Autumn

I love this time of year for a couple of reasons, okay, maybe a few reasons.

1) It always seems appropriate to bust out the hot chocolate, and I love hot chocolate.
2) I love the smells, i.e. food, burning leaves, etc.
3) My birthday is this time of year (I'll admit it).
4) Lastly, ever sense I can remember, as a kid, we went to the pumpkin patch. Pumpkins are just cool, you can paint on them, you can put a candle in them, you can make a pie out of them, you can even make coffee flavoring with them, heck, Cinderella took a ride to a Ball in one, but did you know you can also make lasagna???



I didn't know there was such a thing until I was at a friend's house this weekend. She gave me the recipe and tonight (Lord willing), I'm gonna try it. I'll pass it on to you.

800 grams of Pumpkin (German recipe, translated)
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
10 pieces of dried tomato in olive oil
350 ml of vegetable stock divided (200 and 150)
Salt
Pepper
1 EL Butter (what is this? I have no idea, but I'm going to play with it).
1 EL Flour
250 ml milk
Nutmeg
approx. 16 pieces of lasagna (uncooked)
150 grams of cheese of your choosing (I'm gonna use mozz.)

1) Cut and fry the pumpkin (with skin). I'm not sure about this part. I think, personally, I'm going to cut some of the skin off, if you're scared, use a regular squash or something. Anyway fry pumpkin with onions, garlic, and the sliced up tomatoes. Add 150 ml of vegetable stock, turn the burner off and let it sit, covered (this could be what softens the skin).

2) Layer the pumpkin mixture with the noodles in a (I'm assuming) greased, oven safe pan.

3) In a sauce pan heat the butter and flour, cook the flour a little bit, add the milk, nutmeg, salt and pepper, let heat at med. temp until thickened.

4)Pour the rest of the vegetable stock on the noodle layers (200 ml), then pour the milk sauce. Top with cheese. Bake at, let's say, 350 until it's getting brown on top.

This recipe is not for the ones that can NEVER deviate from a recipe, you'll have to be a little bold, 'cause I, myself, am just going to give it a whirl. I will say, that what I tried the other night was delish!! And it was leftovers that we all divided as an appetizer. Have Fun!



My grandma sent me some money for my birthday, so I went out and bought some make-up that I haven't spent money on in donkey's years, and some flowers for an autumn arrangement. In November, we're having a few guests over to celebrate Thanksgiving. I'm holding off until the day after mom gets here, poor girl will be jet lagged, but it's in the afternoon. I wanted to have a Thanksgiving with mom, but I didn't want to make all the food, so what's the solution? Have a few people over and do potluck!

Anyway, Grandma's 'thank you card' should make it to the mailbox sometime today. She is the crafty one in the family and I know she'll appreciate seeing this picture of her contribution to the autumn festivities. I could put the make-up on and take a picture of my mug...but, well, this is better.


Here, this is a more appropriate spot. It was pretty overwhelming on the kitchen table.


UPDATE

Well, John said that I scored BIG! Woo Hoo! Keane liked it too, apparently, 'cause he's jumping around in there.

It's a rich one. A single piece was more than enough for me, and I'm preggo. The skin does soften (I didn't peel it at all), an EL is a little more than a tablespoon, I used 8 lasagna noodles instead of 16 (don't know what happened there), and it takes about an hour to bake @ 350. I have a CorningWare dish with a lid, so I left the lid on for, like, the first 40 minutes and then took it off to let the cheese brown. Enjoy!



John thought of raisins when he was eating this. I think maybe a nice walldorf salad or fried apples with raisins would be a good side dish and very Fall-ish.