Weekend Coffee Share....Come Sit with Me

It's another week of Weekend Coffee Share. I always love everyone's posts. Are you like me and try to visit everyone? It doesn't always happen but I try. I have loved getting to know different bloggers and I figure if they take the time to write a post, I'll find the time to visit, even if it's a week later. I truly enjoy what you all share and I often learn so much. 

Check out all the other posts on Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer. I'm off to go visit some now. #weekendcoffeeshare.

If we were having coffee we'd probably talk about:

The weather: Off and on rain and dry days, which is the norm this time of year. We get excited when we see a sun on the weather app, even if it's partially covered by a cloud, and we push through when we see nonstop clouds and raindrops. Fall has made an appearance and the leave finally decided to turn. While I don't like the rain, I love fall and the colors it brings before the leaves all fall to the ground. 

Around the house: We have cut a few more trees down on our property. It will let more light in, and give us more room to move blueberries etc for whenever we get around to building a garage (that is still up in the air). I did get outside and pull some weeds, pulled up my tomato plants (and hoping that the deer don't decide to help themselves to the other plants, since they seemed happy to munch on the tomatoes). 

For the love of food: One of the many things I love about fall is roasting pumpkin seeds. My favorite pumpkin for seeds has been the Kakai pumpkin which has hulless seeds in them (since I hate trying to chew regular pumpkin seeds thoroughly I love these green seeds). This year the patch carried a new variety called the Naked Bear. They have the exact same type of seeds and the small pumpkin is jam packed with seeds. I made two batches of seeds. We love to eat them by the handful or on salads, soups, and even baked potatoes. For 2 cups of seeds (that I rinse and try to dry as much as possible) I melt 1 1/2 Tbs of butter, 1-2 tsp of worcestershire sauce and 1 1/4 tsp. salt. Sometimes I adjust the amounts. Toss this with the seeds, spread on baking sheet or two (you don't want them too crowded or they won't cook evenly) and bake at 250-300 until crisp. It's fun to hear them "pop" in the oven. My second batch, I actually spread on a cookie sheet and put in a barely warm oven to dry them out a bit more as they just felt too wet even after I tried drying them with a towel.

I've also made a few soups, bringing back this oldie, Broccoli and wild rice soup. The original recipe called for frozen broccoli and uncles bens wild rice soup but over the years I've changed it up. Baked potatoes with seasoned ground beef, steamed broccoli and vegan cheese sauce has also made an appearance twice. 

I also made stuffed peppers twice (they're easy and I often put them in the crockpot), and a chicken pot pie (which I haven't made in awhile). 

For the love of reading: I got quite a bit of reading done. I missed linking my #WOYBS post because we had just gotten back from our trip and I was scrambling. Here's that link if you want to see what I read in September. I had reached my goal of 75 books a month or two ago for the Goodreads challenge, so I upped it to 100, I'm at 83 books currently. Currently I'm reading The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. This was for our passalong book club and was my October read. I didn't finish it but checked it out at the library so I could finish it, as it is fascinating. Shadows of Serenity: A Culinary Cozy Mystery Set in Thailand by Sabina O. is one I downloaded for an Amazon Cozy Mystery club read. I'll finish it but it's "just okay" and doesn't really seem to have much to do with anything culinary. 

What we're listening to or watching: I just finished two audiobooks in a series and have a third on hold. I was captivated by the Kamogawa Food Detective series by Hisashi Kashiwai. I plan to read/listen to more by the author. I'm currently listening to The Booklovers Library by Madeline Martin as part of the 52 book club challenge. It fits the theme for a crossover with the prompt a shared universe. I plan to read/listen to another book that fits in the category, The Last Bookshop in London written by the same author. 

I've also listened to a few podcasts. If we were having coffee I'd ask if you had any you enjoy listening to. 

A Favorite quote: I especially like the part of "the world is wider than I remembered". 

Favorite photo:

Our hill in the fall is my favorite. 

Very cool clouds at the pumpkin patch just a few minutes apart. 

My co-worker and I dressed up as Thing 1 and Thing 2. We were shocked at the number of people who did not know who Thing 1 and Thing 2 were. 


Random or not so random things:

I'm working on a series of posts on our Colorado trip. First post is up on Planning the trip. Find it here. 

The pumpkin patch season is done and I have my weekends back and hopefully can get back to consistent posting. I tried a few times to post to #Weekendcoffeeshare, but ended up just deleting the posts because I couldn't get them finished. I'm getting better at letting go of FOMO and posting when it works for me. The season at The Patch is always fun, though this year I struggled a bit with it and I think it's because we were gone on our trip, came back and hit the ground running and there was just a lot going on outside of working there. I'm always glad I did it, but I'm rarely sad when it's done. It's more of a "that was fun, see you next year" kind of feeling. 

Our oldest daughter turns 30 this month. WOW! 

With Joy Unquenchable,

Kirstin