Burnt Orange, Yellow, Bronze and Brown

It was a colorful weekend in my kitchen. While the Artist was away at a Tae Kwon Do tournament I had a chance to cut up the large pumpkin Rick and the kids bought in October. I didn't get any photos of that, but I imagine you all know what a pumpkin looks like anyway.

I roasted the pieces of pumpkin meat until they were soft enough to separate from the skin. They were a homey-smelling burnt orange and yellow when them came out of the oven. Then I began mashing until I had enough to make a large pot of pumpkin soup (a flour and butter roux with pumpkin, milk, water, ham, onions, nutmeg added), a more attractive yellow than my photo indicates. When Rick and the Artist came home, I was still making pumpkin puree. I had graduated to the blender because I was making puree to freeze for pie, cookies, soup, bread, whatever was needed first.

Those two were exhausted from a long day, but very proud of the Artist's two new bronze medals. She scored more points in sparring than ever before and sparred against her toughest tournament opponent to date. She also won a bronze in the forms competition. Rick told me that a tenth of a point separated her from the gold medal winner. Sounds like it was a pretty tight race! After loading three containers with 18 cups of puree I needed to do some searching form more containers. There was a lot of pumpkin left. Two more cups went into the soup. I started running the dishwasher so I could use some more containers that were in there, and I began mixing up a double recipe of pumpkin bread. The house began to smell so good, and our mouths began to water as we played Monopoly and waited for the bread to be done. It emerged from the oven a deep beckoning brown, but it did not cool before bed time. We decided to have it for breakfast Sunday morning. It was a delight! I like it spread with sour cream or cream cheese. The Engineer likes it spread with butter. The Artist and Rick like it without any spread. I'm sure the last of it will be finished today.