Thanksgiving

I haven't posted in a long time!  We have been busy and I guess I haven't taken very many pictures.  We had a nice Thanksgiving and it was a packed house this year.  We found a large turkey and the food was yummy.  Again, I didn't take any pictures during the day, which I was bummed about later, but Reed did get just a few on his phone.  So this is all I got!

Lots of kids this year!  Much to be thankful for!

What to make with Pumpkin?

Pumpkins aren't easy to find here, but we did find this one a few weeks ago. This is my second fall of baking a pumpkin and freezing lots of pumpkin puree.

This pumpkin made 12 cups of pumpkin puree. My freezer is full, so I've been looking for different recipes to use my pumpkin. So far I've made several loaves of pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancakes, and am saving some pumpkin in small ice cube size portions for when Urban starts eating pureed food.

The other night I found a recipe for pumpkin chili. It caught my interest, but I was a bit skeptical that my family would enjoy it because there is no meat in it. To our delight we loved it. Here is the recipe:

Pumpkin Chili

4 cups of water

1- 15 oz can kidney beans

1- 15 oz can crushed tomatoes

15 oz. pumpkin puree

1 c. chopped onion

1 c. red bell pepper

1 c. uncooked bulgur

1 tbsp. chili powder ( I added a bit more, because I thought it needed it)

1 tsp. minced garlic

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. salt

Mix together. Bring to a boil and simmer for 3o minutes.

Menemen (Turkish Scrambled Eggs)

I was recently introduced to this food by our friends here. We liked it and I figured that a scrambled egg variation (with some spice!) would be an easy food to try for my first go at a Turkish recipe.

This recipe is eaten with lots of bread. In fact, I was told, that many people here eat it without utensils, but use the bread to scoop up the eggs right from the pan. We actually really liked the egg/bread combo! (We cheated and used silverware though!)

Recipe:
1 onion, finely chopped
4 tomatoes

4 green hot peppers (gives it a little kick!)

8 eggs

1 tsp. paprika

salt, pepper to taste

shredded cheese (on top, optional)

Better than Mrs. Butterworth's

I have to say I have never thought of myself as a great cook or one that likes to make things from scratch. But these days, I'm learning to improvise and try new things. So I tried my hand at making my own pancake syrup since that is not available here. It really wasn't that hard and we enjoyed pancakes a couple of mornings this week.



The best part (and another incentive to keep making it) is the cute bottle I found to store my syrup. :)