It's fall!

Overcome with fallitude, I yesterday spent a ludicrous sum of money on sugar pie pumpkins. Swear I thought they were $1.99 each rather than per pound, but alas. I whiled away this morning roasting and then turning them into five cups of beautiful puree. I know it's fall when I start using my food mill on a regular basis, and today was its maiden voyage. Aren't these gorgeous? And what scrumptious pumpkin goodies the puree will later make! Do y'all do this? You simply split each pumpkin, remove the seeds and superfluous strings, place the halves cut-side down on a half-sheet and roast at 385° Fahrenheit or so until they're starting to collapse and sooo easily pierced with a knife, about an hour. Then you scoop the flesh from the skin (which is then discarded; great for the compost!) and mash or food mill until you're left with a puree of uniform consistency. Freeze in one-cup portions so that later, when you need just that one cup, you aren't stuck halving to ice-pick frozen pumpkin mounds.

While they were roasting, I also worked up a new jam: apple, pear, lemon thyme, pear brandy, black pepper and sugar. What I didn't waterbath can, I ate atop crunchy sea salt crackers and Humboldt Fog. Mmm!!!