Soon-To-Be Jack-O'-Lantern

At the grocery store last week I found this adorable pumpkin for $1.50. I haven't carved a pumpkin in probably ten years, but the $1.50 price encouraged me to want to do it. I'm going to Google different designs I could try, but will probably go with triangle eyes and toothy mouth. Classic.

Do you carve a pumpkin for Halloween? How elaborate do you get?

First Pumpkin Spice of the Season

We had a beautiful roast chicken dinner yesterday, which was followed up with some sweet potato pie. The recipe I use for sweet potato pie is just the recipe for pumpkin pie, using fresh sweet potato puree instead of canned pumpkin. I made two pies on the weekend because this pie is soooooooo good. I love love love it. Mmmmm.

Dark Ginger Ale

I don't drink pop very often, but when I do, my favourite kind is ginger ale.

Recently there was a coupon for a new type of ginger ale, Dark Ginger Ale. The deal was, buy two 2L bottles of the new ginger ale, and get $2 off. Name brand pop is often around $2 for 2L, so I waited for a sale. A $1 sale, to be exact. So for just $0.25 ($0.13 tax on each bottle, rounded down to just a quarter because we don't use the penny anymore), I got two bottles of pop. Deal!

Pretty near free pop is good enough on its own, but the best part is that this Dark Ginger Ale actually tastes amazing. With my first sip I wasn't quite sure, but then I drank one of the 2L bottles waaaaayyyy too fast. It is a wonderful mixture of spicy and sweet. I love it.

 

Birthday Bloom

John's Grandma (and our next door neighbour) turned ninety last week. She is very active and has a better social life than I do, so I haven't been able to make her a cake yet (she's been too busy!). Hopefully sometime in the next few weeks.

I saw her on her birthday and she pointed out to her front yard and was delighted that her rose was blooming for her birthday. A birthday gift from nature.

Chicken Stock

I had a wonderful day in the kitchen yesterday, making chicken stock. I'm still working on the three farmer raised chickens I cut up, and yesterday I boiled the chicken backs that I had previously frozen. My reward was as pot of hearty chicken vegetable soup and ten cups of stock for the freezer. Wonderful!