Like what it seems any other blogger out there, I’m bringing up pumpkins. Like many out there, I like to get pumpkin flavored items but I just haven’t been feeling it the past month with the 90 degree heat in Florida. However, being in Colorado where there is actually fall weather makes me feel the pumpkin love even more than normal. Pumpkin flavored coffee, fro yo, beer, you name it and I love it. I often forget that they start to stock the aisles of the supermarkets up with pumpkin this time of year which is a curse and a blessing in one. I’m talking about hoarders. You know-those people who will buy 10 or 11 cans at one time because they don’t know when they’re going to see that many again? Drives me batty I wish they would just stop because it’s a tad inconsiderate to people who are just looking for one can. But enough about that, let’s start at the beginning of Pumpkin-geddon this season: Last weekend at The Great Pumpkin Patch at Pantaleo Farms in Pueblo, CO.
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I’ve never been to a pumpkin patch before because my family isn’t too traditional so this was a treat for me. Little did I know I was going to be picking out a pumpkin of my own to carve, another first for me!
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Yep, I went over 30 years on this planet without carving one so when the moment came this afternoon to carve it out, I wasn’t sure what to do.
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At first I looked at my butt of a pumpkin and tried to envision what it’s face would look like. I carved out the hole around the top first and then decided it’s best I keep it as simple as possible because news break…..carving a pumpkin is hard and a wee bit dangerous. The last thing I need is losing a digit when I don’t have insurance so I was extra careful.
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So I cut and dug and cleaned that bad boy out. There was pumpkin, sweat and seeds everywhere. I hacked away at that thing just trying to make it a presentable pumpkin that could sit on their front porch without making them the embarrassment of the neighborhood. I was quite pleased and surprised with the result
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A very happy pumpkin
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Edit, make that two very happy pumpkins. We didn’t see each others while carving so we had a big-move-that-bus reveal at the end. My friend decided to kick it up a notch by adding a nose and a tooth, one more reason why I can’t have any more type A personality friends in my life-they are perfectionists!
They even have pumpkin fro yo at iTopit, a local fro yo estblishment here in Colorado Springs. I love it because they have the little sample cups (which sadly a lot of fro yo places don’t offer) so I got to try it the other night. Holy fantastic! Unfortunately for me, it was too sweet and rich but a sample size was just enough.
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But my favorite pumpkin meeting this week was when I stumbled into Phantom Canyon Brewing Company. I contemplated if 11am was too early to be drinking since you know, normal people don’t do that. But then I thought, hey I’m on a vacation of sorts (from life) why the hell not. So naturally I went with my gut and strolled on in.
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Apparently I wasn’t the only one with visions of cool brews in my head because the bar had some people sitting there. Chatted it up with the bartender Lyle, who was awesome and schooled me on their beers. Ok, not really, he asked me if I like pumpkin and naturally the answer is yes so he gave me a sample of the Halloweenhead Pumpkin beer and I was done. I didn’t care about any of their other beers, Halloweenhead was all I needed.
Ah cold pumpkin beer with 5.95% abv you make me feel good.
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Enter in the food. I had smoked gouda cheese soup since I wanted to keep my pumpkin buzz going strong (I’m not used to the altitude when drinking but I do like being a cheap drunk!) Um, it’s basically cheese sauce and there is NOTHING wrong with that. Like many chance meetings of cheese sauce and I, I wanted to just stick a straw in the bowl because I know how I feel about all things cheese but I got to keep up the reputation of being a lady.
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Ok, it doesn’t look like anything special but this soup was the stuff that dreams are made of. Yes, I do have dreams about bowls of cheese. It was still rich and creamy plus they hooked you up with bread and cheese crisps for dunking. The day I receive a cheese fondue set for Christmas is the day I will no longer wear pants with button or a zipper and will then leave in sweatpants city.
In my quest to cook some meals for my friend and her family while I’m visiting, I wanted to make chili. However, she isn’t a fan of spicy food and I can’t make chili without it being spicy so I was thinking of an alternative to my traditional chili that I make-enter pumpkin chili. I googled a few recipes and loosely followed this one from Allrecipes.com, I tweaked it a little, my ingredients were:
1 cup Morningstar veggie crumbles, cooked
2 14.5 cans diced tomatoes with juice and garlic
1 can tomato paste
1 can pumpkin
1 can kidney beans
1/2 cup black beans (I had some sitting in the fridge, perfect time to use them up)
1 onion, chopped, cooked
5 to 6 mini sweet peppers, chopped, cooked
2 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp black pepper
1/2 tbsp salt
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Add everything together then pour into a crock pot and let cook on low for five hours
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This was surprisingly good! When hearing of pumpkin chili in the past, I would turn my ear because it sounded too weird. Hell, when I bought the ingredients the cashier at Safeway asked what I was making and when I said pumpkin chili, he winced. I assured him I was confident in my choice of meals and that I was determined for it to turn out well. Thank God it did because there is nothing worse than people expecting a decent meal from you and you can’t deliver. Even though there was a can of pumpkin involved, the flavor wasn’t too intense. I thought the addition of cumin and cinnamon gave it a smoky flavor with a touch of sweetness and for the first time in awhile, I wasn’t reaching for some hot sauce to liven it up. I can say with confidence, I will be making this again soon!
Now if I could just bring myself to shell out the $16 for this:
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Sigh, one of these days friends. At least I can get that as long as I cut back the Pumpkin Spiced Lattes from Starbucks and drink Green Mountain Pumpkin Spice in the morning instead. Image may be NSFW.
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I leave you with a message from the pumpkins in your neighborhood…..
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Are you a pumpkin fan?