Pumpkin & Pomegranate

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I definitely had a productive one., at least partly!

Friday evening I went to my friend and neighbors’ house to buy some of their amazing produce. They have a yard to envy. They live outside the city a bit and their entire yard was planted with edible landscaping. They have a vegetable garden which is lovingly tended, apple trees, a peach tree, fig trees galore (they make fig wine!), and even hazelnut trees! They also have 2 lovely lady goats who would eat through the entire garden if allowed near it, 4 young ducks that peep but don’t quack, 6 chickens (including a gorgeous rooster), and 2 extremely intelligent border collies who I am happy to report have finally decided that I am no threat.  I showed up around 6:30 with my little basket (I walked the whole mile to get there) and came away with a basket full of tomatoes, collard greens, 2 kinds of kale, leeks, basil, mustard spinach,  and some red hot chile peppers!

My produce bowl looks gorgeous right now.

On Saturday I made a trip out to the country to find some eggs.  I usually get my eggs from the before mentioned ladies, but they are a little older, and the changing of the season has cut down on production so I have had to look elsewhere for eggs. I found a place about 15 miles from my house (out in the country a little bit) that has about 40 chickens. I checked in with the caretaker, and they are kept to my ethical standards. I was overjoyed when I got there. The plot of land is rather large, and the chickens run absolutely free during the day. They have a big coop to roost in, and there were even 16 little chicks running around with their mamas! They don’t usually hatch eggs, but when the chickens run free you cannot really control where they lay ALL their eggs ;-) I am just pleased that they are so natural, and that they allow ALL the chickens in their care to live out their natural lives on the land whether or not they are producing eggs. It was really beautiful. The couple who own the property are incredibly nice, and while my first loyalty is to my friends, when the egg source is low I have to look elsewhere. It is so nice to be able to find such well cared for animals.

The drive was also really nice. It didn’t take too long, and I also stopped at the Yakima Fruit Stand to fill up my cart with Squash, onions, plums, garlic, and a couple apples. They aren’t organic, but they were local and I do like supporting local farms when possible. I love this particular fruit stand as it is only 7 miles from my house and has a huge selection. I am especially excited about the “Stripetti” squash as it is a cross between 2 of my favorites, the delicata and the spaghetti. I am going to try ALL the squashes I can get my hands on this season :-)

Football season is underway, which is why I had so much free time on Saturday to get all my stuff done. Matt is huge into college football, and so was pretty much bust from 11am until about 2 hours after I arrived at his place on Saturday night ;-). I made him a big batch of 5 layer dip, and also 3 jars of “refried” beans for him to put in his freezer for future use. The canned vegetarian beans are never good, and the ones not labeled vegetarian (even the fat free ones) have lard in them. Ick. The recipe for the 5 layer dip isn’t here because I used Tofutti “Sour Supreme” and it has ingredients in it that I won’t touch. The rest of the dip was A-OK in my book as it was the beans, homemade guac, homemade chipotle salsa, and black olives. I personally don’t like guacamole, but I wish I did. I prefer to eat my avocados pudding style .

We ran out for groceries for dinner at about 10:45pm, after the last game ended. I was a bit hungry, but not as much as expected. Up till this point I had a protein shake for breakfast, half a plum, a dried fig, and a bowl of leftover fennel carrot soup with vegan parm on it. Usually I eat A LOT more than that, so when we finally ate around 11:30 I was quite ready for it. We ended up using one jar of the beans, plus made a big veggie fry with rainbow chard, tomatoes, yellow squash, onion, hatch chile peppers, and mushrooms. Yum! I had some red grapes for dessert.

The next morning, er afternoon…we woke up and we had attempt #2 at squash pancakes. This time it was a success! I didn’t get photos, or an accurate recipe…but they will be made again soon. They were really eggy and made with grated butternut squash this time. Matt won’t let me refer to them as “pancakes” in his presence since they don’t have flour in them. Something tells me “flour less cake” isn’t really cake in his eyes either. Ultimately we agreed that they tasted a lot like French toast, and that was the end of it. We also had a bowl of plums and leftover Mexi-fry from the night before. For dinner I did my usual gigantic hummus salad. 1 bunch romaine lettuce, 2 small-ish tomatoes (from the fab garden!), 1 cucumber, 1 red bell pepper, some garlic stuffed green olives, and a few baby carrots…plus a tub of TJ’s Eggplant Hummus, and this time a little chipotle hummus as well. I felt SO full after that Matt nearly had to roll me out of his house. Somehow an hour and a half later I still was able to fit some pudding with toppings into my belly :-) By the way, just an FYI. Don’t make ABU, PBU, or whateverBU with So Delicious Coconut Milk. It doesn’t work. I think it is the gums or the water, or the combo of them mixed with the oil in the nut butter. No esta bueno. My ABU (with added mesquite powder yumminess) is not a looker. It separated. I won’t toss it out, but I won’t show you what it looks like either.

This morning I did a scramble with 1 Anaheim pepper, a few crimini mushrooms, 1 shallot, 4 collard green leaves, 2 small tomatoes, and 3 fresh eggs. I scrambled this in about 1.5 tsp of virgin coconut oil and it was DELICIOUS. I will probably have something almost identical at dinner time, minus the eggs and add in some beans.

I also added some pumpkin pie spice to my morning latte, just to make me smile :-)

I am also going to make a loaf of something tonight. I like having a mid-morning protein bread-like snack, and I am thinking that fig bread might do the trick.

Oh and I recently splurged on an Excalibur food dehydrator. For some reason mine doesn’t seem to be working as well as I had hoped. I have plums in there from Saturday afternoon that STILL aren’t dry. I also put basil leaves in there on Friday, and they are also still not dry. The door is difficult to close, and I am unsure if that is just the way it is, or if mine has an issue. If you have any hints I’d be appreciative. I plan on writing someone who is in the know at some point today.

I hope you all have a wonderful day!