Missoni

I'm sure you heard about how Target carried a limited edition of Missoni items. Well, I wasn't fortunate enough to get there in time to buy myself anything, but I did score a poncho and tam for Lola. When I made the purchases, the temperatures were still hovering at 90 degrees. But now that it's mid-November, she can finally wear them.

Butternut!

I really love squash.

When we closed out the neighborhood pumpkin patch on Halloween, we left with a wheelbarrow full of squash.

In order to control our squash problem (we now have 10 squashes in our kitchen), I came up a new way to make macaroni and cheese while also incorporating butternut squash. It's creamy and warm, and orange. All of the things that autumn should be. I thought I would post it here just in case anyone wanted to try it out.

Butternut Mac N' Cheese
Serves 4-6, Prep Time 30 minutes (not including time spent roasting squash).

Ingredients
Half of a medium-sized butternut squash, roasted.
 3 tbsp butter (or olive oil)
1 cup milk
1/2 cups of heavy cream (or more milk, if you don't want/have cream)
2 tbsp flour
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
13 oz bag of whole-wheat (whatever shape is your favorite...mine is fusilli), cooked al dente

Directions

1. Drizzle butternut squash half with olive and sprinkle it with salt. Place cut side down in baking pan. Roast in oven (425 degrees) for 35-40 minutes. Squash is done when it can easily be pierced with a fork. 
2. Set aside squash to cool for 15 minutes.
3. Begin cooking pasta. 
4. While pasta is cooking, start the sauce by melting butter (or heating olive oil) in a saucepan over medium-high heat. 
5. Add garlic. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until garlic is fragrant. 
6. Add flour.
7. Whisk in milk, then heavy cream (or more milk). Whisk until mixture is smooth.
8. Bring sauce to a boil (this takes about 4 minutes), then lower temperature. Sauce should begin to thicken. 
9. Check on the pasta! Do not over cook it. 
10. Back to the sauce. If it's too thick, add a little milk. If it's too thin, add more flour. If you find yourself needing to thicken it, be prepared to whisk your wrist off. (Once you add flour, or any thickner like cornstarch or tapicoa flour, to a hot liquid, lumps will form and it will be difficult to get rid of them You can try to avoid this by mixing the additional flour with some cold milk and then adding it to the sauce.) 
11. Add parmesan.
12. Once sauce has reached the sauce-like consistency that you are willing to commit to, remove it from heat. 
13. If you haven't finished cooking the noodles by now, check on them again. Otherwise, strain them and leave them in a colander while you finish the sauce. 
14. Remove the skin from the butternut squash and add the squash to the sauce. Stir. 
15. If your sauce pan is huge, you can add the cooked noodles to the sauce and stir it all together. Otherwise, plate the noodles and serve sauce on top. Because the sauce is orange and cheesy, it looks like mac n' cheese, but it tastes so much better. 

(I have no future in food photography.)

Co-Pilot

At bedtime, Lola always asks for a song. Usually, I start with "You are My Sunshine" and then take requests after that. Lately, Lola has been requesting what I call, "Daddy Songs."  These are songs that Josh makes up for her that have no set lyrics or tune. Each one is an original masterpiece completely different from the song he just created two minutes ago.

I married a freestyle machine.

And while this is a wonderful, and cute, and utterly creative trait, Lola's need for Daddy songs is seriously annoying at bedtime.  That's because at eight-thirty at night, I typically have a cranky, exhausted toddler, who can't get comfortable and is simultaneously demanding that I recite some made-up song that Josh created 7 hours ago. 

I've tried to remedy the situation by making up my own songs. (She doesn't like them.)
I've also asked her to sing the song, so that I could try to follow the tune. But this usually results in a conversation in which she says, "No. You sing the song." When I explain that I don't know the song, she grows angrier. "NO. YOU SING THE SONG."

Clearly, at bedtime, I am the only one who is supposed to be singing.

I've also asked Josh to share the songs with me, but he's admitted that since he always makes up a brand-new song, he doesn't even remember them himself.

I have even resorted to begging Josh to just create a single song and then share it with me.
He says, creative geniuses don't work that way.

Have I ever mentioned that I hate group projects? Because I really do.

The Beloved Pumpkin Patch

Oh how she loves the pumpkin patch.

There is a farm in our neighborhood, literally walking distance from our home, that opens up to the public every October. A woman homesteaded this farm in the 1880s and she passed the property onto her great-nephew, who is now 92-years-old and the current farmer. He works on the farm every day, and if you saw him, you wouldn't believe that he is in his 90s. He doesn't look a day older than 60. 

In addition to growing hundreds of pumpkins and other squashes, there is a play zone set up with a small hay maze.

 Various rope swings hang from the century old oaks. Lola begged us to put her on the rope swing, but once she was on, she wasn't very happy.

There is also a snack bar where everything is a $1, and they give away free lollipops and stickers to kids.

Lola's favorite activity is the tractor hay ride out to the pumpkin fields.

He has a few farm animals too. There are 4 pigs, 6 goats, 2 peacocks, and a lot of chickens. A few weeks ago, Lola saw a small gap under the fence that was set up in goat field and before I could stop her, she held up the wire and yelled, "C'mon goats!" and two pygmy goats escaped. The goats were super friendly, but my future PETA member certainly created a commotion. Luckily, the farmer laughed and herded the goats back into their field.

Zucchini Baby

Apparently, if you don't pick zucchini, it will continue to grow, and grow, and grow, until it is the same size as your small (but, overweight) dog.

Early on in the growing season, I asked my mother how many zucchini plants I should put in the garden. She asked me, how much zucchini did I want. I said, a lot. Her response? Grow a single plant.

She was right, one zucchini plant gave us more zucchini that we could even handle. I gave away several squashes to co-workers and friends, and then we ate zucchini for months.

Zucchini garbanzo bean stir-fry.
Curried zucchini.
Zucchini on pizza.
Zucchini in pasta.
Zucchini bread.
Zucchini chocolate chip muffins.
Chocolate zucchini cake.

We seriously ate some zucchini.  The zucchini is still growing, but the weather is finally beginning to cool, so our zucchini days should soon be coming to an end.

In the meanwhile, Lola will continue to play with her zucchini baby.

Halloween

The grand plan was for Lola to dress up as a peacock. I had elaborately designed the perfect homemade peacock costume for her (in my head), complete with an awesome plumage. Two weeks ago, I started gathering feathers for the costume, and in the (albeit third) craft store on a Saturday, Lola threw down the peacock feathers she had been holding, and yelled, "I WANT TO BE A COWGIRL."

And that was that.

If I've learned anything about Lola's personality, it's that when she says she wants something, it is difficult to change her mind. Later on, she told me that she specifically wanted to be Jessie the Cowgirl (from Toy Story 3), and while I did have a panic attack when I discovered that both Disney Stores in the area and the online store were sold out of "Jessie" costumes, I improvised, and we ended up with a costume that we both really loved.

I ordered her Jessie cowgirl hat online, and then ordered the "Jessie-inspired" dress online from Etsy.   The adorable cowgirl boots, which I suspect started it all, were a gift from Amy and Adam.

 Of course, Archie and Gizmo also sported costumes. We had a really hard time getting them in a single shot.

 

Archie was a yellow submarine.

  

And, Gizmo, who was incredibly difficult to get in a photo, was dressed as a celebrity. Typical.

 

We opted to not take Lola out trick-or-treating, and instead we stayed at home. We ate homemade autumn pizza, and watched the Halloween episodes of The Office and Parks & Rec. Lola enjoyed handing out candy and toys (we passed out play-doh and temporary dog tattoos) to the neighborhood kids, and I loved seeing all the of the costumes. My favorite costume this year was a group effort. Four ten-year-old boys constructed a huge green dragon out of sheets and cardboard. Three of them were the dragon and the remaining boy was dressed as a knight. I was so impressed with their creativity that I gave them extra candy. :)