Leftover pumpkin is just a delicious something or other waiting to happen. I'm happy to just add a little Splenda, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and warm it up in the microwave. All the delicious flavor of pumpkin pie with so few calories, it's ridiculous! Try it, really, you'll love it. Instead of my basic, though, I went for pumpkin oatmeal. YUM! I didn't have time to cook up a batch of steel cut oats last night, and the poochies were in rare form this morning, so I had to dump the pumpkin in a bowl and grab a packet of instant to cook up at work. The instant was maple & brown sugar, and it really complimented the pumpkin perfectly, while the pumpkin tamed the somewhat overboard sweetness of the oatmeal. Just what I wanted for breakfast on this chilly autumn morning!
Lunch brought yogurt plus pumpkin apple butter. I was a little concerned about the interaction of my Trader Joe's European Style Organic yogurt, which is a bit thinner than traditional plain yogurt, and the apple butter. I've become addicted to plain yogurt plus frozen fruit plus honey. To me, it just tastes better. It works best with Greek yogurt, because as the fruit defrosts you get a lot of natural juices flowing, and I think the fruit pulls some of the moisture out of the yogurt somehow. With traditional yogurt the result can be pretty thin. So when I added the pumpkin apple butter (not frozen) to the European yogurt, I was afraid it would end up being something I could sip through a straw. Not so! It stayed thick, and the butter gave it such a rich flavor; it was lovely.
Now, as I've mentioned, I LOVE Halloween. I don't know if that's emphatic enough. I luuuuuurrrrrrrrvvvvvvve Halloween! It's just so much fun! And I've always dreamed that my house would be the house that every kid looked forward to visiting on Trick or Treat night. Just slightly creepy, but mostly fun and over the top. Maybe a cauldron full of dry ice, definitely some spider webs on the porch (because obviously in this fantasy I live in a house with a huge wrap around porch), Rooster lurking somewhere dressed like a vampire/Frankenstein's monster/mummy to scare the older kids, and pumpkin sculptures in the yard. Well, when I opened the 2011 Halloween issue of Martha Stewart and saw her version of my little dream, I almost got choked up! It's exactly what I want my someday house to look like. Glowing windows, spider webs and pumpkin towers on the porch, and eyes peering out between the porch railings. Go out and look at a copy. I can't tell you how much I want to work my way up to something like that. When I do, you're all invited!
Now go eat something pumpkin!
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