A post for PIE!

I love pie. I particularly love Pumpkin Pie...but I know something that a lot of folks might not. Pumpkin Pie is often not actually pumpkin. Wha...wha...what??????? Yep, you heard me. Pumpkin pie is often not pumpkin. It may be a variety of winter squash varieties. Some might be pumpkin, some might not. Who knows? Let's start with the basics, shall we? Often when folks think of pumpkin they think of

These are all pumpkins but only the little tiny one should ever be used for pies, lol. That's usually the sugar pumpkin. The others are used as jack o laterns and are often too big and too flavorless to be even thought of for pie. Trouble is though, sugar pumpkins can be hard to find. That's okay. There are bunches of other things that can be used! These are Sweet Dumpling squash...

These are my favorites to use for pie. They're often easily found this time of year and are quite sweet and flavorful. They're also so very easy to cook and use, especially if you're going to "martha stewart" the pie and start from absolute scratch...which I recommend, LOL

 In the grand scheme of things, most of my favorite squash are found here:

Acorn, sweet dumpling in the back, carnival and delicata (the colorful looking cucumber thing) in the front. They generally are crosses from each other. Acorn plus delicata equals a sweet dumpling. Sweet dumpling crossed back with an acorn is a carnival. Acorn and delicata are so so in sweetness. Sweet dumpling and carnival are more sweet overall. All can be used for squash...you just might need to add more sugar in the end depending on your taste.

Now, for Sandy...a recipe!

First off...take your squash (whether sugar pumpkin, sweet dumpling, delicata, kabocha, or whatever) and cut in in half. Scoop out the guts and seeds. (I don't like them and don't use them, blech!)

Next cover the squash in oil center, cut edges, and outside skin side. I like vegetable oil myself. Put them cut side DOWN on a foil lined baking sheet. Bake at 375F for about an hour or until you can squeeze them from the outside and they give way and are soft. Pull them from the oven and let cool to the point you can touch them.

Next...take a spoon and scoop out the flesh of the squash into a big bowl. Try to keep OUT as much of the skin as possible or you'll just have to pick it out later.

When cool...put the cooked squash either into a food processor or put a stick blender into it and blend until smooth. Now you've got puree.

Excellent! Now heat oven to 350F and mix the following together with a deep dish frozen pie crust of your preference waiting on the side line:

2 cups squash puree
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 egg
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp ground cloves
Using a whole fresh nutmeg, grind with a rasp 15 -20 times directly into the mixing bowl.  (I have no idea how much this might be in dried nutmeg spice - I never use that, lol...just guess if that's what you're using!)

Mix it all together.  Does it taste the way you want it?  Yes...cool, cook!  If not add more sugar (brown sugar if you need more sweet as opposed to opening another can of condensed milk!) or add whatever spice you think might be missing or you might like more of.

Pull pie crust out of freezer and pour mixture in.  Drop on counter several times to get bubbles out of it.  Put pie on cookie sheet and bake on center rack or so for about 45 minutes to an hour or until the edges are fairly solid and only the center is a little jiggly.  If it's not done, keep cooking and check it every 10 minutes or so until it is.

Pull from oven and let cool completely before cutting into it.

You can actually use any squash you like:

Kabocha or buttercup:

Blue hubbard:

Turban:

whatever.  I've personally used sweet dumpling, sugar pumpkins, blue hubbards, and kabocha.  I find they all taste lovely though I prefer the dumplings, pumpkins or hubbards if I can find them.  I also find that once you add the spices, they all taste pretty much like "pumpkin" pie.  Use what you can find and just spice it to your general liking.  No one will ever know the difference! 

In which I celebrate Thanksgiving and RUIN the world as we know it!

Boy howdy it's been a while since I've been HERE. I'd thought of writing something in here every once in a while. Then the phone would ring or that great show would come on or my Farmville crops would need harvesting or some other equally ridiculous thing would happen and I'd forget what I thought was so interesting in the first place (to my 5 loyal readers, lol) But this, oh THIS story was actually so good, I had started the monologue in my head before I even got off the phone with the Best Friend EVER. After warning her of the abuse to follow, and assuring her the names of the innocent would be protected, I was granted permission to tell The Great Thanksgiving of 2010 story to you...if you're still hanging around that is, just waiting for me (HA!)

See, lets start with some background into the players here...

Me - erstwhile reporter of truth (and lies, can't forget the lies!)
Best Friend EVER - been together, thru thick and thin, for...shit...14, 15 years now. Been thru the boyfriends, the fiances, the cheaters, the pregnancy, the moves, the BROKEN LEGS (mine of course, but that's a WHOLE OTHER STORY), and the birth of...
My Beloved Goddaughter - smartest baby ever, turning quickly into the smartest 8 year old ever...but with all the communicative subtly of a busted TRUCK
Mom - maker of the BEST DEVILED EGGS
Pop - eater of Thanksgivings from way back when men were men and smokes were a nickel a pack!
My Beloved Honey - he who I think honestly had NO IDEA what a mess of a life he was walking into, and stays with cause he's just that cool, lol!

See, we've been eating Thanksgiving dinners, just like you, forever. They were always the same, steeped in all the traditions they should be...turkey, trimmings, family, big table, football, food coma, you know the drill. THEN, I decided I was a big old grown-up in my own right and could handle the drama llama that is Thanksgiving dinner and I started hosting it at my place. Slightly different take on some dishes but most of the same stuff because that's what traditions are...things you do forever because that's how they've always been done. Sometimes you can improve them, sometimes you just fuck'em up but you keep going with them. (That part there about how they've always been that way...that's what we call FORESHADOWING boys and girls!)

Now see, usually at this time of year, there are at least 8 people at my table for dinner and once in a great while as many as 13 or 14. This year though, it was gonna be different. Sis and her husband moved far away on us - to the great and far away land of Chi-town (or just north of there that is) so there's 2 less. I got to thinking it'd just be 4 of us this year - me and MBH and Mom and Pop (see how 8-2=4...I'm an idiot and it'll become clearer later - FORESHADOWING only works if you see it coming!) and quite frankly, neither Mom nor I relished the idea of making the FULL SPREAD for 4. So, we broke down and did the one thing that NONE OF US has ever done before - we decide to (gasp) EAT OUT!

We plan for one place - it CLOSES (cause Charlie Brown's SUX!) so we go to Houlihan's instead. (Nice spread there, by the way, in case you were looking for somewhere to go.) But...this isn't about OUR dinner, oh no. It's about my best friend EVER and her daughter, the smartest girl in the world.

See, they used to live here, with me. Not long mind you, but long enough for my beloved goddaughter to realize I am the BEST PERSON IN THE WORLD! (shut up and quit laughing, what she doesn't know won't make me look bad!) And see, in her 8 years of being in my life, I think she's spent 5 of them eating Thanksgiving at my table...with a full spread that includes (at a minimum) turkey,the assorted trimmings, fruit salad, and Mom's deviled eggs. In the intervening years, my BFE and the smartest baby in the world have moved away too...all the way up yonder to the Newest of Yorks (which I won't drive to because those people WALK crazy, let alone drive crazy!) and the only thing that brings them BOTH back, year after year is my turkey and Mom's deviled eggs.

Now, enough backstory (all THAT just to get HERE!)

I hear, yesterday, that my beloved goddaughter gets an invitation to dinner with her grandfather. And her response you ask? It may have been something along the line of..."well, I always have dinner with my Auntie but she didn't invite us this year. I don't know what's up with that, but I guess we could come over to your house. We're not going anywhere else so we could come, I guess, if we had to." (I promise there is only MINIMAL creative license there, if any!) That's my girl, subtle, real subtle! After we get back from our dinner, I then get the REST of the story from my best friend EVER:

Grandfather in question is Jamaican. We don't even know if they celebrate any Thanksgiving there but he's NEVER made a turkey...ever. He has NO IDEA what a "spread" for the dinner is so he asks my BFE (after inviting her and the brilliant babygirl to dinner mind you) to cook said bird and make whatever "spread" goes with it. She, politely declining to cook the entire meal, does agree to make some dishes to go with the turkey. He then asks the smartest girl in the world what she wants. What does she announce to him?????

She wants deviled eggs.

At least 20 or so "cause my mom and me we throw them back"!

Said to the man who's never HEARD of a "deviled egg" let alone made one!

I hear this story from my BFE who is still trying to figure out how to drop dead from this evening. Her father in law invites them over to a meal he has no idea how to prepare, which his granddaughter reports she'll deign to come to as her Auntie had the unmitigated gall to not invite her first, and then the smartest girl in the world spends the evening bedeviling him over the fact that it's not MY Thanksgiving spread! My best friend EVER is hoping and praying the entire time that the lord God will just scoop her up, or that He'll at least sew her daughter's lips shut. What response does her prayer get you ask...and I QUOTE..."and God was like, oh, no, no, you're good."

Now, I am in my most heartfelt emotional spot right as I'm hearing this, so I'm laughing my fool head off while she whisper-screams FOUL obscenities at me - you know, in that mommyspeak voice that says she'll overhear me if I'm any louder but you know I'm gonna kill you and maybe her in just one more minute if you don't STOP.

Then, it occurs to me what I've done; that this is actually mainly MY fault.

I ruined my beloved goddaughter's Thanksgiving! I set her up to think that the traditions of this national holiday of family and the giving of thanks were one way because, to her mind, they WERE that one way.

Then, I went out to eat.

I think I may get my Fairy Godmother license yanked for pulling a stunt like this!

So, what did I do? I informed my best friend EVER that if she drops the smartest girl in the world off at my place early next Thanksgiving, not only will the WHOLE spread by on the table for them both, I'll teach her to make deviled eggs for her own self!

I'll still spend the rest of the intervening year grovelling, but I'll teach her to make her own eggs! That's GOTTA even it out somewhere down the line, right?

Caturday meanderings...

I see that mommie has left the keyboard open again. I bet she'll stop doing that soon, once she sees what I've accomplished. Well, maybe not. She apparently hasn't been here in quite a while. Seeing as she's abandoned this, I decided I needed an outlet for my musings, wonderings, and meandering ideas. I'm quite astonishingly wise. That's not to be braggadocios, mind you. Simply a way to state a quiet fact. I'm smarter than you. We all are. We aren't really bothered by your lack of acknowledgment in this arena. Do you think the ant is bothered by your lack of regard when contemplating his architectural achievements? Seriously, he KNOWS you stomp on his homes out of sheer jealousy! He creates massive and mammoth underground tunnels and walkways that you cannot even fathom...yet you attack the tiniest opening when you see it. He can rebuild that in a day. And without any heavy machinery human. He doesn't even spend a moment in thought on you, human.

We don't either.

Who are We? The Feline Empire, of course.

Who am I?

I'm Blotts. The prettier one on the top, the one looking AT the shiny box. My brother, the idiot savant, is staring out the invisible forcefield into the world he cannot have. (Not that he'd know what to do with it if he HAD it but that's another story.)

It's Caturday today. Both my humans are home. They're in my way, on my furniture, taking up my space. But, they are both petting me, pampering me, worshiping me.

All is right with the world.

This morning, they engaged in this habit they have. I'm not sure why. Mommie puts this cloth around her and ties it on. Daddie puts tighter cloth on. It covers him all up. Mommie puts the same stuff on - but later. She does this TWICE. Very strange. I like the loose one she puts on first. It's black, or close enough to black for me. I think she calls it Navy Blue. It's black. I like black cloths. I can make them beautiful when I lay on them. I like to leave a memento of my visit to her lap. That way she can remember my favor when I ceased to favor her with my attentions. It's nice and soft, with lots of room to mess it about so I can get comfortable. When she and Daddie put them "pants" on, they're no good. Not enough room to move them around. This whole cloth thing confuses me anyway - and only serves to prove another theorem.

Cats are Superior.

I don't have to mess with cloth wrappings, loose or tight. Humans don't have my lovely fur. Inferior humans. Lucky we're here, otherwise you might think your way was better. I'm always dressed. And dressed superlatively well if I do say so myself. Basic tones, black and white, always in style.

While Mommie's still in her "robe" though, they sit down for food. At least they SAY it's food. They tried to trick us with some this morning, idiot boy and I. What crap, utter utter crap. "Frosting", HA! Silly, sticky, white goo with NO smell. Why in the world would I even THINK of putting that on my tongue. Who first tricked the silly humans with THAT nonsense. At least the silly sticky brownish tan goo has smell to it. I don't think that peanut goo has any good flavor to it, mind you, but at least it has smell. Silly things my humans eat. I'm not sure how they exist without us. I'm not sure they actually do though, exist without us I mean. My brother and I do our best to show them which foods to eat. I mean how much more can they expect from us? We like the dark brown semi-solid goo, that chocolate. I don't care WHAT wrappers they put that in to try and hide it, we can always find it! I mean, if we go the trouble of tearing open the big plastic bag wrapping (hello - no opposable thumbs here! Have you ever tried to open that stupid Ziploc with YOUR teeth? I thought not), next we carry it upstairs into their sleeping nest area. Then we present it to you, partially opened so you can eat it.

All they do is start yelling and throw it away! Something about bad kitty, no chocolate for you nonsense. It wasn't FOR me, dumb human.

I ate mine downstairs silly!

Oh, here comes Daddie. Can't scare him too badly. Last time he saw me with the keyboard, he got confused. Can't he tell the difference between sleeping and typing? Silly Daddie!

It is NOT LIKELY BUT QUITE POSSIBLY gonna suck today

Why does weird shit, annoying shit always seem to happen on Wednesdays?  Is there some sort of law that says it can't be on Mondays, cause they're, you know, MONDAYS??  They suck enough by virtue of placement in the week so no more evil shit that day!  Can't be on Fridays, cause, they're you know, FRIDAYS?!?  Supposed to, by virtue of THEIR placement in the weekly schedule be happy and wonderful lead into the weekend days.  (oh, if only that were true for MY Friday, what, given the SUPOENA to give a deposition to one of the deputy district attorneys of my fair state WITHOUT THE BENEFIT OF LEGAL COUNSEL BY MY SIDE, but oh, lets save THAT for another day, shall we?!?)  So apparently, it's Wednesday SUCK day.

A friend tells me a story of woe and evil ingratitude of the most heinous kind in which a son (underage by 3 frelling weeks, if you're counting) gets picked up for stupid illegal shit.  Not drugs, not felony, just stupid teenage boy/almost man kinds of shit.  He was underage.  Became of age and was (rightfully, IMHO) told by said father, it's my way or the highway, you want to play like a man and be stupid, be a man and get the frell out.  Manchild said, yep, outta here and left.  Now summons gets mailed to dad, with DAD listed as an ACCOMPLICE because the kid was, you know, a KID at the time of the incident.  Hell, I'm fairly certain, dad was at work at the time of said incident. 

Now, seriously, how can THAT even be legal?!?!?!?!  What a clusterfuck that is gonna be!

I get hit with this line in a written report...and from the get go let me announce: this shall become one of my new favorite oxymoron idiocies that I've ever heard or, hopefully, shall ever hear.  In said written report, I trip across the following sentence in response to a question as to whether someone can tolerate getting into trouble for being stupid:

It is NOT LIKELY BUT QUITE POSSIBLE HE MAY DECOMPENSATE as a result of blah blah blah...

What in the HOLYHELLFUCKSHITSTUPIDVERSE of life is that supposed to mean?  I actually announced upon reading said sentence that my brain had turned so violently as a result of it that I think I've actually suffered a rather severe concussion with deep contrecoup injury.  I need workman's comp and a vacation until my surgery.  I'm no longer fit to work.

And on the 7th day...

there wasn't that much damn resting to be had! I hate it...but I love it too, lol.


MBH and I may have gone a WWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE bit loopy at the new PC Richards store that just opened up at the Moorestown Mall.  We were going in there to buy him a computer (so HE thought! mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!).  While he was putting his folks' new computer together, I told him to check it out and if he liked it, we should buy it - given that his folks got it for

$350!!!!!!!

That's including a nifty copier/scanner/printer dujib.  So, while he was checking it out, I was checking out the circular.  And what did I spy with my wittle eye...a brand spanking new flat screen LCD HDTV for a goddamn STEAL!  While he's waiting for the new computer to do its thing, I show him how all our dreams can be had for the piffling price of $880.  He thinks I've lost my damn mind, lol.

Who knows, I may have!  Weeks from now, you can all say, yep, that's where it started, that damn PC Richards advert, lol!

He thinks for a minute and agrees it is just the bestest price.  So, we go home and decide to hit the store the next morning.

One 46" HDTV,
One new surround home theatre system with wiggy new upgraded DVD player,
One brand spanking new remote guaranteed to, by GOD, run every fucking thing we OWN,
and 47 other cables later, we walk out.

Forget the computer we went in for and go BACK and get that too...

(I jest.  We went back twice, lol!  Ok I jest some more but come on, that'd be REALLY funny if I HAD been telling the truth!)

Now, we're home with a bunch of toys. 

BIG FUCKING WOOPTIDO!

This just means one thing...spending another frelling fortune to set the whole thing up, both up and down.  See, now we've got a wonderful TV, DVD, TiVo downstairs with no home...UPSTAIRS!

Yep, so now we've got to get something to put it on as it can't fit on the damn floor!  This means going to one of my new favorite places, the Williamstown Amish Market and buying an unstained undecorated TV/stereo cabinet with a glass door.

THIS means now going to Lowe's and buying stain/varnish to finish it off.

Oddly, this was the easiest part! lol  Who knew staining and varnishing could be easy?!?

While waiting for that to dry, my beloved honey and I come to one very clear conclusion - if aliens dropped down with their pulse pistols pointed directly at our heads announcing we were going to be the next in line for Nebari mind-cleansing, we STILL couldn't make this 79 goddamn cables fit into 13 different slots and make this new system work! 

FUCK!

It does mean however that IF we can get the old system upstairs, there's half a chance we can figure out how it went together in the first place so we have some sort of TV again.

(I mean seriously, the Race is starting tonight dammit!  I NEED my TV!)

In between cooking up 4 different batches of the best yumminess EVER  (ham and bean soup, lentil soup, beef and barley soup, and chili if you want to be killed with jealousy), we get the TV back up and running JUST in time to see Bret save the Viks day with, no shit, 8 seconds left on the clock, and to see the Lions WIN!

No, you read that right, they WON BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just like MBH said - you can't lose'em all the time, lol

So, now we're billions in debt, exhausted, hurting in more joints than I thought I had, only to be watching the exact same TV we were last week...

it is upstairs though, so I can watch from what will undoubtedly be my death bed!

Wednesday wonderings...

So, those who know me know that stupidity is almost second nature to me. So...this bit of stupidity occurs to me and I blame it on occupational hazard:

Man A marries woman.

Woman is no longer there and they have not divorced.

Man A usually then inherits a title that tells the world that he WAS married but is not any longer. This title usually carries with it a certain emotional quality. One commonly feels empathy, sorrow, sympathy, and any number of other nice human emotions that tell us we are all tied into the global human condition.

BUT...(knew this had to be coming didn't you?!?)...given where I work and what I do, this just can't be simple can it.

Dr.M talks to Man A. Now needs to list his marital status. He was married. His wife is no longer in the picture. (wait for it, wait for it). They are not divorced. They are not separated. (WAIT FOR IT!) She has passed on.

Passed on because he is now serving some indeterminate period for having helped her to this new status condition his very own self.

Folks, I'm wondering...am I going to go to Hell for any certain period of time because I'm baffled as to what to list his marital status as????????

Widower...not even...nope, not even the tiniest SPECK of sympathy here, lol

Single?? easy cop out there, can't go with it.

Widower, self-inflicted?????????

Yep, I'll just pick out my spot NOW so I can get a good view from the Volcano mountains of the surfers on the Lake of Fire. I'm sooooo going to Hell.

I think I'm gonna need a bigger boat...

Ok, Ok, Ok...my beloved honey's best friend says...HEY! Your girl makes jam, right?

yep, I do.

Do you think she'd like some pears? I know you don't like'em, but would she like some? My boyfriend's mother has a pear tree and she's got extras.

sure...I'd LOVE some fresh home grown pears. Who DOESN'T like pears...honey??????? He's obviously a freak, but I'll love him and I'll keep him even IF he doesn't like pears. Tell Ann I'd love some pears.

Asian pears.

Even better! I love Asian pears like mad but they're too expensive and too underripe in the stores for my taste so this'll be fantastic!!!!

It's a lot of pears.

No worries. I can make jam from a lot of pears. Besides, how many can "a lot" be?????? It's only ONE tree!?! It cant' be THAT many, right?

From this exchange, MBH and I drive up to Trentonish areas so we can go to Joe's Crab Shack and meet up with Ann and Pete. I've never gotten a chance to meet Ann yet...in person...we've talked on the phone, online, hell I've even stayed over at her place when she wasn't there.

(Oh shit...um...Mom...if you're reading this...um...MBH totally wasn't even there. He was at his folks place. We were totally not shacking up at some strange location. Um...I was just goggie sitting for Jake. Um...YEAH! That's it! I was watching Jake while Ann was...um...in Atlanta...for...something...RRRRREEEEEAAAAAAALLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYY important.)

And Ann has even been to my place while I wasn't here. We've done everything except actually, you know, meet. So, we're off to Joe's! Yep, Joe's...to crack crab. I love crab. I love any food you are absofuckinglutely expected to play with and make a BIGGGGGGGG enough mess that bibs are mandatory. If you're one of my 3 rapid stalker followers (LOL) you'll know from my last post that I'm wounded. Just a little injury. Minor even.

EXCEPT IT'S A SIDELINING INJURY IN THE WORLD OF CRAB CRACKING!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, that (probably shoulda been sutured) little cut on my thumb that is still occasionally bleeding (now a week later) is more than enough to keep me from being able to crack crab.

FUCK.

Oh well.

Drink

Meet Ann

Get pears.

Remember when she said it was "a lot" and I thought, what, a couple of dozen, maybe, tops?



THAT'S A FUCKING JUMBO FAMILY-SIZE LAUNDRY BASKET FULL OF PEARS PEOPLE!!!!!!!! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Totally a manjob carrying that thing! lol

But, thanks to the Bible of jam books...I was able to turn that into this: 6 half pint jars of pear jam with vanilla, 6 of plain pear jam, and way in the back, 3 quarts of pear sauce (think applesauce but with pears).

Quite an equitable exchange, I should think!

Now...to get some back to her and her honey's mom before I eat it all! lololol