First Pumpkin Harvest

It's Fall!

Bubba has been a great gardening partner this year. He weeded the garden with me (sometimes plants that weren't weeds) and watered it with me every day. He had become increasingly more excited about picking the pumpkins we have been growing since they started to look like actual pumpkins. Last week there were two that were ripe so we picked them. He carried one around the house and called it "pumpkie" but once he started to toss it like a ball I moved it to the front porch. Since then every time we go out to the garden he wants to pick more.

So you can imagine how excited he was to be able to pick a bunch of them today!

Once we came inside and he was distracted I split 4 of the pumpkins in half, cleaned out the seeds, baked them at 350 for 20-30 minutes and after letting them cool scooped the pumpkin out of the shells then pureed it. Then I lightly tossed the seeds with olive oil and baked them at 325 for about 15 minutes stirring them occasionally.

All this with only 4 pumpkins!

Now with 5 cups of pumpkin puree I had to make something pumpkiny. I decided to experiment with a different pumpkin bread recipe. I used my normal banana bread recipe, but added 1 cup of pumpkin puree and omitted the bananas and apple sauce. Then I made a glaze to pour over it.

Glaze Recipe:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons of milk

1/2 teaspoon melted butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix ingredient til smooth and pour over the bread, then refrigerate til ready to serve.

And this recipe for a change, Bubba loved! 

Fried Green Tomatoes

It has been a busy summer! One of the distractions from blogging I have had is my garden. In May I stopped at a local farmer's green house selling tomato and pepper plants and even though I wasn't going to have a  bigger garden this year I bought a couple of plants. Who knew that 3 little tomato plants would make so many tomatoes! I don 't really even like tomatoes, except when they are in tomato sauce or salsa. One day a decided to try a recipe from one of my favorite movies, Fried Green Tomatoes. Only problem was I didn't have corn meal to make traditional "Southern" fried green tomatoes, so I decided to make them "Italian style" with parmesean and Italian bread crumbs. 

I was running low on bread crumbs, so I crushed up some stove top stuffing mix, 

and added some parmesan cheese.

The dipping station. Mixed bread crumbs, 2-3 eggs beaten, and flour.

First dip in the egg

Then the flour

Then the egg again

And finally the bread crumbs

Let sit aside in the fridge for at least 1/2 hour to let the bread crumbs set.

Fry in oil on medium heat til golden brown

Let cool  on paper towels to soak up excess oil.

Yum!

I made quite a few so I have gotten several meals out of this batch. First on the side of ravioli with tomato sauce, then for lunch in a fried green tomato BLT. 

Bubba has tried several of them and it always goes the same way every time. He take a bite, says "Yum!" then sometimes a second bite and then he throws it on the floor. I'm tempted to not give him another one, but he has been so picky lately I always try to give him any of our food he asks for in hopes he will eventually get back to his old eating habits where he ate anything and every thing.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with all those pesky red tomatoes that keep showing up.