Pro-Soup Propaganda

I am also excited that we got a little pumpkin! When I was younger my dad and I had quite the Halloween tradition. We would select the perfect pumpkin and then I would take several pieces of paper and draw a bunch of different eye options on some, nose options on some, and then some mouth options. We'd put each type in their own bowl and then I'd select a set of eyes, nose, and a mouth from each bowl, raffle-style. We named the pumpkin "Gordy 7," the number being whatever age I was that year. (So this year the pumpkin will be "Gordy 28.") Gordy would go live outside on our deck with in the "gourd pan" with the "gourd light" inside him. Gordy would usually live throughout the winter, frozen on our deck, and then eventually would get pretty gross when it started to thaw. We would usually clean Gordy up around February, I think. I don't plan on letting this little Gordy go until 2012, but it's (weirdly) fond memories. ;o)

When we got home we finished cleaning the apartment and I set out to start roasting my first chicken! I was using kind of a combination of this recipe and this recipe. I learned in the end that next time I will probably do 375* for one hour. I did 350* for 55 minutes and the chicken and veggies still weren't done at all, so I turned the oven up to 375* for 40 more minutes and then it was perfect. If you have a tried-and-true roast chicken recipe I'd love to hear it! I also was using a Pyrex baking dish with foil tented over it because I found out our Dutch oven needs to have the stainless knob put on it for me to use it how I'd like.

Before! (Why does not using flash make my kitchen so yellow? :oP)

After! The chicken smelled awesome and was so moist and delicious!

For veggies I used potatoes, celery, rainbow carrots, onion, and mushrooms. YUM!!

I fried up the giblets for Halo, who was begging for them while they were still cooking.

I'm glad she liked them!

I saved the veggie bits (and the chicken bones) for stock, which I'll make later. Mmmm...

Today's adventure is going to the zoo, which we haven't been to since June of 2008! We got coupons through Groupon and Living Social for both the corn maze and the zoo, so we're able to do it cheaply. Pretty nice!