And yes....that sentence could just end in so many different ways....not all of which are entirely G or PG rated. We'll just leave that possibly steamy post for another day. There's a reason we have 11 children. Doesn't really seem to take a change in season to get in the mood for those types of affairs around here.
But, as far as getting in the mood in other areas.....it is not entirely a huge secret on here that I just really hate cooking. Like....really can't stand it. At all. As in, my children will grow up on store bought bread with all 98,736 frillion milligrams of msg's in it and all the processed flour that glues every inch of your intestines together. Yep....that bread. And we eat Velveeta, corn dogs, chicken nuggets and potato chips...not entirely in that order or all at one time...and...gasp.....we drink coke. Ok...in all fairness on that one.....we only drink coke for birthdays and such or every Friday night for our pizza/movie night. Otherwise we don't keep anything on hand to drink other than milk and water. Milk is reserved for meals and water is for everything in between. I don't do Kool-aid or Crystal Light mainly just because I don't want stained clothes and carpet...though the carpet excuse is fairly laughable at this point. With shift husband beginning 24's again, after more than a year of having never slept apart, dinner chef is once again thrust into my job description. In all of our married life adoring husband has made almost every dinner we have ever eaten when he's not been absent from home on duty. I have decided my love language is cooking. And the fact that he knows this about me and rises to the task at hand to love like he does, does not even begin to go unnoticed, forgotten or unappreciated.
But, honestly, autumn in the east brings with it a strange, odd love of cooking for me...almost. I'm not sure I'd go as far as to wholly embrace the word "love" for my recent cooking endeavors but it's certainly not quite the drudgery and menacingly looming affair that it usually is. Cool breezy wind, open windows, kids rolling in laughter suspended in trees, leaves that fall like rain, outdoor smells of everything that encompass this time of year. Messy haired little girl running in holding fall colored, leafy, pinecone bouquet, acorns trailing from too full hands as she goes. I bend to plant kiss on top of auburn head, picking out leafy crumbs and pine needles as I stoop...and I inhale all of autumn...smells of sweet baby shampoo, earth, leaves, spices and pine....this earth pixie of mine. Boys drive rumbling, clanky dump trucks down hill, sit perched in branches and create worlds of bad guys and army men, aiming guns where unseen foe lurks in wooded forest. So I stand in our little tiny golden 70's kitchen with our golden peeling countertops and scratched brown cabinets and I touch and see and listen to all that makes up this world of mine. And suddenly the homemade soup that bubbles on stove completes our little home....contentment, fulfillment, warmth. And the mood to cook is born....for now.
Young ones tucked in bed, oldest builds fire, 3 of us lay in floor with ever loyal dog sprawled by side. And the hunt for recipes begins. While I have found many, I will refrain from posting the total-fail ones or the ones in which I saw fit to expertly burn. So, before I go posting recipes for you I will do us all some good and stick to the ones we have not only successfully tried and not burned...but liked!
Autumn also brings with it the mood to get creative. And the resources here are abundant in every way. Pinecones, acorns, twigs, leaves...pretty much anything. So science this week has involved tons of nature walks as we collect an absurd poundage of nature.
Playdough....neither really nature craft nor food has its own little paragraph. In our absolute love of being home we now have pumpkin playdough on the list of rainy day crafts to concoct around here. And seeing as how Sunday's forecast is a cold, rainy 60 degrees and Tuesday's is a mere 44 degrees we will be putting all of these to the test...and hopefully be sitting fireside, gluing acorns and twigs to cheap wooden picture frames...in theory anyway. That's not exactly taking into account the two 24 month olds that will be eating acorns as fast as we can glue them on or the 4 little boys that'll see fit to start living room acorn fights....or the crawling baby that will be gagging on the ones everybody missed picking up. I'll blog the results, pictures and our own personal experience with it, and let you know just exactly how it all turns out...and if we burned the playdough. On a side note....pinecones and pine needles make amazing fire kindling and the house smells so good.
Most craft ideas came from Pinterest. Recipes are tried and true ones that we do every year come autumn time...ones we've had on hand forever.
Pumpkin Pie Scented Playdough (many thanks to The Marathon Mom for this recipe)
5 1/2 cups flour
2 cups salt
8 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 cup vegetable oil (Since my children seem to eat as much playdough as they make I have given serious thought to substituting coconut oil for the vegetable. Nothing like getting healthy while eating spoonfuls of the craft of the day.)
1 container (1 1/2 ozs) pumpkin pie spice
orange food coloring (2 parts yellow/1 part red)
4 cups water
Mix all ingredients together except food coloring.
Cook in saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly until lumps disappear.
Let cool just long enough so that you can knead food coloring into dough on a floured surface til color is thoroughly blended and dough is smooth.
Store in airtight container.
She also has Peppermint and Sparkly Snow playdough recipes that are a ton of fun. Peppermint uses 2-3 Tbsp of peppermint extract in place of the pumpkin pie spice. Instead of coloring orange it requires one 1oz bottle of red food coloring. Christmas colored glitter of red/green/gold can also be added to this recipe.
Pinecone crafts on the list:
Pinecone door hanger. We have 13 pinecones carefully handpicked by each little member ready to go for this activity. The blue gingham wasn't doing it for me so we picked wide ribbon in solid colors of orange, brown, dark green, and red for our autumn theme with brown little bows to accent top. Not really into lookin like Hee Haw.
The fireplace garland
This involves the pinecones....obviously, ribbon, screw hooks, and a hole punch. I bought some of the cinnamon scented pinecones from Walmart to use for this project. Gently crew hooks into bottom of cones, punch holes in ribbon about 4 inches apart. Last fall I learned the hard way that it is much better to seal each punched hole in ribbon with a liquid fabric sealer.
The dining room window valance
Acorn Frame. Burlap or cheesecloth covering backing with a centered waxed leaf and twig make this pretty homey. I bought a dark mocha craft paint to paint frame so it hopefully blends as well as this does with acorns tops.
Easy enough.
Link for this in pic
Little kids making these for Christmas ornaments for tree since we lost most of our's in the basement floods. Using raffia and leather as hangers. Going to try and make enough to top neighbors Christmas cookie gifts this year. That might be a little optimistic though.
Is it just me or does this seriously look like a ton of cigarette butts glued to a massive frame? It's supposed to be a twig frame but it's just really lookin to me like somebody smokes like a freight train. Yeah....not tryin this one out.
Waxed Leaf Garland: click on pic for link to instructions. I have no desire to type it all out. It's too long.
So I just wasn't even gonna get into the mess of wax but in my festive autumn spirit mood I decided to tackle this project as well. I may just regret it as we have 142 pairs of hands each holding 5 leaves begging for their turn at the wax basin crockpot. But yeah....we're gonna do it cause it just looks way too pretty to resist. And at last we can say we did it....though we may never do it again!
Toilet paper bird feeder! And we certainly have no shortage of toilet paper rolls around here. As much as I love the pinecones this is just soooooo much easier!!!!
Spread the peanut butter on, roll in bird seed, slide roll on tree branch!
Pumpkin candles! Trace bottom of tea light candle onto pumpkin top. Using knife cut hole and remove pumpkin contents. Snuggly fit tea light candle into carved hole. Surround with wax leaf garland and pinecones. You can also get huge gigantic pumpkins, clean contents out, drill holes with drill bit to create desired pattern and insert full scented candle to illuminate drilled pattern created. We did this one year for Thanksgiving and it was the talk of the table.
Little tea lights
Big ones with drilled patterns. I have no idea who these photo credits belong to but their pumpkins are awesome!
And for recipes.... I just so seriously don't take pictures of my food. So the pancake and casserole pics have been googled and I just picked which one looked most like the ones I make.
Roasted pumpkin seeds
1 1/2 cups fresh whole pumpkin seeds
2 tsp butter, melted
1/2 tsp salt
Wash seeds and drain. Allow to dry for 24 hrs. Toss seeds with melted butter and salt. Place on baking sheet in single layer. Roast in 300 degree oven, stirring occasionally, for about 45 minutes or until golden brown.
Pumpkin Bread....
this is the best and easiest!! We make this a ton every fall but, as stated previously, I'm just not really into taking pictures of our food. Due to this little fact, I have no pics to go with this specific recipe.Trust me on this.....it looks like....pumpkin bread.
3 C sugar
1 C oil
4 eggs
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cloves
3 1/2 C flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 can pumpkin
2/3 C cold water
Combine sugar and oil. Add eggs and beat. Add salt, spices, flour and baking soda alternately with water. Add pumpkin. Stir well. Grease bread pans. Bake at 350 for 70 minutes. Let cool. Makes 2-3 loaves. Freezes well and makes a great Thanksgiving or Christmas gift for neighbors!
Pumpkin Pancakes...
another family favorite we make a lot! But you've REALLY gotta want pancakes....and wanna stay in the kitchen for about 5 hours...but then we quadruple the recipe too so that may contribute a small portion to the labor intensive efforts. They're worth it though.
2 cups flour
3 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup pumpkin
1 egg
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp vinegar
In bowl, mix together milk, pumpkin, egg, oil and vinegar. In separate bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt. Stir into pumpkin mixture just enough to combine. Cook like a pancake.
Sweet Potato Casserole...
absolutely the best thing ever....like eating dessert. It has been requested as birthday cake over traditional cake by quite a few of our kids. This recipe has been given out many many times in the years of our marriage. It was passed down to us by a fellow fire wife.
4 cups mashed sweet potatoes (fresh ones are sooo much better than canned)
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs beaten
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 cup chopped pecans (optional - we usually double this recipe and make two 13x9 inch pans, one with nuts, one without)
In a mixing bowl combine sweet potatoes, sugar, milk, eggs, salt, 1/3 c butter and vanilla.Mix together and pour into a 13x9 in greased baking dish.
To prepare topping, combine in separate bowl brown sugar, flour, 1/3 c melted butter and pecans, if you chose to use them. Mix together and crumble over sweet potato mixture. Bake uncovered at 350 for 35-45 minutes. Super easy and the children's most favorite fall recipe ever. For printable version from allrecipes.com click on pic.
Pumpkin Cookies with cream cheese icing.
And I just have no desire to type this whole recipe out, as I'm tired of typing boring crap....but they're way good. So go here and feel free to add this to your autumn cooking endeavors also.
And one more upcoming homey project. Since I could find no lamp that was cheap enough, durable enough and eccentric enough to fit our needs and my taste I decided to embark on my own lamp making journey. We need something cheap, can't really get ruined and is not even close to breakable. This seemed to fit our needs well and add the love of books and homey effect. We made a trip to the used bookstore and got 8 raggedy, hardback, used books for .10-.25 each. I collected an old lamp shade from Goodwill for 1.00 and dug up my family's old, now unused Encyclopaedia Britannica World Atlas. I will use this general idea for teh shade. So yeah...we'll see how my patience does for this one. I can see the shade being tossed by the end of it.....up to elbows in Modge Podge, wrinkled maps and a lot of frustration....but total cost is about 3.00 so far. I still need to get the lamp kit and I think they run about 8.00. But...we'll finally have a lamp in our front window to glow of warmth, and love and home!
Enjoy the season and see with virgin eyes!
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