We had to leave the house early today, leaving the windows closed and the dog inside, since the nice men at Brown's Exterminating were coming to help us deal with our carpenter bee problem. Ordinarily, I'm loath to use a lot of chemicals around the house but in the case of these aggressive, scary creatures I'm willingly bringing in the weapons of mass destruction (actually, the bees are pretty massively destructive themselves, so maybe it's a wash). So in order to leave on time, I told my son we were going on a "special bye-bye" and devised an outing.

    The special bye-bye part was very useful in helping reduce the time required for the pjs-to-clothes exchange to about 15 minutes, with much less running around naked. Special, indeed. Once we were out the door, I mentioned that were were on our way to the Discovery Museum, whereupon my son yelled repeatedly, "Don't want feshul bye-byeeeeeeee," until we arrived. Then he had a great time playing with trains and looking at the turtles. We also bought a membership, so we now have admission privileges to the Museo Participativo de Ciencias, should we find ourselved in Buenos Aires in the next year. Lunch outside on the Downtown Mall pretty much capped an all around fanstastic morning. Arriving back home to find the bees (and their wasp friends) vanquished, I found myself feeling almost non-agitated for the first time since they first made their appearance.

    I felt so good that I began making pumpkin butter after nap time began. Now, I know that all things pumpkin are usually associated with autumn, but trust me that this is actually a perfect time to make this wonderful stuff. First, you may have packages of pumpkin puree left in the freezer from last fall and you now need to make room for the upcoming spring bounty. Second, having the jars on the shelf for a few (okay, six) months will only help the flavors blend and it will be that much more delicious. Trust me, you'll want to do this now. The ingredients are:

      3 1/3 cups pumpkin puree

      the zest of one lemon

      the juice of one lemon

      2 1/2 cups light brown sugar

      1 T gound ginger

      2 t cinnamon

      1/2 t allspice


    Mix all the ingredients together well in a medium to large saucepan. Let rest for an hour or two, then heat over medium heat stirring very frequently (there will be some bubbling and popping). Transfer to sterilized jars (I use half-pints), seal and process in a hot water bath for ten minutes.

    Once opened, the pumpkin butter can be used as a spread for pancakes, a crepe or cake filling, an ice cream topping, for a tart...or, for a wonderful gift. I cannot stress enough how wonderful and versatile it is. Oh...you could make a soup, with a little cream and fresh nutmeg sprinkled on top. Yes, you could definitely make a soup.

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    Well, I'm certainly not doing well in the update-the-blog department. However, I promised to make the pomegranate jelly and have just now finally done so, two months after the supplies were purchased. And, yes, we moved the juice and pectin. Did you think I'd throw it away?


    Because I can't do anything according to the instructions, I ended up combining a couple of recipes. The basic idea is to take four cups of pomegranate juice (I'm pretty sure you can't use grenadine, but then again maybe you can and it would make a really great jelly, too), mix it with 1/4 cup of lemon juice, 6 cups of sugar and 3 oz. of commercial liquid pectin, boil for a minute and pack into hot, sterilized jars, seal and process in a hot water bath for 5 minutes. Here's what I actually did: mix four cups of juice (at a cost of, gasp, $5.97), the juice of three lemon halves (which is what I had with me at the time), 2 cups of sugar, 4 teaspoons of calcium water and 4 teaspoons Pomona's Universal Pectin in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil, stirring, for one minute. Pack into jars, seal and process for five minutes while listening to Sinead O'Connor's "The Lion and the Cobra".


    The jars are still cooling, but I can tell you that even warm this tastes amazing and it started to jell a bit as I was packing the jars, so I'm sure it's all going to be fine. Now, the question is: what can I do with this stuff? I'm thinking maybe those little bite-sized tarts, lined with a bit of marzipan, thumbprint cookies or maybe even a glaze for a roast of some kind. Any ideas?

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