Pumpkins, boats and Junk shops

Yesterday we set out for the ferry at Victoria BC. As we had time we called at our friends store, she calls it a junk shop but it is well laid from what I could see. We had lunch with them a couple of weeks ago.

Luqi had some news for us, she is taking her daughter back to China to visit her mother and step father. We think its the first time since she left China seven years ago.

A totem pole in the alley way next to Luqi 's store.

We continued on to Victoria and saw an RV park with floating houses and boats as well.

Beautiful weather as can be seen by the sky.

Gardens in Victoria harbour, later we sailed in the waters behind, by ferry.

Last night we went to a supermarket, lots of pumpkins.

Halloween is just around the corner.

This morni g we stopped for coffee at a small cafe, they had pumpkin pie and I tried it, humm not my favourite. The server, who it seemed to be a mum and dad business, his wife did the baking, brought a piece of pecan pie to the table after hearing that we had not had one.  I thought my understanding of the language was alright until he had said P'carn, was what I heard, oh, pee can. Oh yes, I liked that more than the pumpkin.

Soup

When the weather gets a little cooler, I think of soup. I asked Warren yesterday which soup would he like me to make and gave some options. Potato and leek, pumpkin or chicken and vege. He said chicken and corn sounded good. No, I cooked the corn that we had and I didn't have any tinned corn. These days I cant be bothered going to the shops for one item so it was a no go. He then said potato and leek as we hadn't had that in awhile.

Leek sounds good but I only had onion or spring onion so I diced a large one and four potatoes and put that and some homemade chicken stock into the crock pot with the last of the bacon. For years I couldn't use stock cubes or stock powder as it gave Warren headaches, due to his gluten allergy as we now know. Pretty excited to be able to make and use my own stock thanks to a forum that I belong to, no real recipe which  I like but its chicken carcasses (I put in a bag in the freezer until I'm ready to make it and normally use two) and whatever vegetables and boil til the meat falls off the bones, cool and pour into ice cubes and bag up with frozen.

Three hours later the soup was cooked, I added a tin of carnation milk and wazzed it (Jamie Oliver's words) in the mixer to make it smooth, there was enough for three bowls.

As we were going to be out all day today and would be given lunch, a bowl of soup and a sandwich would be plenty for dinner. Two bowls in the freezer and one in the fridge.

I decided while the mixer and crock pot were out, i might as well make the pumpkin soup. Again no real recipe but I remember the first time I made pumpkin soup and so I make it similar. A big heap of pumpkin, a carrot, some more stock, a potato and a sweet potato, chilli sauce and tomato sauce and let cook til pumpkin soft. This resulted in another three bowls for the freezer. Running out of bowls so I didn't make the chicken soup, maybe I will make chicken and corn in a couple of weeks.

After a two hour train trip home tonight, it was so nice to just have to heat the soup, a chicken sandwich followed by a piece of watermelon, a quick easy and pretty cheap meal.

An easy meatless dinner

I like to have a meatless meal every now and then, it fits in with the budget and I do think that we (humans)eat too much meat. Coming home the other day after camping, I was catching up with emails, blogs I read and a couple of forum,s I usually spend the first hour after breakfast doing this but four days worth takes awhile.

Anyway on one of the forums, a recipe had been posted for Honey dipped Pumpkin, I read the recipe in full and thought that sounds good and even better, I had not taken any meat out of the freezer, had most of the ingredients needed and a neighbour had given us some pumpkin a few days before so what else could I make for dinner?

The recipe called for 300 gms of penne pasta, wow that sounded a lot so I cooked the same as I would normally cook for us. I didnt weigh the pumpkin but just cut up the piece I had into bite sized pieces. Some oil, honey (oops I forgot, used the last not to worry there was Maple syrup) garlic, humm must have used that too, sweet chilli sauce and a bit of ginger sauce will do. Mixed together and over the pumpkin and roast. I went to the garden and picked parsley, basil and spring onion and chopped finely (they were in the recipe!)

Drained the pasta added the pumpkin with the rest of the sauce, added some grated cheese, recipe had called for 100gms of ricotta but I thought grated cheese would do just as well. folded thru the chopped herbs, bit more cheese on top and that was dinner done.

Out of ten, I would have given it about a 6, pumpkin should have been cooked/roasted a few minutes longer, forgot to add the pine nuts, I did have some in the cupboard and yes the ricotta would have been better than grated cheese. Would I make it again, yes with the ricotta and pine nuts, it was tasty, different and filling. Oh by the way, I checked the recipe later and it was for six people, thank goodness I cut down on the pasta and oil. I rarely make a recipe strictly to the letter, I add a bit or delete something, I use recipe as an idea and then go from there. Next time I would probably add some greens as well, either beans or peas, to beef up the vege and add to the colour.