Pumpkin Butter and Kale Stems

When I was making bread the other day, I put it near the wood stove to rise. We are currently enjoying some of the fluffiest whole wheat bread I've ever made. I'll definitely use that trick again.

Last night I was on a quest to find a recipe for pumpkin butter. None of my cookbooks had it. If you knew how many cookbooks I have and how many time periods they cover, you'd understand how impressive that is. I ended up online and even vegweb.com didn't have a recipe. A google search revealed a plethora of recipes. I'm experimenting with one in my crock pot now. I'm hoping to use the pumpkin butter as a filling for holiday baking. We'll see how it goes.

I managed to get one of the bathrobes embroidered yesterday afternoon while everyone was at school. I'm hoping to get two more done today but we're already working on a two hour delay and I'm afraid school might be canceled all together.

Last night we had chick peas cooked with stewed tomatoes, onion, garlic, turnip greens, basil and finely chopped kale stems. I served this over brown rice cooked with some garlic scapes I had frozen a few months back. It was delicious.

I had read that kale stems can be used like celery but was a little apprehensive since my experience was that they were too woody to be palatable. During one of our steaming/freezing sessions this growing season, we finely chopped the stems and steamed them so we could give them a try over the winter. I'm really glad we did.

I feel experimental today, and with a two hour delay I don't have to go to work, so I'm planning to try a new recipe for dinner. Now I just have to find one that appeals to me.