Guess I don't use Cream of Tartar much....

Tonight's been a BUSY night! I got home from work around 4:45 and cuddled on the couch a bit with Lucas before he went off to work. I've found that although I miss him immensely when he works nights, I get LOTS of stuff done. I've cleaned out my sons room, shampooed carpets, scrubbed baseboards and many other projects on the nights he works. Tonight I decided to cook.

I had some pumpkin in the fridge I needed to use, and some bananas going bad, and had bought bunches of apples to make applesauce. I also needed to use up the leftover chicken and make some dinner.

I started out freezing the bananas...you'll find out why another day ;)

Then I sat down to a DVR'd Saturday Night Live to attack this pile of apples:


30 minutes or so later:

I used red delicious, roma and golden delicious apples. Bilo had them on sale - 3 pounds for $2...had to get lots!!

I used a different recipe tonight for the applesauce than the other night. I changed this a bit. I added more honey and less brown sugar. I would have used no sugar at all, but I ran out of honey. I also used about a tablespoon or so or lemon juice rather than the orange peel. I'm not sure how exact that is, since I really just kind of dumped some in.


Applesauce, pre-smashed. See that it's already turning to sauce, all on it's own?

I only used 22 apples, not 24 like the recipe called for, but still got 2 and 1/2 quarts. It was tasty warm. I hope it's as good cold. I sealed these jars so we can put them in the cupboard for when we need it.


Next up: Chicken Pot Pie. I previously posted about this recipe here. I really only used the filling and sauce tonight. I used a regular Pillsbury deep dish crust for the bottom and then added mashed potatoes to the top, instead of a top crust. Tonight's picture even looks the same as the other night we made this!!


This is where the camera died, so no more pictures of this meal - just be assured that it came out great. Pot Pie meets Shepards Pie....yummy!

Next on the list were pumpkin brownies. I really didn't want to make a bread, or muffins with the leftover pumpkin so I googled my way to this recipe. I stuck to this recipe completely, and my brownies didn't look ANYTHING like the picture.

(camera re-charged!)




They are very tasty though, and not bad for a first try.

After I got done cooking, I decided to clean out my cupboard that holds all my spices and baking goods. A few months ago, I needed nutmeg for something and dug and dug and found some. Apparently I didn't use it often, because I recognized the jar as being from a grocery store in NY, that had been closed for a LONG time. Sure enough, I looked on the label and saw this:



I don't know if you can see it, but it says 1991!!! However, I keep using it, and it seems fine. Then again, maybe it doesn't....I wouldn't really know, since I don't use it often.

So tonight I found something worse...can you see the date on this can??



Yes, that says 1977. The Cream of Tartar is AS OLD AS ME. I threw both away and put nutmeg on the grocery list. I'll wait on the other until I need it....which probably won't be soon.

Pumpkin, continued

I wish I had seen this last night when I made my lonnnggg pumpkin post. Anyway, here's a link to a Whole Foods blog post...all about pumpkin! Enjoy!

The Great Pumpkin

"There he is! There he is! It's the Great Pumpkin! He's rising out of the pumpkin patch" ~ Linus

Nope, no Great Pumpkin, it's just me. I've been gone awhile, I know. I've had some things going on that distracted me from this and from my enthusiasm for being in the kitchen, but I'm back and ready to get going all over again!

It's fall, and there seem to be pumpkins everywhere! In the stores, in yards, even in beer! I've never eaten pumpkin outside of the regular pumpkin pie every Thanksgiving, so last week I decided to try pumpkin bread. As usual, I looked for a recipe that had no sugar and found this one on the website for the National Honey Board. To change it up a little, I added cranberries to it. Unfortunately, I didn't have quite enough honey, and I think I overcooked it. It was tasty, but horribly dry. I ate a couple of slices, and then it sat there. I hate that I didn't take a picture of it but, at the moment I wasn't thinking about the blog. Bad me.

This morning, I was struck with the urge to get back in the kitchen. I spent all morning in there! First thing I did was to freeze some bananas. I had no idea that I could do that! I can't wait to use them in all sorts of things. Then I went on a quest to salvage this dry, dry, dry pumpkin bread. It was either use it today, or toss it, which I wasn't excited about doing. My first idea was to make a slice of pumpkin bread french toast.



I simply sliced off a chunk of the bread, dipped it in a mix of egg and milk and cooked it in a pan with some butter - like you would with any other french toast. I didn't add any cinnamon or anything, since it was already full of spices. On the side, I chopped up an apple, sauteed it in some butter, and added some cinnamon and nutmeg. SO GOOD. I will be doing this with apples ALL the time now!! End result of the repurposed pumpkin bread? I'll give it a 3 out of 5. The "french toasting" of it didn't help the fact that it was dry. I didn't have any good maple syrup, so I drizzled some awful "pancake syrup" on the side of the plate to add some moisture. Tasty, but probably one of the worst things for me that I've eaten in awhile!

I still had 3/4 of a loaf of pumpkin bread. We had decided to roast a small chicken for dinner, and came up with the idea of making a stuffing out of the rest of the bread. I was worried about mixing it with celery and onion and how it would all taste.




Here's a semi-accurate version of how I made it. I really kind of just tossed it together, but here's what it was like:

3 cups toasted pumpkin bread croutons
1 stalk of celery, diced
1/3 onion, diced
1 1/2 tbsp poultry seasoning
3 tbsp butter
1/4 - 1/3 cup of chicken broth
handful of dried cranberries

Toss the croutons and cranberries in the poultry seasoning and set aside. Saute the celery and onion in butter until tender. Mix the butter mixture into the croutons, stirring to coat. Add chicken broth to moisten. Place in casserole dish, cover and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. You may want to stir it up half way through, to be sure all the croutons are moistened.

I'll give this reincarnation of the pumpkin bread a 4.5 out of 5. I'll have to try it again with some bread that isn't so dry, but it really was tasty. We've already requested to bring the stuffing to Thanksgiving dinner, and this will be the recipe we use!!

Off to bed now! I'll be back more often, I swear!

To take you out....