Saturday, December 24, 2011

The pumpkin on the doorstep


Today I finally finished using up the big pumpkin that some mystery person abandoned after Halloween on my mom's doorstep. I do not know if I wrote about this pumpkin before. It was huge!

People say you cannot cook with these jack o'lantern size pumpkins but you can.

And you should! I had fun with this pumpkin. I took it home -- well actually it rolled around in my car trunk for four or five days before I was home the requisite few hours it took to roast it -- then I cut it up in wedges and into the oven it went. That was a very pleasant Sunday evening I roasted the pumpkin. I worked on my Leonard Pennario project while it baked and reveled in that I was getting around to doing two things I was loving doing.

All in all this jack o'lantern yielded me two pumpkin pies and two Chilean Squash casseroles. That is a recipe from the old Moosewood Cookbook and I have made it with butternut squash but I prefer it with pumpkin. Pumpkin is milder and goes better with the rest of the ingredients which include corn, eggs and Cheddar cheese.

Let me see if the recipe is on the Internet. Ah! This is pretty much it.

It is delicious. My little niece and nephew love it. I took the Chilean Squash to my mom's for Christmas Eve and the leftovers went home with them. Speaking of pumpkin my brother George and I have been laughing for the entire Christmas season about the lines from Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride" ....



There's a special feeling nothing in the world can buy
When they pass around the coffee and the pumpkin pie

Hahahahahahahahaaa!

And, just as funny ...


There's a birthday party at the home of Farmer Gray
It'll be the perfect ending for the perfect day....

Ahahahahahaaaaa!

OK, maybe you had to be there. Isn't that a cute version by Harry Connick Jr.? Dear Harry. I interviewed him once back when I worked at the Niagara Gazette. I might have interviewed him since then. I do not remember, I am ashamed to say.

Yikes, that video cuts off so abruptly!

Oh well. Back to the big old pumpkin. It is funny to think that it was part of our Christmas Eve.

Christmas got a little help from Halloween!

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