Halloween

I haven't made donuts in about five years and decided that was way too long to wait.  I mixed up some potato dough . . .

. . . used my high-tech donut cutters (I used the scoop to press out the "hole") . . .

. . . and let them raise.

The last of the glazed donuts:

 

Dh ran into some of our friends while out Trick or Treating and look what the 2 1/2 dozen dounuts turned into:

[I ran into some technical difficulties while uploading pictures.  I'll try again tomorrow.]

Roasted pumpkin seeds

After the pumpkin carving last night, of course the next task was to roast the seeds.  I didn't used to do this, but now I really like the salty, crunchy seeds and never miss an opportunity to make them.

Here is the recipe I used:

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds Recipe

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 35 minutes

Ingredients

• One medium sized pumpkin
• Salt
• Olive oil

Method

1 Cut open the pumpkin by cutting a circle around the stem end, and pulling off the top. Use a strong metal spoon to scrape the insides of the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds and strings. Place the mass of pumpkin seeds in a colander and run under water to rinse and separate the seeds from the everything else.
2 Measure the pumpkin seeds in a cup measure. Place the seeds in a medium saucepan. Add 2 cups of water and 1 tablespoon of salt to the pan for every half cup of pumpkin seeds. Add more salt if you would like your seeds to be saltier. Bring the salted water and pumpkin seeds to a boil. Let simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and drain.
3 Preheat the oven to 400°F. Coat the bottom of a roasting pan with olive oil, about a tablespoon. Spread the seeds out over the roasting pan in a single layer. Bake on the top rack until the seeds begin to brown, 5-20 minutes, depending on the size of the seeds. Small pumpkin seeds may toast in around 5 minutes or so, large pumpkin seeds may take up to 20 minutes. Keep an eye on the pumpkin seeds so they don't get over toasted. When nicely browned, remove the pan from the oven and let cool on a rack. Let the pumpkin seeds cool all the way down before eating.
Either crack to remove the inner seed (a lot of work and in my opinion, unnecessary) or eat whole.

Comiso Air Station, Sicily

This is a Google satellite picture with the arrow pointing to my old townhouse apartment.  It was one of the nicer homes I've lived in, and certainly the best military housing I ever had.

That runway in the picture was not active at the time I lived there and we crossed it to get from the main part of the tiny base to the housing area.

This is a video with awesome still photos that were taken about 17 years after the base closed (so the pictures are recent).  I left shortly before the final base closure.  It's interesting to see what happens when "nature" is allowed to take over.  I didn't see my own street housing, but my apartment was very similar to the ones in the video.  I did have to take a close look at a picture of an overgrown bougainvillea, because it was in the same relative location as one at the front of my apartment.

I was delighted and thrilled to get the assignment to Sicily.  I had never lived overseas and who wouldn't want to move to a Mediterranean island?  The base was closing at the time I arrived, and Iraq had just invaded Kuwait.  There was a lot of tension and a lot of the military members on the base were gone to Desert Storm.  But . . . it was still a Mediterranean island with thousands of years of history right out the back fence.

It was one of my favorite places I've ever lived.

Meal Plan Sunday

Monday:  Beans and rice

Tuesday:  Chicken Curry (recipe on packages my neighbor brought me back from Malaysia)

Wednesday:  Mole Chili, cornbread

Thursday:

Friday:  Pizza

Halloween has started!

Last night was our ward Halloween party.  It's always held at the home of ward members who have a large acreage right in the middle of town.  It's a perfect location and the couple are wonderful and generous hosts.

Elizabeth went as Red Riding Hood . . . .

Oh, Red Riding Hood with a black eye and blood streaming down her face, naturally.

Caroline went as a cat . . . .

And Sophia . . . well, I forgot to get a picture before she took her costume off!

More pictures to come this week, I'm sure.

A funny on myself

This morning was the Bountiful Baskets fruit and vegetable co-op pick up.  Instead of just picking up my basket, I always help with the distribution (produce comes in farmers' boxes and we break them up into the baskets for each  participant).  After everything was distributed into the 56 baskets, I went to sign the list to get my basket and . . . my name was not there!

My first thought was that what happened a couple of years ago had happened again: between the time I selected my basket and I pushed the "order" button, the last basket was sold.  I wasn't charged, but I didn't get a confirmation slip either, and I didn't realize it until I was getting ready to go that morning.

But . . .

I had printed my confirmation slip this time.  I had left it at home on accident, but I *had* printed it.

I went racing home and got online to figure out what had happened.  I printed off the slip again and took a close look at it.

I had mistakenly selected a site 7 miles away!  There is only a 20 minute pick up window, it was 3 minutes until pick up time started, and I didn't know the area of town I was supposed to go to.  I jumped in the car and followed the basic direction on my confirmation slip and eventually found myself at a really pretty desert park in the south part of town.

I wasn't too late and I even still had a choice of pumpkins.

I'll be more careful with my mouse click next time.  LOL

Poor Toek is molting!

My chicken is molting for the second time.  Her feathers are all over the coop area!

This picture has a little patch of sunshine on her back, but you can compare the two tails and see Toek doesn't have much of hers left!

The beautiful gold bird is Spot.  She is the one whose health we have been worried about.  She looks big in this picture, but her tail is about half the length and volume it should be, and she weighs practically nothing under all those pretty feathers.

I don't know how these chickens turned into pets instead of little egg factories. :-/

What a dicotomy in my mailbox today!

A free sample from Target.

A credit card bill.

I think I'll open the sample first because I *know* what the bill is going to look like!

This week's Family Home Evening

Monday was my turn to be in charge of Family Home Evening.  For some reason three pillows had been placed on the floor, each with a large-size hymn book on it, and that gave me the idea to have a musical Family Home Evening.

We started off with each person looking up a scripture extolling the virtues of music and song.  We found scriptures in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

Then each person told what his or her favorite hymn or children's song was, I played it on the piano, and we all sang each one.  Most of the family also told why it was his or her favorite.

That's it.  It was a good Family Home Evening and was followed by chocolate pudding cake.  Perfect.

I can't wait for election day!

I get to vote for Mitt Romney!!