round griddle) on med-low heat sprayed with a bit of olive oil, then use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to pour the batter onto the pan. Cook until the top of the pancake has a few popped bubbles and then flip to cook the other side.

These are so yummy that I only have a few left over each time, the littlest man has been known to gobble down 4-5 in one sitting. I always want to have enough left over so that I can freeze some for breakfast, but usually it's only a couple left to freeze. You have a couple of options to freeze any leftover pancakes. I usually stack them, separated with wax paper and put them in a bag in the freezer. Or you can put them on a cookie sheet in your freezer, then when they are frozen just put them in a bag. You won't have any sticking together with either of these methods. I guess using wax paper creates more waste, though...