Pumpkins

  This weekend we went to a nearby pumpkin patch. Well, it was an Abbey that had pumpkins, a corn maze, a hay ride, etc. It was quite nice actually.  We had perfect fall weather, as you can see from the pictures below. The corn maze was entertaining and we had to try and get 8 different punches through the maze. A slept on Chris's back for most of the maze, but it was a lot of fun. After we did the corn maze we looked for carving pumpkins. We found some, but will have to do the actual carvings this week. We managed to get them home and hollowed out, but not carved. We were having friends over for games, so we went down that route over stressing about carving the pumpkins.  We also found a pumpkin to bake with, so hopefully it will turn out well. I want to make fresh pumpkin puree and found a stupid easy recipe for it.

First wagon ride. This was shortly before A decided to taste the pumpkins...

A family photo with our pick of the pumpkins

Linda holding a pumpkin that's a big as her!

Yesterday was a good seasonal day for us here. We started with pumpkin cinnamon rolls. They were a bit wet and I was concerned they wouldn't roll right, but after letting the dough dry in the air, they did okay! We made pumpkin ice cream (I melted the pumpkin puree in some cream early in the day, then let it cool before making into the ice cream and it worked quite well -- no pumpkin chunks or separation) for dessert. I also made a butternut squash soup for dinner. It was super easy actually so here's the recipe!

1 Leek
garlic
3 lbs butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced
2 medium pears, peeled, cored, and diced
1 yucca root
1 qt chicken stock
3/4 C apple juice
4 good sized parsnips
olive oil

slightly brown the leek and garlic in olive oil. Then add the squash, pears, yucca, and liquids. Let the mixture boil, then reduce heat and simmer until everything is soft. While the soup is simmering, thinly slice the parsnips for parsnip chips as garnish. Brown the parsnips in olive oil to use as garnish on the soup. (I salted them since I wanted them to be kind of salty, like a chip!) After the soup has simmered, puree it and serve with the parsnip chips.

I modified the recipe, using pears for apples, and yucca root for potatoes. I imagine that if you wanted to make the soup with those things it would also be quite tasty.