Some pics

Brought to you by my new Canon Elph... oooo ahhhh. It's pretty nifty.

This is Weston's "silly face". I think you have a model in your future Shan.

We took a birthday picture together.

And of course, devil cat, aka Jersey. I was taking pictures of the dogs and she felt left out.

I had a pretty good birthday overall. It was laid back, and not too exciting, but nice enough. I got some good gifts and we camped out at the Bowles most of the weekend for conference. (Thanks again!) That was fun. I practiced/learned about my camera by taking about 50 pictures of Davin after conference on Sunday. He's a good subject, since he just lays there and doesn't seem to mind the flash. I'm still trying to figure out what I want from Alann for my birthday. I/ we have a few things picked out, I just need to actually decide what I want.

It rained all day Saturday and half of Sunday. The rain was good, but I hope it didn't set my tomatoes back. They were ripening well. I need to go pick some tonight. The stupid things are still flowering. I pull the flowers off as much as I can, but it seems like every time I go out there, there are more. Maybe the cooler weather will convince them to ripen.

I opened a jar of pear butter this morning. MMM. I read a blog post about pumpkin butter, and I am intrigued. I don't know if I want to try it or not. I am also tempted to buy some cheap pumpkins and make pumpkin puree myself for use in ice cream, black bean soup, and maybe bread or a pie or two (or more pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, which as Alann pointed out, are just big cookies). I made stuffed squash for the first time the other night, and Alann actually liked it. He hasn't liked any squash dish I have made yet. This was rice, sausage, apples, broccoli, and cheese mixed together and put in a "sweet meat" squash half. It needed a little more liquid, because once you got a bite of the squash with the filling, it was a little dense. That could probably be solved with a splash of milk. But very tasty. We had leftover stuffing, so I had that for lunch yesterday. It was good without the squash too. I want to like squash, since it is currently in season and pretty cheap and good for you. I just haven't found many good recipes yet. I don't really care for it as a sweetened dish. Maybe a butternut squash soup. Of course that brings back memories of the gallons of pumpkin soup I made once, that ended up making better pie than soup. (One of the few times Alton Brown let me down.) Good thing my sister likes pumpkin pie. I've gotten significantly better at judging/ adjusting serving sizes and recipes to make just enough or enough for leftovers.

If I haven't suggested the pumpkin black bean soup to you yet, this is me, suggesting it to you. I will send you the recipe if you want. It's awesome. The pumpkin puree doesn't add pumpkin flavor, but it does make the soup nice and creamy. It doesn't require any meat, and is pretty healthy, filling, and did I mention, awesome. I make sure that I keep enough pumpkin puree on hand to make it several times every winter. Now that I am thinking about it, I should put it on the menu for the next rotation. I love soup, and luckily Alann does too. We eat a lot of soup in the winter. I am not such a fan in the summer. It's too hot. But any time that the temperature is below 60 as a high, I am all for soup. So if you have any good soup recipes, send them my way!