Pumpkin Soup

I made my first attempt at homemade soup last night, after cleaning out our pumpkins for carving. I figured it would be very 'green' of me to use as much of the pumpkins as possible. So, I made pumpkin seeds and gave the soup a try. To be honest, it wasn't spectacular - but I didn't follow a recipe, I just made something up. It needed a lot of spices to make it taste like anything - so if you feel like giving this one a try, don't be afraid of your spice rack. Oh, and I got to use the magic bullet! That's always a good time.

Pumpkin Soup
Pumpkin leftovers, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 pint heavy cream
salt & pepper
spices, to taste (I used nutmeg, paprika, cumin, you name it, I probably threw it in there!)

Put the pumpkin chunks & cream into magic bullet, blend until creamy. Put creamy soup in sauce pan over medium low heat, stirring in spices to taste. Make sure it doesn't burn to the bottom of the pot. Serve with some pumpkin seeds for garnish.

Country Apple Pie - Round 2!

I already posted the recipe for my country apple pie, but I had to post these pictures. I picked up a set of leaf shaped cookie cutters to make my fall pies extra special. Look how cute they turned out!

Champagne Punch

This post is long overdue! We made this punch for my birthday dinner. The dinner itself was quite the fiasco - I forgot to put the chicken I was making on a rimmed pan, so the butter leaked out and burned on the bottom of oven. The burning butter smoked SO MUCH that we actually had to drop to the floor of the apartment, open windows, turn on fans, and eventually LEAVE while the apartment aired out. Not exactly the way I wanted to start out another year, but as they say, shit happens.

On the bright side of things, we made this beautiful, delicious champagne punch. I have said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again; but THANK YOU Martha Stewart (and your underlings) for finding such delightful recipes. This one is super easy:


1 bottle of champagne
1/3 cup simple syrup
2 peaches, pitted, and cut in wedges
1 pint blueberries
1 pint raspberries

(You could put in any sort of berry you like, but I definitely love the peaches in there - get creative!)

We made double, maybe triple the recipe, and everyone had quite a lot. It was fantastic! Even better, it doubled as our table centerpiece for the evening, as I put it in a very large, tall vase that we usually use for glads.

These pictures are from round 2 of the champagne punch, which Chelsea, Alexis & I just had to make another time - we had leftover simple syrup & peaches (darn!)