The weather is turning colder.

This is my favorite season, without a doubt! It's cool enough to work on my bigger projects, like finishing my quilt tops and maybe starting a big afghan project. It's apple picking season, which means homemade apple sauce, and pumpkins are just around the corner for jack o'lanterns and pumpkin butter! A friend has baby #2 due in a couple weeks and another friend is having a Halloween wedding!

With all of the cold weather cooking I like to do, you guys are gonna have to stay on my butt about eating right. And I'll probably need some extra nagging to make sure that I stay active as it starts to be too cold to ride my bike. That's right! Free license to be a pain in my ass! What more could you ask for!?!?

It's been tricky to balance Carl's lowered carb eating with my hypoglycemia, but we're doing pretty good. I've been eating a lot of rice and couscous because they're quick to whip up on the side of an otherwise low carb meal. Carl's heartburn is greatly improved and he's lost about 10 lbs.

We're feeling pretty good about things right now, especially as we, just yesterday polished off the end of the first big ol' pot of winter chili! (It was chili verde and it was awesome!)

Wish us luck as we transition from wild, unpredictable PA summer weather into freezing, unpredictable PA winter. I'll enjoy the fall either way, I'm just not sure about the effect on my waistline.

Um, wow.

I signed on tonight because I wanted to brag about my awesome homemade pumpkin butter I made on Halloween and the super good taco soup I made yesterday, I'm seeing that a few posts seem to have gone missing.

I've very confused by this, although, honestly not all that concerned, because I don't really remember them having been anything important. It's more that the two month gaps between posts makes me look like I'm an ass who doesn't bother to update.

Well anyway, the pumpkin butter was made from an actual pumpkin, not the canned crap. We steamed/baked it and then boiled the crap out of it. (Sarah helped keep an eye on this part.) Then I split it in half and made one half into a "No Sugar Added" with some Splenda and the other half got Dark Brown Sugar.

I borrowed Lisa's boat motor (immersion blender) to break up the pieces that I was too impatient to wait for. You know, the one's that were done but hadn't fallen apart yet. Then we added Saigon Cinnamon, Cloves, Allspice and Grated Ginger.

Awesome stuff. I'm actually eating some now mixed into Bob's Red Mill Brown Rice Farina.

Then there was the Taco Soup, which I'm going to post separately as a recipe.