Pumpkin Soup with Cinnamon Croutons

I love all things pumpkin, and this soup is soooo delicious we could eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Oh, wait, that was this weekend. This recipe was adapted from one found on the allrecipes website.

Pumpkin Soup with Cinnamon Croutons

CROUTONS
Mix together:
4 T butter
2 T. brown sugar
1 t. cinnamon
Spread on 6 or more slices of bread (I like a LOT of croutons.) Bake 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Cut.

SOUP
Saute:
1 small onion, chopped
2 t. butter.

Add:
1 can broth.
Boil until soft. Purree. Return to pot with:
1 more can of broth.

Add: 1 14-oz can pumpkin
3/4 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ginger
1/3 c. brown sugar
1/8 t. black pepper

Cook 10 minutes. At this point, you can refrigerate your mix until just before the meal. My new brilliant idea is to try freezing it, I'm sure it would work just fine.

Before your meal, add:
1 C heavy cream
Warm, but do not boil.

Serve with croutons.

Makes 6 cups, so if you're having guests over, or have a large herd of hungry children, definitely double. Besides, you'll want leftovers anyway.

Jed in the garden

I know, I know I need to post about the big date. But this week I am in a Fall Cleaning Frenzy! I've been scrubbing walls, cleaning under beds, reorganizing bedrooms, putting up food storage, painting, dusting, rearranging cabinets, and bustling around intensely morning noon and night. No, I am not pregnant. Just in a cleaning mood, and since it only happens every six months or so I figure I better go with it.

Today, however, Jed and I took a little break to go enjoy the gorgeous fall sunshine.

Chief Justice Roberts

As if we needed another reason to love the man. He has got to be the coolest Supreme Court Justice EVER.
Read his latest dissent here.
A sample:
North Philly, May 4, 2001. Officer Sean Devlin, Narcotics
Strike Force, was working the morning shift. Undercover surveillance. The neighborhood? Tough as a three dollar steak. Devlin knew. Five years on the beat, nine months with the Strike Force. He’d made fifteen, twenty drug busts in the neighborhood.
Devlin spotted him: a lone man on the corner. Another approached. Quick exchange of words. Cash handed over; small objects handed back. Each man then quickly on his own way. Devlin knew the guy wasn’t buying bus tokens. He radioed a description and Officer Stein picked up the buyer. Sure enough: three bags of crack in the guy’s pocket. Head downtown and book him. Just another day at the office.

Our Big Date!

For our third anniversary, which occurred back in August, I bought us tickets to see one of our all-time favorite bands, Pinback.

Remember how a few months ago we got all twitterpated when we ended up sitting next to Zach from Pinback from the plane?

Well, in between trying to appear as hip and cool as is possible while our nursing toddler kicked him in the midsection, we valiantly attempted to persuade him into putting on a concert somewhere near the middle of nowhere (i.e. Evansville, IN) The last time we had the chance to see Pinback, I was extremely pregnant and, well, anyone who's been to a concert with loud speakers pounding from the outside and angry fetus pounding from the inside knows why we didn't end up going. Anyway, so he did say that occasionally Pinback plays Louisville, KY, which is a mere 2 hour drive from here.

When we got home I eagerly checked their tour dates... but nothing. They weren't playing anywhere between Denver and NYC. Bummer. And that was the end of it.

A few weeks later, though, I was surfing around and in avoiding-housework moment checked again. AND THEY ADDED A DATE IN LOUISVILLE! Do I take credit? Why yes, yes I do. Am I excited? Why yes, yes I am. And are we going? Yes, yes we are and it is TONIGHT!

I bought the tickets for 15 buckaroonies each and four weeks later they were selling for $265 a pop. Wow! We were awfully tempted to sell, but then we decided it would be better to keep them, and then spend the rest of our lives bragging about how we went to see our favorite band and their tickets were worth like five hundred dollars.

So late this afternoon we drop Jeddy off for his first overnighter at Grandmas (yikes!) and then head for Louisville. Dinner, then off to the opening show at 8, the concert is at an old distillery converted into a music hall.

Our biggest concern is that Pinback won't even be on stage until 10PM, most likely, a time at which we are usually two oozing, drooling zombies of married people exhaustion. We have various plans in place to keep ourselves awake just... long... enough... to... say... we... were... there...

Then off to a romantic night in the back of M's parents' Pilot on the blow up mattress, hit the temple in the morning, and then we're home again. Yee hah! We'll tell you how it goes!

Washcloth

Today as we were finishing up dinner, Jed squirmed out of his chair (he has figured out how to use his booster seat buckles and now we spend hours undoing and redoing them... fortunately his fingers aren't quite strong enough to get all the way out by himself.) We let him out but didn't put the cup of milk far enough back on the counter and he grabbed it as he dodged his daddy's reaching hands. "Oh, Jed...." Michael moaned as Jed splashed milk all over the back of the chair and floor.

Jed looked up with a serious expression. "Uh, oh! Oh, oh!" He ran over to the kitchen sink and started tugging. He brushed with death as the ginormous pile of dishes teetered, and then he fell back with his prize: a washcloth. He trotted over to the chair, sopped up all the milk with his washcloth, and then ran back to the counter and threw the washcloth up over his head onto the edge of he sink. He turned back with an air of victory and a grin that said, "See, Dad, I've got it all taken care of. I AM a little man!" and returned to playing with his buckles.

What a kid! How does he know how to do that???!!! But he's got his eye on Mom and he knows just how to get things done. Smartypants. Is there any way we can make this habit last through his teens? Because having a kid who cleans up after himself is fantastic.

Eskimo Kisses

I can fold my arms!

Jed is learning how to pray. Woohoo! The raised arms are in joyous victory as we all celebrate.

Future Pianist

Jed takes after his momma. And his daddy.
Explaining to me his most recent composition.

OK, I'm done.

Playing with the big green ball

Once a week I try and get my chores done early so we can have a "JED DAY!" On Jed Day we spend the whole morning doing whatever Jed loves to do. Well, ok, we also get our diaper changed. This past week, we played with the big green ball and wrestled. Then we had a snack. Then we went out and played in the yard. Then we went on a walk down by the river. Then we went to the library and read books and played with the toys. Then home for a nap. Such fun for baby and momma!


PS - you can see Jed's hair sticking up where his daddy spiked it before he left for work. They had matching sticky-up hair and oh boy did Jed giggle like a maniac when he saw himself in the mirror.

Photography website update

Michael has updated his photography website with a section called "recent work." Right now it shows some photos from his Washington DC trip this summer and some veggies from our little garden.
Check it out and stroke his ego with more acclaim! :c) V
http://www.michaelstanfill.com