Can the Canned Pumpkin (Donald Trump Style?)

So, I love pumpkin soup. As the calendar creeps towards Thanksgiving and Christmas, I get excited about all things pumpkin: Pumpkin bread, pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pie, and definitely pumpkin soup. This year, though, as I have been getting more focused on real foods, I decided I would try and make a pumpkin soup from scratch! How hard could it be, anyway?

Turns out it is pretty easy, and the taste is far superior. First of all, do not use a jack-o-lantern pumpkin. They are bigger, sure, but they have less meat and, apparently, less flavor (the flavor part I have to take from the lady at the farmer's market. I have no experience with this of my own).
Here is a picture of the pumpkin we used:

This pumpkin, rather than the bright (almost garish) orange, is a nice putty/beige color.  And it is heirloom, so you can bet we are keeping the seeds. But when you cut it open, it is twice as bright as the insides of the orange pumpkins. The bright color is a good indication that this pumpkin is pretty high in Vitamin A (in the form of beta carotene), among other things.


So, to make pumpkin soup from FRESH pumpkin is actually a fairly simple task. Step one, cut the pumpkin in half. Rather than saw off the top and try to scoop out the insides (like you would when carving a pumpkin), cut it vertically in half from top to bottom, and scoop out the seeds. I have heard that the seeds are easier to remove once the pumpkin is cooked, but when your pumpkin is an heirloom variety and you want to save the seeds for your garden, cooking them first is a very bad idea.

Step 2, lay the pumpkin flesh-side down in a baking pan. You can use a cookie sheet, if you do not mind the smell of scorched pumpkin juice as it runs all over your oven. This was the first lesson I learned yesterday. Not unbearable, the scent is akin to burnt marshmallows. Oops.

I guess step 1 should actually have been "preheat your oven to 375," but I am going to pretend I already told you that. Step 3, then, is to place the baking dish in the oven for about 45 minutes.

Step 4: Remove the dish from the oven, and allow the pumpkin halves to cool for approximately twenty minutes. This step is vital if you are at all attached to your fingertips in their current, unblistered state.

Step 5 is much easier than you would think. Grasp the (hopefully) cooled pumpkin rind, and pull upwards. If all goes according to plan, you should now have a surprisingly thin and flimsy pumpkin rind in your hand, and a pile of orange goo in your baking pan (this is the pumpkin "meat").

Now, add to your recipe. Pumpkin is pumpkin, volume-wise (though I have learned that taste-wise, this is NOT the case!), so add the same amount as is called for with canned pumpkin.

Last year I made pumpkin soup with canned pumpkin, and Dh thought it was "okay." This year I made the soup with FRESH pumpkin, and he said, "You better freeze the leftovers so we have some for after the baby!"  BIG difference.

This is not my pumpkin soup. We ate it up so quickly (and froze the leftovers so quickly) that I forgot to take a picture.  This picture actually comes from here.

If you have a good farmer's market nearby, finding some high quality pie or soup pumpkins should not be too difficult. So can the canned pumpkin this holiday season! You are in for a very pleasant surprise if you do!

This is the pumpkin soup recipe I used. I should warn you, however, that I am not responsible for what happens if you follow the recipe exactly, haha. I realized as I was getting the soup ready that my husband had used the last onion (and not told me!), so I used green peppers (from our garden!) instead. Then, as I was smelling the nearly-finished soup, I decided it needed a dash of nutmeg and cardamom, too.  And I added some freshly ground black pepper. I did not really measure...not my style with spices. So, play around, have fun, and enjoy!

This is a part of Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop! Find more great posts there :)

Menu Plan Monday - Last Official Pre-Baby Menu??

Nine days till our due date! Not that I am naive enough to think that DS will arrive exactly on time, so we are quite aware he could come early or late. I am not feeling incredibly uncomfortable, so I am kind of hoping for the extra time to prepare; and yet... several of my pregnant friends have recently had their LOs, and I am starting to get a bit jealous! I would love to hold our baby boy, and I am really looking forward to our birth experience, in our home!

We do have several freezer meals made up, and are anticipating meals from our church, and my mom is going to be with us for about a month; so menu plans from here on out may be sporadic. I may get one more in next week, if DS does not come before then.

Up this week:

Tonight (Monday) - Roast Chicken Breast with Rice and Vegetables
Tuesday - Pumpkin soup, Wheat Bread, Sausage (from our pig!)
Wednesday - Chicken & Biscuits (Our chicken and whole wheat biscuits)
Thursday -Roast Ham (in the crockpot), sweet potatoes / veggies
Friday -Breakfast for Dinner (Grits, Bacon, Eggs)
Saturday - Leftovers (Roast)
Sunday - Family birthday / group barbecue - we're providing meat for burgers

That's it for our meal plan.  Head on over to OrgJunkie for more great meal plans.

Meal Planning - We Are Still on the Wagon

Well, as my due date draws closer, time seems to find all kinds of things to be crowded with.  We have been taking the time to diligently meal plan; but I have not been taking the time to post our plans. Actually, as I have gone from working in the office to freelance writing from home, it seems I have fallen off the face of the blogosphere all together.  I am really wanting to remedy that, though, as I would rather write about these things than how many ways there are to skin a cat in Minnesota (anyone who has done freelance article writing online certainly understands that sentiment, I am sure).

We received a very pleasant surprise today: Dh went to our dairy farmer to get our milk, and checked to see if he had any beef yet (he said closer to October last time we spoke with him).  Well, he did not have the new beef yet, but after dh helped him get a cow back into the pasture, he gave us a shopping bag full of steaks and ribs he had in the freezer. Gave. Things are a bit tight these days, so that was a huge blessing.  Tonight we are having sirloin! (A side note: If you have never cooked grass finished beef before, or have cooked it with not-so-great results, head over to Kelly the Kitchen Kop to check out this post. Cooking grass finished the same way you cook commercial beef can lead to some tough results!

Regarding the pig we split with a family from our church: We worked our way through the pork chops, tenderloin, and roasts pretty quickly. We have another roast left, but mostly a good bit of sausage and lots (and lots) of ribs. Add that to the beef ribs we just got from our dairy farmer; and we have decided that the next few Sundays are officially "Rib Day."

Taking inspiration from many of the amazing real food bloggers I have been reading, I also decided that we would freeze the remains of one meal a week for freezer meals post-baby. I will have my mother here with me for a month, and friends visiting, so I know it may not be a drastic necessity; but I wanted to have at least a week's worth of back-ups, just in case. So far we have frozen the mixed up (but raw) beef mixture for Barley Burgers, Venison Sausage Chili (Dh's amazing creation), Pork & Cranberry Stew (we had a gluten-free guest that night so it is made with rice instead of barley). We actually have two nights worth of the stew frozen, all thanks to being only two people with one large crock pot ;) .

We were also very blessed with an abundant (and I do mean abundant) harvest of sweet potatoes.  For our first garden together, most of our planting yielded sparse results. Good, quality, heirloom and heritage fruits and veggies, but not in the greatest quantities. Sweet potatoes, it seems, were the exception to that rule. We planted 2 sweet potatoes in about 4 pieces (after sprouting them), and they took over our backyard. So, I have plans to freeze enough baked sweet potato for a few sweet potato pies (I need to do that before the baby comes, for sure!) for Thanksgiving and Christmas; but otherwise, we have them stored in the crawlspace under the house and we're just trying to incorporate them where we can.  So on this meal plan, you will see several meals with sweet potatoes, and now you know why!

One last little addendum.  My last checkup with my midwife had me reading as slightly anemic. Not a huge deal, but being due in 2 1/2 weeks (give or take), I decided that everything with grain is going to be soaked this week, even things I don't normally soak (like crepe batter, or rice for the risotto). Though I am not sure yet exactly where I fall in the phytic acid debate, I figure that this week I need all the help absorbing iron I can get.

Monday - Spinach/Tomato/Mozzarella Fritatta, Whole Wheat Toast (from our homemade soaked WW Bread)

Tuesday - Hamsteak (from our pig!), Sweet Potato Risotto (Yes, I am soaking the rice for this)

Wednesday - Breakfast for dinner - Sausage (from our pig!) & Egg Crepes (with soaked whole wheat crepes)

Thursday - Spaghetti with garlic bread (again with our homemade soaked whole wheat bread), and steamed veggies

Friday - Pan Fried Chicken, Veggies, Rice (soaked, and cooked up with a little bit of chicken stock - hello flu season!)

Saturday - Cozy Quinoa Casserole (We are revising this one to exclude the ground turkey - since it is really not necessary - and to replace the Acorn Squash with....you guessed it! Sweet Potatoes! Plus, we are ignoring all the "low-fat" and "low-sodium" parts of the directions. Only full fat cheese and our homemade chicken stock work for us!)

Sunday - Beef Ribs, Cornbread (soaked), and Baked Sweet Potatoes.

Visit Laura @ I'm an Organizing Junkie for more great menus!

Menu Plan Monday - Aug 23

So we are plunging into another week, finding ourselves closer to our due date (just 8 1/2 weeks away!), and finding our schedules absolutely crazy.

This week we have childbirth class on Monday night, a baby shower for a friend on Tuesday, and our usual equipping class / home group for church on Wednesday.  Thursday is my late night at work (till 7), so Thursday and Friday evening we have absolutely no plans, and we are not going to make any!

Because of this, there are no food experiments this week, or trying of any crazy new things.  We're trying to keep it pretty simple so we do not go crazy (and I do not get too behind on keeping up with the cleaning).

I only have a few more weeks of work left; a prospect which has me very enthused that maybe I do not have to burn myself out entirely just to get our house ready for a baby.  As much as there is left to do regarding turning our "this is where everything that does not have a home goes" room into a nursery, I am leaving most of it until I am no longer working.  With Third Trimester exhaustion setting in, it just seems to be all I can do to work full time and keep up with dishes.  My midwife said I was a bit anemic again, and I have been taking Hema-plex for a few days.  I certainly do feel better already, but I am not expecting to feel as great as I did toward the second half of last trimester, so I am not going to push it.

Without further ado, the menu plan:

Monday - Taco Night!  Whole wheat tortillas, ground beef, tomatoes from our garden, and the rest of the typical taco fixings.  We make our own taco seasoning, and we love it!

Tuesday - Pork Stir-fry with Brown Rice.  The pork is from our own "home grown" pig :)

Wednesday - Spinach & Cheese Frittata (with farm fresh, pastured eggs)

Thursday - Crock-pot Chicken Pot Pie.   It is not really time for such "winter foods," here in GA, but we were looking for a tasty crock pot dish and this sounds delicious :)

Friday - Leftovers

Saturday - Fried Chicken, steamed veggies.

Sunday - Leftovers

Find more great menu plans at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Menu Plan August 16

Last week we had a menu plan, but did not keep to it very well.  Between dh injuring his back and me being bowled over by the exhaustion that the third trimester suddenly brought back to the fore, I was not prepared for all the changes in our schedule last week.  This week I am a little more focused, because weeks where we do not keep to the plan really remind me how much planning helps!  I have a plan in place for meal prep, and that is going to make things much easier.

No crazy events this week, it is pretty typical.  I have a friend coming over Monday to help me start getting the baby room organized.  With 9 1/2 weeks to go I definitely need to get that together ASAP, so I am very grateful for her help.  Other than our weekly Bible study on Wednesday, it should be a fairly low key week!

Monday - Barley Burgers, steamed veggies

Tuesday - Roast Chicken (a la Jeff)

Wednesday - California Salad (with Chicken left over from the roast)

Thursday - Spaghetti & Steamed Veggies

Friday - Pizza (with homemade whole wheat crust!)

Saturday - Pork Tenderloin (a la Jeff, again)

Sunday - Breakfast for Dinner


This post is part of Menu Plan Monday!  See Org Junkie for more great menus :)

Menu Plan August 2 - High on the Hog

The menu for this week is a bit pork-heavy, because the pigs my brother has been raising (We split one with another family, and his family split one with another family) have just come back from the butcher.  I am a little sad because I was hoping to get some lard out of the deal, but no such luck.  They had to butcher the pigs early because a neighbor informed the Marshall that *someone* was keeping pigs closer to their house than 900 feet (a county ordinance my brother was unaware of).  They gave us 30 days before mandating the execution, but still there was really only enough lard to make the sausage.  Bummer.

Anyway, we have some other interesting happenings this week; namely the fact that tonight is our family birthday celebration for July (yours truly, on the 20th) and August, as well as a welcome home party for my brother in law who just returned from Iraq.  The birthday person's family does the cooking...and since dh baketh not, and little unborn Joshua cannot do much in the kitchen yet, it meant I threw together a lasagna (yesterday, to bake today) and an ahhhhhmazing chocolate cake.  This is seriously an incredible whole wheat cake recipe.  I think the secret lies in using melted bakers' chocolate instead of cocoa, as well as almost all of the leavening ingredients being liquid.  You get a cake that is moist and delicious!  I doubled the recipe and made layers, and since dh is not as chocolate obsessed as I, I'm throwing a white chocolate ganache between the layers instead of the dark chocolate ganache I'll be using to top it.  Just wanted to throw in a little variation to make him happy since the other cake will be an ice cream cake and dh cannot have too much pasteurized dairy without getting sick.  We will have 2 Italian lasagnas and one Brazilian Lasagna (courtesy of my sis), so I'm pretty sure my lunches at work this week will consist of leftovers of our own lasagna.

OK, so that is the info on the week; without further ado, our menu plan:

Monday:  Lasagna (Other family members are making the freshly milled whole wheat bread, and the salad).  Decadent Chocolate Cake. 

Tuesday: Quinoa Risotto (using leftovers from the freezer because it is my late night at work) and sauteed squash.

Wednesday:  Salad with grilled chicken

Thursday:  Pork steak (this is actually from the freezer...needed to use it up before we get to our new pork reserves) w/mashed sweet potatoes and steamed veggies.

Friday:  Leftovers (another late night)

Saturday:  Pork Roast w/ Potatoes (from our garden!!) & Carrots (organic from the store...ours do not seem to be ready yet)

Sunday:  Leftovers (there is always more than enough roast)

This post is part of Menu Plan Monday @ Org Junkie!  Visit for more great menus.

Menu Plan Monday - Writing it down

So, I have been regularly menu planning for the last several weeks, but finding the time to blog about it has been harder than I thought.  My time has instead been focused on reclaiming my house from the few months of pregnancy exhaustion.  I am not feeling too badly about neglecting the blogging world, though, because I feel like I finally got a great system in place. 

I started with the kitchen, and just committed to learning to clean as I go from here on out (I have always been the "dive in and clean up afterward" type).  All this time I thought taking the time to clean while I was doing things would take longer, and it turns out that I actually get more done in a shorter amount of time.  How taking the time to do an extra step gives me more time, I will never be able to figure out, but I am certainly glad it does.  So the idea was to just commit to maintaining the kitchen, and then the next weekend tackle a different room.  So during the week I am only really worrying about the rooms I have already overhauled, and then on the weekends I add a new area to the list.  I am only a few weeks in, but so far it seems to be working really well, and I have still had the time to relax and enjoy a bit of the evening with dh most days.

That said, I have decided it was time to get back on the menu planning wagon.

Monday - Tonight we had breakfast for dinner.  Yummy french toast (made with pastured eggs and raw milk, of course) and venison sausage, with some fresh mango on the side.  The syrup was a simple syrup I made w/sucanat (2 c. sucanat to 1 c. water), mixed with some leftover freshly mashed berries from my freezer jam experiment.  Very easy fruity syrup.

Tuesday -  Fried Chicken (dredged in pastured eggs and freshly milled whole wheat flour), garden-fresh corn on the cob, rice

Wednesday - Black beans & rice w/Chicken (in a homemade enchilada sauce)

Thursday - Beef & Barley Burgers

Friday - Leftovers

Saturday - Chicken marinated in olive oil, garlic, and fresh herbs, pasta alfredo (homemade spinach tomato alfredo sauce), steamed garden fresh green beans

Sunday - Leftovers


This post is part of Menu Plan Monday at Org Junkie.  Stop by for more great menus :)