Pumpkin Spice All the Things

I was thinking this morning as I got tonight’s meal prepped and in the crockpot that Fall is finally here. We had a long summer, as it has been very warm right up until this week, and we still haven’t had a killing frost – which reminds me that I need to pick the green tomatoes. Fried green tomatoes, mmmm! But it meant that my usual fall repertoire of stews and casseroles and such in the crockpot wasn’t happening.

The Ginja Ninja asked today if we’re going to carve pumpkins this year, and I think we will. I almost bought some cute gourds for the table, just as pretty, at the grocery store yesterday. I love the look of the pumpkins all gathered in farm stands as I drive along at this time of year. And it’s apple season and I owe my dear man an apple crisp.

I think I’m hungry – I’m very focused on food today!

I’d like to make a pumpkin pie, but I’ll have to poll the family – I know the First Reader won’t touch it, but I’m not sure about the kids. And I don’t want to eat one all by myself! So maybe when I get carving punkins I’ll get a pie punkin, too. They aren’t the same, you know. You’ll get a nasty watery stringy mess if you cook up a jack-o-lantern. They were originally grown as animal feed, not people food. And while I’m on the topic of pumpkins, you do realize Pumpkin Pie Spice has no actual pumpkin in it? It’s just cinnamon, nutmeg, and possibly ginger or allspice. In other words, the spices you’d put into an apple pie or a pumpkin pie. I mean, I’m not a fan of PPS All the Things!! but it’s not pumpkin, and there are things it’s actually good in.

Like spice cake, or oatmeal cookies, or heck, just oatmeal. With walnuts and dates. Ok, I definitely am hungry. Yogurt and coffee for breakfast doesn’t last me very long.

Oh, and a note about the header photo. That’s a quick shot of pumpkins at a roadside stand, then the photo was manipulated in the Vinci App, not once, but twice, using both the Sunny and the Shadows filters. I wanted to see how repeated manipulations worked, and I’m pretty happy with the result.


Comments

12 responses to “Pumpkin Spice All the Things”

  1. Tammie Darden Avatar
    Tammie Darden

    That made me start thinking of baking…and my tummy growled.

  2. We got carving pumpkins (one for Pippa and one for Juniper) a couple of days ago. And pumpkin pie is on the to-do list!

  3. John in Philly Avatar
    John in Philly

    The internet suggests that we could make pumpkin spice wine from scratch, but I think we will test that by first adding pumpkin pie spice to a basic red wine first. (and we have been using our dollar store skull glasses since the start of October)
    The photo looks great and once again I realize I need to do more with the editing software than just remove the occasional redeye or exposure correction.

    1. Mulling spices are good in cider, too.

      Skull glasses. Must find those! LOL

      1. John in Philly Avatar
        John in Philly

        And a pair of skeleton arm salad tongs.

        I shouldn’t be allowed to go into the dollar store without adult supervision.

      2. For one Christmas, I bought my brother a skull-shaped bottle for wine/liquors, with accompanying skull shot glasses. From Ebay. He loves anything skulls.

        I made this MASSIVE jar of pumpkin spice / apple spice mix and used it on some banana bread loaves I made recently. OH YUM. They’re a very spicy bread (I put in 3 tablespoons of the spice into the blended banana.

        Son was not very impressed with the previous batch of pumpkin bread I made (It’s just like banana bread, mum!) but I was quite happy with it. Pumpkin bread here down under is a savory bread with the pumpkin pips toasted, chopped fine and put into bread that has perhaps SOME pumpkin in it. It’s wonderful with soup.

        1. Oh, that does sound good!

  4. Oh, speaking of seasonal things, it’s heading into summer over here – kicking and screaming, apparently since it’s a touch chilly here today – but I did snap up some of the season’s first mangoes. They said it was going to be an exceptionally sweet mango season because the Aussie winter was favorable to the mangoes. The mangoes at the store were huge and fat and smelled – and tasted – oh so wonderful. And that’s coming from someone who’s been completely spoilt by the delicious Filipino mangoes. I made mango puddings with them. I’ll have to remember to post the recipe.

    1. ooh yes please. The Ginja Ninja adores mangoes.

      1. When I’ve got the whole house cleaned and set up – so probably in the incoming week for a proper recipe, but – blend mango flesh from 3 large mangoes, a can of sweetened condensed milk and a 375 ml can of evaporated milk together, then transfer to a large mixing bowl. Dissolve 2 packs of mango flavored jello (or flavorless jello) in the recommended amount of hot water + 50 ml, stirring until completely dissolved. Mix the mango mixture with the jello liquid until thoroughly blended with an electric hand mixer, then spoon into small ramekins or serving dishes. You’ll probably end up with a LOT if using small ramekins. Refrigerate for 4-6 hours, or overnight.

        I reckon, you could turn that into cheesecake by blending in a bar of cream cheese and adding another mango / flavorless gelatin package (but not the full additional water, to firm up the cheesecake really well.) Then spoon on top of crushed cookies mixed with butter…

  5. […] this is an extrapolated recipe from Shadowdancer Duskstar, who put it in the comments of a recent post. The Ginja Ninja loves mango, and as we took a trip to Jungle Jim’s and I was able to score a […]