Pumpkins Galore

I’ve been sucked into the world of pumpkin by the blog world. Pumpkin is everywhere, pumpkin bread, pumpkin oats, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin scones, etc. My place has pumpkins everywhere…

And the hubby doesn’t even like them.

I actually have two reasons for all this pumpkin. For the baby pumpkins I was planning on making Emily’s recipe for chili served in pumpkins that she did for her foodbuzz challenge for my dad and stepmom who are coming over for dinner on Thursday night.

After I emailed them the menu to make sure they liked everything on it I got one two emails from my dad telling me NO CHILI. He does not like it. I’ve had to scrap that idea and figure out something new.

Now I have 4 baby pumpkins and no idea what to do with them. I actually think I’ll make the chili for the husband and I next week (since it looks amazing) but I’m going to have to come up with an idea for the other two. If you have any suggestions I’d love to know.

 

As for all the canned pumpkin I’m in the process of making Pumpkin Butter from Angela.

We are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend with my dad, stepmom and her kids so I’m making a jar for each family (4 in total).

I thought this would be a great hostess gift since our place is too small to have everyone over. The only problem is that I ended up picking up huge mason jar (I was intending to get smaller ones) so now I’m making more of it then intended and have to go back to the store for more brown sugar.

 

I’m already made one batch (I split it into two because of the amount I have to make) and it smells and tastes amazing and now I’m just waiting for it to cool to put into jars and add ribbon.

I’ll post some after pictures tomorrow. I’m also making a little extra to keep for myself.

Well I’d better go. I have to go back to the store and the dry cleaners before coming back making another batch of pumpkin butter, make some stuffed peppers for dinner and making a batch of chocolate chip blondies. I’ve got a busy evening of cooking and baking ahead.

~ Katie :)

Calgary Day 2

It’s now Sunday morning and we only have one more day left here in Calgary. But by the time this gets posted we’ll be back in Halifax. It’s been a great trip but I’m not looking forward to the over night flight home tonight.

It’s 7:30 and I’m the only one up in the house. Since my step-brother and his wife have 5 kids plus Matt and I there are 9 people in this house right now so I’m really enjoying a few mins of quiet time to myself.

After falling asleep yesterday so early I was a little worried about messing up our internal clocks and waking up at 5 but we ended up sleeping until 7:30 so we got 11 hours of sleep and I felt so much better.

After we got up yesterday we decided to skip the big unhealthy breakfast and hit up the small coffee shop across the street from our hotel for coffee and a muffin. When we got there it wasn’t open yet and we couldn’t find another place close so we just headed back to the hotel.

We ended up with the buffet again for breakfast. This time I chose to have a traditional pancake breakfast: 2 pancakes, sausages and bacon…

With a side of fruit…

I’m not upset. We’re on vacation so sometimes a little grease is ok.

After heading back up to the room we showered and packed everything up so we could check out and meet my step-brother. We headed back to his place to drop out stuff off and we spend the morning there handing out with his family.

On the menu for lunch was hotdogs. Since I don’t eat hot dogs I made myself a bagel sandwich with what they had in their fridge. Bagel, roasted chicken, mozza and romaine…

We also had a side of veggies to go along with lunch…

Boy was my body ever craving veggies. It was great to get some greens back into my diet.

After lunch we drove around Calgary to see some places while doing so we stopped so I could take some pictures of the mountains.

I love being able to see the mountains off in the distance. So different from Halifax.

Late in the afternoon we headed to the park with the kids and played football, freebie, soccer and soccer baseball for about and hour. It was actually a great workout.

Dinner was hamburgers and corn on the cob. After dinner was relaxed with the family and headed to bed around  10:30.

Here are just a few of the pictures I took yesterday.

Playing at the park…

My bug bite(s) that I had all over my body when we got home…

The walk home…

Hanging out the evening…

That’s all for now. I’ll be back later with my final post on the Calgary trip.

~ Katie :)

Calgary Day 1

Morning tweeps.

It’s our last morning at the hotel before my step-brother comes to pick us up to spend some time with him and his family.

Yesterday was busy but a great day. Even after not going to bed until 12 local (3am Atlantic) we still managed to get up around 7:30 local. Once up we decided to head down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. We decided to do one day with a big extravagant breakfast so today was the day and we got the breakfast buffet.

I started with eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns a apple pastry and a side of fruit.

My second serving was a pancake, a piece of french toast and more fruit.

I was getting pretty full full so I only ate about half of the second serving.

After that we had some time to kill so we decided to go for a walk around downtown before Matt had to head to his meetings.

When we got back I went out with my step-brother, niece and nephew for the afternoon while Matt had to work. For some reason I didn’t use my camera very much but I was able to see some a of the city and spend some time with the little ones.

At some point the afternoon I realized I should eat something so I grabbed a bagel with some pb for lunch. My internal clock was all messed up and I couldn’t figure out if I was hungry or not or if I was tired. Yesterday was a tough day on my body.

After meeting back up with Matt at the hotel around 5 we decided to walk and find a place to eat. We ended up walking for over an hour looking around and by they we were starving and needed dinner.

We basically stopped at the first place we could find. I think it was called Milestone’s.

I started with a Raseberry Lemon Drop Martini and for an appetizer we had Asian Chicken Bites. They were good but very spicy. Dinner I had an Italian Sausage Ravioli with three different kind of sauces. A pesto,  a marinara and a cheese sauce. It was really good and I really wish I had remembered to take pictures. I think I was so tired and hungry at this point that I just completely blanked.

Afterwards we came back to the hotel, watched a little tv and crashed at about 8:30. I know, not very exciting but we were so tired we could hardly keep our eyes open. Hopefully with all the sleep we got last night we will be feeling better today.

I’m going to leave you with a few pics that I did take during the day.

Enjoy!

There are so many parks in the middle of the city. It’s pretty cool and very different then Halifax…

A few strange pieces of art work we found as well…

Overall, a good day! I’ll try to be better with my camera today and take lots of pictures to share tomorrow.

~ Katie :)