Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere!

I've been having fun reading about pumpkins and squash lately. Here are a few things I've learned you can do with them. Ok, I already know about most of it, but these are some of the more eye-catching web pages I've seen.

Carve a jack-o-lantern in your favorite silly, scary, using nifty tools and a basic template
or get more involved with specialty carving techniques
A friend carved this one for us early in the season:


Underwater Pumpkin Carving - yes, you really can carve a pumpkin under water!

Paint fun faces or designs on them, sometimes with a 4-H club

Make lots of delicious treats with the flesh and the seeds.
Like pie, custard, muffins, waffles, cheesecake and about half a dozen more just on the linked page! This applies to both pumpkins and squashes - and with squashes' slightly varying flavors, you can experiment with any recipe for subtle taste changes.

Roasting squash seeds: I like to cut open small squashes of two or three different kinds and roast all the seeds the same way, then compare their flavors. My favorite so far is Delicata seeds, which is also my favorite squash for a quick, microwaved treat.

You can take stop-action footage of a carved pumpkin wilting. Or you can just look at a video in a stock footage collection.

And here are some of my personal favorites:

You can visit a pumpkin patch and let fly on a pumkpin launcher


and then watch it zip over the terrain -or pond- as far as you can make it go!















And of course, you can spend time with your family choosing just the right pumpkin to become the canvas for your own artwork. Visiting a pumpkin patch with a hayride and other family activities is one of the best ways to spend a weekend afternoon!

My New Favorite Veggie: Purple Potatoes

We started growing these last year, and all winter long when I'd go to the potato boxes I would reach for the purples before any other. These relatively uncommon tubers have flesh that ranges in hue from dark blue to lavender, sometimes mixed with a little white. They have a subtle nutty flavor; we think they taste even more "potato-y" than many white or yellow potatoes. Microwaving preserves the color the best, but steaming and baking are also favorable methods of preparation. When boiling, it's fun to watch the water change color! In fact, if you leave the skin on, prepare to see your potato water become a lovely shade of green. Since it's purple inside and out, the pigments make it very high in antioxidants - more, I've heard it said, than blueberries, pound for pound!

Here are a few ideas for adding this tasty, nutritious spud to your menu:

Combine it with other potatoes and veggies when doing roasted veggies

Mash some of these babies, and separately mash a lovely orange-colored winter squash, or sweet potatoes. Serve them side by side, or gently swirled together in a serving bowl.

Roast a couple and toss them with a baked spaghetti squash.

Prepare them as you would any other potato and surprise the family!

How about a specific recipe? This one's Fork Crushed Purple Potatoes

Enjoy!

What's that Moth?

From MSU's Landscape Alerts:

Butterflies and Moths on the Internet
Duke Elsner, MSUE Educator, Grand Traverse County

The Internet is loaded with sites that provide information on moths and butterflies. The great challenge in using these sites is picking out the good ones with accurate and useful information. I’ve been exploring these for some time now, and here are my favorites for help with the identification of butterflies and moths:

Butterflies and Moths of North America
http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/ This is a searchable database of verified butterfly and moth records in the United States and Mexico. It includes dynamic distribution maps, photographs, species accounts, and species checklists for every U.S. county and each Mexican state.

The Children’s Butterfly Site
http://www.kidsbutterfly.org/ This is a companion site to the Butterflies and Moths of North America, intended for a youth audience.

North American Moth Photographers Group
http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/MainMenu.shtml The Moth Photographers Group is a non-profit organization with the purpose of aiding nature photographers and others in identifying moths. Their goal is to make accessible via the Internet photographs of most of the moths occurring in North America.

Images of North American Moth Species
http://eweb.furman.edu/~snyderjohn/leplist/ Access and links to photos of caterpillar and adult forms of thousands of North American moth species.

North America Butterfly Association
http://www.naba.org/ This the largest association in North America of people interested in butterflies. Its goal is to increase public enjoyment and conservation of butterflies. Their site includes information for locating and identifying butterflies, how to create successful butterfly gardens, and how to photograph butterflies.

Southeast Michigan Butterfly Association
http://www.sembabutterfly.com/index.html A great source of local information for Southeast Michigan, with links to many resources.