Gardening, anyone?
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Teka- I need to bring in some geraniums to winter but one is too large and may not be able get it in. Going to debug the house plants and geraniums today as we may get a hard freeze tonight, or if not, soon. Usually by now is the time to bring things indoors.
I think we have some folks from down under on this thread and thinking they are in the throes of spring? Bring on those spring blooms south of the equator peeps!
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Teka,
We follow a low carb, high protein diet so pies are a way of the past. Since diagnosis I have lost 53 pounds and my husband 85 pounds. Trust me, we needed too.
I do make a sweet potato bread from the following pumpkin bread recipe.
PUMPKIN BREAD
Preheat your oven to 350°.
Grease your pans / tins.
Combine 2/3 cup water and 1 cup raisins in a microwaveable bowl. Heat for about 1 minute in the microwave. Let cool. Separate the raisins from the water. Set both aside. Whenever adding raisins to a baked product, plump them in hot water. Otherwise, the raisins are hard in the baked product.
Sift 1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour and 1 and 3/4 cups whole wheat flour.I sift three (3) times. This makes the bread light. You must combine the wheat flour with all-purpose flour.Otherwise, the bread is heavy and dense.
Add to the flour the following:
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 4 and ½ teaspoons spices.
Use at least 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice, 1 teaspoon cinnamon. The other 1 and ¼ teaspoon can be any combination of cloves (just a little!), allspice, and nutmeg .Add a dash (about ¼ teaspoon) Ancho Chile Pepper*.
In a large bowl mix the following:
- 3 cups sugar or 1 and ½ cups Splenda
- 4 whole eggs
- 1 can (16 oz) pumpkin not pumpkin pie mix. I substitute cooked sweet potatoes.
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- The cooled and set-aside raisins
Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture alternating with the cooled and set aside raisin water.
Pour into greased muffin tins, or two 9 x 5 loaf pans, or smaller pans.
Depending on the tin or loaf pan size cooking time varies for larger loaves at 60 minutes and 40 minutes for muffins and smaller loaves.
*Why add the Ancho Chile Pepper?
There is something this spice brings to the pumpkin bread. The flavors are more pronounced but not hot. With this chile spice I receive compliments such as "That was great pumpkin bread!" Without the chile spice, I get compliments such as "Thank you for the bread."
Coach Vicky
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Coachvicky- congrats on the weight loss. I have lost 35 myself in the past year and a half, 25 in 2017 alone. Got another 15-20 to go.
I don't eat sugar anymore and gave that up awhile ago so no pie for me either......
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Great news JazzyGirl. I bet you feel better!
The bread is good with the Splenda but I watch that as well. It is a real treat to have something like the pumpkin bread.
Coach Vicky
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Coachvickey- I do feel good! Stronger than I have felt in a long time. I bet you feel good as well? My docs were all very pleased at my visits this summer with how much had come off this year at that point.
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JazzyGirl
Nothing like cancer to make me get healthy. Dang.
Coach Vicky
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Coachvicky- well, I hear you. Things got out of control in my 40s with starting my own business, elder care responsibilities, etc. I put on a good 50 pounds in a decade and hit my highest weight in the spring of 2012. By later that year, I had my dx. I had challenges loosing weight on the AIs, but had some other issues too and got help from an endocrinologist which is what changed a lot this year. It is no easy road for any of us, but now I am on a mission!
I have gotten a lot of my plants indoors, will cover a few others for the evening and finish bringing in the rest tomorrow. I have one geranium pruned and in, two smaller ones need to come out of planters to winter. There is one beautiful coral one and may try to transplant it, but the container it is in is too heavy to move. Debugged (I hope), pruned up and hoping for the best. I noticed one of my big jade plants is about to bloom, along with buds on what I think is a Xmas cactus (maybe now a Thanksgiving cactus?) Well, perhaps I will have more blooms to share with you!
Heading out for a nice fall walk to see the foliage. Trees will be done soon. Frost on the horizon. I hear it's sleeting in Texas....
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I drove down a long street on my way to art class. It is lined on both sides with large maples and purple autumn ash. Shades and shades of orange to purple.
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Pretty pics, ladies. Jazzy I keep thinking I want to move to New Mexico when I see your photos. I had a "christmas cactus" that bloomed at halloween, so yours seems to be on the same schedule. I left it with my mom when I moved. I keep thinking I need a new one. It was so gorgeous.
Autumn finally arrived here. We finally got a frost and cold 2 or 3 days ago. I really didn't need that! I dragged my mandevilla indoors, but not sure what I'm doing with it since I filled most of my bay window with fairy gardens! My dog will be mad if I take his last sitting/viewing space.
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Wren- I have an ash in my front yard and is very purple right now. As we get in to November, the leaves will fall and as it got pruned in Sept, hopefully will be less than last year. That tree is large and loaded with leaves!
Two hobbies- when I moved here from the east coast, people said "why do you want to live there, everything is brown". Well that is not true as you have seen. We have rocks of different colors, the most amazing skies and some pretty nice foliage. The desert southwest is truly beautiful.
I took a walk down in our bosque (spanish for wooded wetland) yesterday which is the ecosystem around the Rio Grande River. Founds some new pretty trails and here is a photo of the light in the trees late yesterday.
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Beautiful, Jazzy. I like the desert. It's vegetation without the clutter. It seems so drab at first and then you notice all the small details.
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Wren. . .I think it's a red-shouldered hawk which are native to Georgia. We've had as many as 11 hawks in one of our trees in any given year. We see this one most often. I think she goes after the chipmunks that live by our stream.
Teka . . .omg on that wasp nest. Ds and I are highly allergic to them. We had an underground nest of yellow jackets a couple of years ago. DH got stung several times and we had to have an exterminator come treat it. Scary.
Scottie
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Teka - yes the sandhill cranes are back. More migrating in too 😀
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Because some of this is derived from the garden, I thought you would enjoy the humor.....
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Too funny!!!!
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Went to the park for photo shoot - looking for Fall colors before they went away - I found Blue Leaves???
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GMA- my ash tree turns purple. Will take a pic today and post tomorrow.
Those look like some type of oak?
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I thought a maple.
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There were so many different trees - I think it is a maple - the oaks around here have crunchy brown leaves that are elongated.
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There are some purple leaf maples. My neighbor has two.
Jazzy love the pumpkin display photo. So clever.
Wow,KB, so lucky to find some raspberries left.
My little maple that replaced my emerald-ash-borer-destroyed ash is small but beautiful. This is the view from my bay window. Stuck inside on a rainy day.
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I would love to have that view from my window!
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Sunset with some cottonwoods during the full moon this past week
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My red oak in full fall color now. Prettiest I have ever seen it. It was planted in 2012 and then the top died a couple years ago, but the tree company saw another limb climbing up to be a leader and so we cut off the top and that limb helped the tree to recover and go way up! The tree has grown sort of funny (maybe planted too close to the corner), but the tree company will be back this winter to do a hand pruning job of it to help it fill out above.
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I am going to Dallas for Thanksgiving to visit a friend and spend some time in the area (I lived in the DFW area long ago for school).
Saw this place on FB and going to be there the very last day of their Pumpkin Village exhibit, but something like 66 acres of gardens to explore and also a tasting session to try seasonal vegetables pared with wine. Whoot whoot! I bet you are looking forward to the pics.
Any of you ever been to this place?
http://www.dallasarboretum.org/
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And then while I was outside this morning, I noticed this pot of flowers with yellow petunia's is blooming again!
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Had a visitor thanking me for fresh food.
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Such beautiful photos ladies 😃
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Lovely lovely lovely!
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Pretty pictures, Jazzy. It is fricking wintery cold here, too, Teka. The tree I posted last week has lost 2/3 of its leaves, although my burning bush is still gorgeous red. Sometimes when fall in mild and pleasant, I think maybe winter won't come - WRONG!
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