Fall-ifying!

I love to decorate my house for all of the seasons, but with the grandboys being so young and here all the time, the past few years have been on the lean side for decor. They’re getting old enough now to not mess with my “pretties” so much if they have their own decorations to put out. Things that they can change around as they wish or use in their play, and it’s okay.

Last Spring I had Brad put together a bunny garden in a large flower pot on the front porch. He loves gardening anyway, and this little pretend garden was a very fun project for us both.

That bunny garden weathered snow and ice, tons of rain, blistering heat, and days of drought. He did plant some alyssum and pansies in the pot, and by this Fall, there were just a couple small alyssum plants left – but they were flowering now that the weather has cooled some.

It took a bit of convincing, but Brad finally consented to putting away the bunny garden, and in it’s place, making a scarecrow pumpkin patch. He went to a pretty big pumpkin patch over the weekend, so with that experience fresh in his memory, it was the perfect project for this busy boy.

When my Fall decorations were unpacked, I found a container of small pumpkins and gourds, and an inexpensive scarecrow, as well as a small hay bale. All were perfect for a flower pot pumpkin patch! He took it all outside and started “planting” pumpkins. The wind was blowing pretty hard, and those tiny pumpkins are just styrofoam, so we had to put toothpick skewers in each one to keep them in place. Now they’re not going anywhere, except when one of the boys decides to rearrange. Yes, that has already happened several times just in the first afternoon.

 

Silas helped a little bit…

 

He decided it would be more fun to play down on the sidewalk and left the rest to his brother.

Here is Bradley with the finished (at that moment) project. We’d like to add a small pumpkin patch sign, so as I dig through my decorations, I’m looking for something we can repurpose for that.

 

He’s very anxious to add some Halloween things to make it a scary pumpkin patch. I think I’ve talked him into waiting until it’s at least October. LOL.

 

Sweet Pumpkin Strudel

One more nod to Thanksgiving, then we’ll move on. We got to host the Noon meal on Thanksgiving Day, and then were guests at a second feast for Saturday supper. Our newly-married niece asked that I bring a dessert. Greg and I had seen this recipe for Sweet Pumpkin Strudel made on Michael Symon’s Cooking Channel show “Symon’s Suppers”. We both thought it looked delicious, and while staying in the flavor profile of Thanksgiving, it was a bit different from plain-old pumpkin pie.

These are easy to make, but a bit tedious. I suggest teamwork – someone butter, someone roll them up. I did these by myself, and they needed to be baked and cooled in time to leave for Sara’s, so I put together a dozen of them, then stashed the rest of the filling in the frig. I’ll make up some more and freeze them, then they can be baked whenever Greg wants a pumpkin-y  treat.

I’ll reprint the recipe here, but if you click on the link above, you’ll go to the official web site. You’ll notice the recipe yield says 12 servings, which is what I made, and I had a lot of filling leftover. I also chose to go without nuts, since there was a good chance that the baby grandson would eat them. We did have the turbinado sugar, though, and that’s a fun touch.

These were served just as you see in the photo, and were well-liked. I think with the honey and whipped cream they’d be even better.

Sweet Pumpkin Strudel

Yield: 12 servings

Ingredients

• One 15-ounce can pumpkin
• One 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

• 12 sheets frozen phyllo dough (18- by 14-inch rectangles), thawed
• 2/3 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 3 tablespoons turbinado sugar, or other coarse sugar
• 2 tablespoons honey, for serving
• Whipped cream, for serving, optional

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
For the filling: Combine the pumpkin, cream cheese, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, ginger and nutmeg in a small bowl. Mix until nearly uniform and set aside.
Place 2 sheets of the phyllo on top of one another and brush the top sheet with some of the butter. (Keep the remaining phyllo dough covered with plastic wrap to prevent it from becoming dry and brittle.)
Cut the 2 layered sheets of phyllo lengthwise to create 2 long strips. Place a well-rounded tablespoon of the filling about 2 inches from the end of the dough strip.
To shape, fold the bottom edge of the phyllo up and over the filling. Fold in the sides and roll up to encase the filling, brushing the exposed dry phyllo with some of the butter as you roll. Place the rolled phyllo on a baking sheet, seam-side-down. Brush the top of the phyllo with some of the butter. Repeat with the remaining ingredients. Sprinkle the tops of the phyllo with pecans and turbinado sugar. Bake until the phyllo is golden brown, about 15 minutes. Serve the phyllos warm drizzled with the honey and topped with whipped cream if using.

Can You Bake a Pumpkin Pie Darlin’ Bradley?

My three year-old grandson Bradley loves to help in the kitchen. He’s very patient and listens to instructions, so when I heard his little voice ask, “Grammy can we bake a cherry pie?”, I was delighted to join him in the kitchen. Turns out, the day he asked that, I had no cherries, but did have a big can of pumpkin. There was pie crust in the frig that needed to be used, so we made pumpkin pie. (Truth be told, he simply wanted a vehicle for whipped cream…)

We used the recipe from the back of the pumpkin can. I like that one since it doesn’t use nutmeg – I’m not a huge fan of nutmeg in my pumpkin pie, or in much of anything else for that matter.

I always point out the recipe to him, so he knows that cooking involves reading, and we always count ingredients as we use them, two eggs, one spoonful of this, three pieces of that, and he helps measure those ingredients, so he works on math skills as well when in the kitchen.

He started by spooning the pumpkin into the bowl, while Grammy got the rest of the ingredients lined up, and of course, took some photos.

Pouring is an important skill to practice:

And using the whisk builds those large muscles, as well as remembering the difference between fast and slow stirring so it doesn’t spill over the edges…

 

Pinching the edges of the crust works those small muscles as well as practicing patience to get all the way around the pie plate.

It was a long wait while it baked and cooled, then when I handed it to him for a photo, his reaction was, “This wooks dee-wishus Grammy!”.

 

 

It WAS dee-wishus, Bradley – hey, Grammy has a job for you for Thanksgiving!