It's the Great Pumpkin (Experiment), Charlie Brown!

When Aaron and I first moved to Dublin, we were both on the lookout for indicators that we weren't in America anymore. After all, we did move to an English speaking country of mostly white people who dress pretty much the way we do. The different accents, the driving on the wrong side of the road, the having to walk everywhere--everything that told us we weren't at home anymore was both a thrilling revelation and somewhat of a setback. Probably the clearest place to see where those setbacks were was at the grocery store. It took us several weeks to find tortilla shells and taco seasoning (since then, taco night is a weekly event). Our first trip through had us worrying that soy sauce was a thing of our past, but we found it! The two things we and our American friends have not been able to find are not necessary items, but seem culinarily* crippling just the same: chocolate chips and pumpkin!

*culinarily is not a word.

Chocolate chip cookies can be purchased, sure, but pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin muffins... how can you have fall without them? As I was bemoaning this loss to a friend of mine, she suggested I make my own pumpkin puree. Make it? That seemed absurd. Who makes it? It always comes in a can. You can't make that stuff. Actually you can, and plenty of people on the internet do every year. So if they could do it, I could too, right? Following the internet's instructions, I purchased a pumpkin with the intent that by the end of the day, by hook or by crook, it would end up as pumpkin bread.

Destined for greatness.

Step one: I cut the pumpkin in half and proceeded to hollow out all the gooky stringy seedy mess from the inside.

Also pictured: orange juice, because I'm finally getting over my cold! Thanks, Vitamin C.

Then I had two hollowed out halves, ready to be baked (or made into googly eyes)

I added one cup of water to my roasting pan, set the pumpkin half into it, and put it in the oven at 350 for one hour. You're supposed to do both of them at the same time, but my roasting pan is only so big.

At this point I have no idea how this will turn out, but I am SO excited.

The pumpkin came out steamy and soft. All I had to do was wait for it to cool and then scoop it out with a metal spoon.

This pumpkin is now a shell of his former self.

Can you tell Aaron and I had fun taking these pictures? Here is a very cheerful shot of me mashing the pumpkin (which I did for a long time--I miss my food processor).

 So this is what we ended up with. It doesn't look like the stuff that comes from the can, and it doesn't look like a whole lot. But wait, let me add the spices and zoom in a little bit!

There we go! Just a little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg and photo trickery.

This project was a total blast and I felt so self-sufficient. Who needs to depend on other people to can things for me? I will can things myself! Or to be more specific, I will put them in glass jars that I have saved from my many spaghetti sauce purchases.

I couldn't believe I made that. But I wouldn't be satisfied until I used it in something, to make sure it was actually suitable for cooking. I don't have a pie plate so there was no making a pumpkin pie, but I had everything I needed for pumpkin bread. So pumpkin bread it was!

Pictured above: One happy husband.

So the Great Pumpkin Experiment was a success!! I could not be happier. In the end I probably paid the equivalent of what a can of pumpkin would be over here, which was 3 euro but back home, I can see this saving me some money in the long run. The general consensus on pumpkins and pumpkin carving is that it's an American thing, but that has drifted over to Ireland several years ago. However, I have it on good authority (my Papa) that the Irish used to carve turnips and put candles in them around this time of year. That tradition has undoubtedly faded away, but my guess is that the Irish that immigrated to America carried the idea with them, and tossed the turnip when they saw the size of the pumpkin. Regardless, Aaron and I hope to have a pumpkin carving party with some of our friends before Halloween. We're also planning on having a Thanksgiving celebration, and guess what? Pumpkin pie is now officially on the menu :)

Now that the pumpkin excitement is over, I'd like to share with two other pieces of news from the past two days, both very exciting. 

 

Number one...

My fabric came in the mail!!!! I'm beyond excited. And as soon as this blog post is over, I'm getting started on my quilt.

Number two...

I made a skirt! Myself and a friend from class (otherwise known by the codename, Mrs. Bee) were on our way to the farmer's market when we saw a vintage store whose logo had a giant unicorn on it. Of course, we had to go in and look around. Mrs. Bee found some awesome vintage boots for only 15 euro and I found the mending stash. Bits and pieces of old clothing that were either hopeless or waiting to have zippers sewn back on, slits sewn up, etc. All the items in the bucket were one euro each, regardless of their length. I spent 5 euro on fabric that day, two on pieces from the bucket, and three on a muu-muu. That's right, a muu-muu. My goal is to take each of these purchases and transform them into wearable items, or bags. The skirt is from a long strip of fabric that was a one euro purchase.

Yep, for this fun teal skirt I paid one euro. Not having a machine at my disposal anymore, it took a little more elbow grease than usual, but it was so worth it! I'm very excited. What's that, you say? You want to see the muu-muu? It's my next project, and it is going to be awesome.

After two blog posts talking about the joys of domesticity, I'll let Aaron take over the next one and he can talk to you guys about something manly! Now that I've spent the last two days cooking and sewing, it's back to reading. I'm almost done with Frankenstein, and how appropriate that we're reading it so close to Halloween :)