Roasting pumpkins, Soup and muffins, Reading

I found this link that tells how to  cook pumpkins really easy. It is the way that I usually do it, but she detailed it so easily!Cooking pumpkin link

I made Apple Cheese muffins yesterday. They did not rise terribly high, but were really good with our soup last night. Our soup was wonderful!  Here are the recipes below!

Roasted Chicken vegetable soup

I roasted a chicken and a pan of roasted vegetable and made extra to save for the soup. I took potatoes, carrots (sliced) and 4 cloves of garlic minced and a T of oil and cook until soft and brown on the bottom. Then i took the leftover chicken and the juice from it and added to the leftover potatoes vegetable mixture.

I simmered the  chicken bone with some celery ends  and some salt to taste for about 2 hours. <p> The next day I added some more potatoes, diced carrots and celery. Cook until tender then add cooked leftover vegetables and chicken. Add 1 t. parsley and salt and pepper to taste.  It was really good! This made a big pot! Enough for our family for dinner, another small family for dinner and enough for our dinner tonight! <p>

Apple Cheese Muffins

I found these in one of my cookbooks-

1 1/2 c. flour

1/2 c. finely grated cheddar cheese (I doubled the recipe and used about a 1/2 of cup)

1/3 c. quick cooking oats

2 T. sugar

2 1/2 t. baking powder

1/4 t. salt

1 beaten egg

3/4 c. milk (I used powdered milk)

1/3 c. oil

3/4 c. finely chopped apple (I used all the apples that children ate and left some of the core still)

Mix dry ingredients and cheese. Make a well. Add wet ingredients inside this.  Combine. Mixture will be lumpy. Fold in apples.  Fill greased muffin cups 2/3 full and bake at 400 for 18-20 min.

I also made 2 loaves of bread with wheat flakes in them. I have not tried it yet as it is for dinner tonight, but I sent one over to the person’s house for dinner

I  read Exodus last night by Leon Uris. I watched the movie when I was younger and then again recently and although it is such a sad, sad movie, it really details the conflict in the  Middle East in the beginning and the struggle  over there.  I had started the book a long time ago (like when I was 16), but never finished it.  I am glad I finally did as it ends slightly better than the movie which leaves you feeling slightly hopeless and depressed.  It reminded me of  the Zion Chronicles by Bodie Thoene.  I read those also as a teenager, and  wonder how people keep living over there. But  all through this  you have these Jews who lived through the horrors of the camps, now fighting back for their country, they wanted their own nation. You have the family disagreements, the dead of course, the bombs and in the middle you have  the fact that this is the Bible Land and they are quoting bible verses all through it. One verse Isa. 59:10 was interesting to me that was quoted: “We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes. We stumble at the noonday as in the night, we are in the desolate places as dead men. ” She was thinking of it in reference to the Jewish people who came out of the Holocaust. <p>

Anyhow,  these stories always affect me somehow, I am maybe easily affected, but maybe also because I have read many, many of the true stories to know the struggles. It is 474 page book and it was put into a book with 2 others, so that was only one third of the book I had. I spent all evening reading it, but it was harder to sleep again afterwards.