Here are some of the things we’ve been up to recently.

This was the inside of the pumpkin when I cut it in half. I love the way you can see three distinct sections.

This is the pumpkin after I baked it.

The pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting were wonderful as usual.

This was my first experience with a spaghetti squash. I will not be giving up pasta for squash, but it was really neat to see how it got its name. It was tasty with our Chicken Parmesan, too.

My wonderful husband carves our pumpkin every year. I think he does a great job!

I made a batch of pepper jelly with jalepeños from our garden.

We dressed up to visit grandparents. I made my costume and the pirate costumes. Colin was Thomas a few years ago and passed the costume down to Eamon since he loves trains.

Oh yeah…and I turned 30!!! Here is the birthday card I got from my husband…a “mock” newspaper/tabloid article. It even includes my name misspelled once, which is a necessity to be real, as anyone in the printing industry knows!

Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. We have had so much cake lately that the boys and I decided to surprise him with pie instead. So, while he was at work on Thursday, we made an apple pie and a lemon meringue pie…both of his favorites. I had asked earlier in the week what he wanted for his birthday meal and he said jambalaya. So we had jambalaya and pie last night (not at the same time, of course)….yum!

Well, this weekend, I made 2 different cakes. For Saturday, I made a cake for my friend’s son. He carries around a little Lego figure and she wanted to surprise him with that character on his birthday cake. I had made a cake with Lego figures on it before for my son, so I told her it wouldn’t be a problem. As moms, we don’t know too much about Lego Star Wars. We’ve seen the old movies, but Lego men don’t really look that much like the characters from the movie. So, as we were talking about it, we called him Anakin. Come to find out (from our boys, of course) it was really Obi Wan.

This is the cake I made for the birthday party on Saturday.

I usually decorate cakes when it’s someone’s birthday or a special occasion, so I never want to experiment and try new things then because I don’t want to mess something up and have to start over (with a deadline). After the birthday party on Saturday, I was in a decorating mood and came home and made a “sampler” cake. I used all different decorating tips in order to make many flowers. It was nice to be able to practice and not worry what it looked like! I also don’t do flowers very often with 2 boys and a man in the house. I don’t make birthday cakes for myself, so most of the cakes I decorate are “manly” or “childish.”

Here is a picture of my crazy sampler “just-for-fun” cake.

My husband and I love Chinese food and finally found a cookbook we like so we can make it at home. Many Chinese cookbooks aren’t anything like what you find in American Chinese restaurants, so we were glad to find this one. It is called Potsticker Chronicles by Stuart Chang Berman. It is very helpful because there is a list of the exact ingredients you need and a detailed explanation of the techniques required in order to get the recipe just right.

Over the past several months, we have made many of the recipes in the book and like almost all of them. There were weeks when we would cook 2-3 recipes from the book. It’s just that great! Another thing I like about having Chinese food is that my husband and I cook together. We have a great time and we’re like a “well-oiled machine” as the saying goes. We each have our own jobs to do and everything turns out perfectly. We also enjoy going to the Asian Market as a family to gather our supplies. The produce and seafood sections are absolutely amazing and the boys get a glimpse into another culture!

Tonight we had General Tso’s Chicken and the kids even loved it. We didn’t put as much chili paste as the recipe called for so it wasn’t too hot for them. We told them it was similar to Sesame Chicken (which they love) so there was no problem getting them to taste it. Colin (9) is a little picky, but Eamon (4) will try anything and eats almost everything (especially if it’s over rice)!

I’ve watched Mom make pickles many times, but today I actually made them myself. I feel so accomplished. However, I don’t remember having to wait around so much with pickles when Mom was making them. I did save a few steps, though. There’s something new called Pickle Crisp that you can use instead of soaking them in lime. If you use Pickling Lime, you have to soak the pickles in it for 2 hours to overnight, then rinse them 3 times to get the lime off. With the Pickle Crisp, I got to skip the rinsing. So, I soaked overnight, then drained them and soaked them for 3 hours in ice water. After that, I had to combine vinegar, sugar, salt, and spices in a pot and boil to dissolve the sugar. Next I added the cucumbers. Then I had to wait again…this time for 6 hours.

Waiting…

Then I boiled the cucumbers in the syrup for 35 minutes, put them into jars, and processed them in the canner. I used wide mouth jars so that they were easier to get into the jars and they’ll be easier to get out to eat. Seven pounds of cucumbers yielded eight pints of sweet pickles. I haven’t tried them yet because they need to cool off. Mom always uses this recipe and the pickles are wonderful, so I hope mine turn out as well. I like to just eat them out of the jar, but I also use them in potato salad, tuna salad, chicken salad, and deviled eggs.

Here’s the final product. Old South Cucumber Lime Pickles