It’s the last day of October! I should blog. I am blogging because it’s 6:37 AM Sunday and I’m awake, sitting in the dark on the couch. I woke up at 5:10 for some reason and couldn’t sleep so I came down here, ate a piece of bread with raspberry jam and then read blogs until now.

I baked a couple of things last week for people but this post won’t have any baking because THOSE pictures are on my other camera. These ones are from my little Canon PowerShot.

We celebrated Aaron’s grandmother’s birthday this month! We had dinner at my mother and father-in-law’s house. I made carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for dessert. Those were a battle. I made one batch and they completely overflowed and then the second batch didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted either. Then, the frosting was too soft. It was unseasonably warm that day…

It all worked out in the end though.

Dorothy:

Husband:

Aaron’s brother Dave and his girlfriend Rachel:

I guess I didn’t get any pictures of Aaron’s parents but they were there, to the right preparing lots of good food.

Last weekend, Aaron and I became bikers.

Pumping up the tires with an air compressor…in the hallway…

So my little neighborhood is at the top of a hill perched over one of the rivers in Pittsburgh (sad that I don’t know which) about 2 miles outside of downtown Pittsburgh. This presents a problem for any biking because, first of all, I have to get off the hill to get anywhere (aside from the Unimart down the street) and then I have to bike back up to get home.

There are two options for getting off of the hill. We could have biked about a mile extra and gone down a less steep hill, or we could pick up our bikes and carry them down one of the steepest hills in Pittsburgh.

Option 2 happened.   

But first break out the camera and take pictures of your not entirely pleased quasi-bike punk wife.

Yes, steps next to the hill. It’s that steep.

And we made it down to the semi-major highway that we’re probably not really supposed to cross.

We biked to the Harp & Fiddle in the Strip to say hello to some of Aaron’s high school friends then took the trail that I usually run on to Millvale.

Aaron was recruited to drive a tractor for children’s hayrides for Millvale’s children’s Halloween festival thing.

I’m on the hayride here about to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I packed.

  

Aaron drove the tractor for about 2 hours while I wandered around with my friend’s Sara and Reena and her family.

Sunday I decided to make soup in pumpkin bowls for dinner. I was trying to be festive.

I bought two pie pumpkins at the farmer’s market on Friday for this purpose. Inspiration for this came from last month’s Food Network magazine. (It was on the cover)

First I cut the tops off of the pumpkins and scooped out all of the seeds. Then I seasoned the inside with 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and sugar then I roasted them in a 400 degree oven for about an hour.

In the meantime, I made Ina Garten’s Butternut Squash & Apple Soup. This stuff is AMAZING! Seriously! It’s so good. I’ve made it twice now. I’m going to go ahead and post the recipe but it’s also on the Foodnetwork website.

Butternut Squash & Apple Soup

Yield 3.5 quarts

Ingredients:

   * 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

   * 2 tablespoons good olive oil

   * 4 cups chopped yellow onions (3 large)

   * 2 tablespoons mild curry powder

   * 5 pounds butternut squash (2 large)

   * 1 1/2 pounds sweet apples, such as McIntosh (4 apples)

   * 2 teaspoons kosher salt

   * 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

   * 2 cups water

* 3/4 cups good apple cider or juice (I used cider and cut down the amount. Original recipe calls for 2 cups)

Warm the butter, olive oil, onions, and curry powder in a large stockpot uncovered over low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, until the onions are tender. Stir occasionally, scraping the bottom of the pot.

Peel the squash, cut in half, and remove the seeds. Cut the squash into chunks. Peel, quarter, and core the apples. Cut into chunks.

Add the squash, apples, salt, pepper, and 2 cups of water to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover, and cook over low heat for 30 to 40 minutes, until the squash and apples are very soft. Process the soup through a food processor, blender or immersion blender.

Pour the soup back into the pot. Add enough of the apple cider or juice to make the soup the consistency you like; it should be slightly sweet and quite thick. Check the salt and pepper and serve hot.

We added soup to our pumpkin bowls and ate.

I roasted the lids too and just took them out about 20 minutes before the pumpkins.

After we had enough squash for the night, Aaron and I tore up the rest of the pumpkins and added it to the leftover soup.

I couldn’t stop eating it though. Still wearing my apron…

I don’t brush my hair on Sundays.

And done.

Well it’s 7 AM now. I’m going to go lurk in the bedroom and inadvertently wake up Aaron….