Crock-Pot Pumpkin Butter - Tastes Like Pie!

One of the things that always bothers me about the Halloween season is what a waste it is to just throw away every single part of those pumpkins.  The end result of the attempted mitigation of my guilt was this pumpkin butter.  It uses pumpkin guts instead of cubed pumpkin, and everything is tossed in the slow-cooker.

We went to my parent's house for supper last night, and when we got back the whole house smelled of pumpkin pie.  It was amazing.  

Crock-Pot Pumpkin Butter

• 1 medium pumpkin's guts (About 2 Cups)

• 1/4 cup butter or hard margarine

• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar

• 1/4 cup apple juice

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

• 1/2 tsp nutmeg

• 1/4 tsp ginger

• 1/4 tsp cloves

Separate the pumpkin seeds from the guts.  It's easiest to do if you soak it all in a bowl of water, as the seeds (or most of them!) will simply float to the top.  A few stubborn seeds refused to unstick themselves from the guts, and I left them in.  One or two seeds won't make a huge difference.

In your slow-cooker, combine all the ingredients.  Set on low for 8 hours.  I opened it up to stir around after about 2 hours, just to make sure the butter is all mixed in with the pumpkin.

Now, once it's done, there is a very important step.  Take the lid off, and breathe in.  This smells so much like pumpkin pie, and it tastes like pumpkin pie.  Which is a Gods send, really.  Sean hates pie crust, and now we can just have what is basically pumpkin pie on toast!  Or English Muffins.  Or mixed with cream cheese and whipped cream for an amazing dip...I could go on.

Here, have another picture of it.  I couldn't decide which I liked best.

Who else loves vintage Tupperware?  I thought the orange suited rather well here.  :)  Happy Halloween and Blessed Samhain, everyone!

Stacy

Halloween!

Tomorrow is Halloween. At this point, you don't need me to tell you that.  I would hope not, anyway.

Bugs and I carved a pumpkin this morning.  She rejected all of the stencils that came with the carving kit, deeming them "not scary enough".  She has often said over the past month that our house isn't scary enough for Halloween.  My only decoration (a wreath)  is sorely lacking, it seems.  Apparently, the neighbor's house is appropriately scary, though.

Our beautiful, scary pumpkin.  It, at least, met with approval.  I'm attempting some pumpkin butter and roast pumpkin seeds with the leftover bits...we'll see how that turns out!

Have a Happy Halloween and a Blessed Samhain!

Homemade Pasta Sauce

Once upon a time, a generous coworker gifted me the largest zucchini I have ever seen.  I had no idea what to do with it.  This thing was larger around than my bicep.  Not even joking.

I decided on a pasta sauce, with the whole monstrous thing chopped up and thrown in.

I've made this a couple of times since then, and as you can see, I made a double batch the last time.  Pasta sauce for days.  Months, more likely.

Homemade Pasta Sauce

• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 to 3 celery sticks, chopped
• 2 to 3 carrots, chopped
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2-3 medium zucchini, chopped
• 2 cans mushrooms (with liquid), or 2 cups fresh mushrooms, chopped
• 1 to 3 tsp minced garlic, to taste.  (I may have put way more than that in.)
• 1 lb ground beef
• 1/4 cup red wine
• 1 tbsp cooking sherry
• 2 cups broth (I had chicken broth on hand, but beef would suit better.)
• 1 large can (796ml) crushed tomatoes
• 2 cans (398ml) diced tomatoes
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 2 tsp basil
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Brown ground beef, and set aside.  

In a large saucepan, melt butter.  Saute celery, carrot, and onion together until onion is translucent.  Add garlic, zucchini, and mushrooms.  Saute a minute more.  Pour in red wine, cooking sherry, and stock.  Stir.  Add in ground beef, crushed and diced tomatoes, and spices.

 Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until desired consistency is reached.  For me, this took about 3 hours.  Remove bay leaves before serving or freezing.

This sauce was fantastic.  Meaty taste, full of veggies and a tiny bit of kick from the chili flakes.  The recipe as stated above will serve 4 to 6 people, dependent on appetites and sides of course.  It freezes beautifully.  Make sure to label your freezer bags!

If you make this and like it, let me know!

Happy cooking,

S.

Surrounded by debris, send help!

I sit here in my living room, a cup tea cooling too quickly on my coffee table.  I am lamenting the ruin of my once-clean house.

Ruined, you ask?  By what?

A gaggle of 6 and 7 year-olds.  That's what.

There were so many children in my house yesterday.  It was Brianna's birthday, and I was just so pleased that not all of the children invited showed up.  Six was enough.  I have no idea how parents with more than one child deal with that.  Stronger folk than I, says I.

Brianna is a whole 7 years old now.  She insists, now that she is a whole 7 years old, that she is more mature.  7 year-olds use manners, she tells me.  7 year-olds are responsible, Mom.

I give it a week.

However, something that 7 year-olds apparently do is vibrate with excitement at opening gifts.  I've never seen Brianna that excited before in her whole life.  She literally shook, and then shrieked.  Loudly.

We had it coming.  We bought her a remote control BB-8, which came at the last possible minute.  She's been loving steering it around the house (and man, what a marvel of engineering that thing is for a kids toy) but Sean and I are just waiting for the right opportunity to scare the life out of the cat.

I feel that that should be filmed for posterity.

Hello again!

It's been a while.  A long while.  At least 2 or 3 years.

I just went back and checked my posts.  It's actually been about 4 years, especially since I didn't post a lot on the new domain.

I know - I've said before about other people - that you shouldn't apologise or need to give a reason for being away from your blog.  Honestly though - 4 years.

I know I made a few posts about it on the other domain, but we moved into a new house.  The same week we moved in, I had a miscarriage.  I struggled with some depression after that.  Then, I had so many things going on - trying to make a temple work locally, my degree work, multiple posts a week on here, the books, everything.  I burned myself out.

I've spent much of the last few years in a kind of listless haze.

I'm starting to get over the hump, so to speak.  I needed to recharge, and I've done quite a bit of that.  I won't be jumping back into everything.  I don't want to.  I want to work on things on my own time, and do what feels right for me - which I wasn't really doing before.

No deadlines, no nothing.  I'll be changing a lot on the blog to reflect where I am now, though.

 It's been a bit of a shock to come back and find so many of the blogs and publications I knew were no longer running.  So at least I'm not the only one.  What have you been up to since I've been gone?

Stacy

Moving Day!

Well folks, here it is!  Moving on over to the new domain today.  Go check it out, and enter the giveaway for my newest eCookbook, Sabbat Cooking ~ Beltane!  Just released today.

Go on!  Go!  Check it out!  Tell me what you think in the comments over there while you are entering the giveaway.

http://asimplelifeinspired.com/

Well, this is it!

On April 7th, I'll be switching over to my brand new domain!  It's pretty.  I like it.

I'll also be having a giveaway for my new eCookbook, which will be released that same day!  The catch is - entering for it will be done over at the new site, so you'll all have to come see it if you want to enter!

In the meantime, I'm looking for people to guest post on a specific subject - spirit/totem animals.  If you are interested, message me with the new Timeline message option on my Facebook page.

Busy, busy, busy!

How is everyone else doing?

The Dreaded Sick

Since Friday, I've been trying my very best to pretend to be among the living.  I've generally been acting pretty zombie like.  I haven't been sick thankfully, but Brianna got Croup.  It's been a fun one, I tell ya.  She would only sleep an hour, or an hour and a half, at a time.  She would wake up, cough like mad, and then cry and say "no way, no way" over and over.  It was heartbreaking.

Sean of course is still working 6 days a week, and he still helped out more than he should have, but it just wasn't enough sleep.

Last night, though, Brianna slept through the whole night!  It feels so awesome to get a full night of sleep.  I love it.  I love sleep.  Sleep is awesome.  Brianna is still sick, but getting better finally, thank the Gods.

Now that I'm (almost) back to normal, it's back to catching up on housework, which has been sorely lacking over the past 5 days.  Heh.  It shall be a full day (or two) of cleaning to get everything back to normal.

I also started some of my seeds growing.  We are finally going to container garden this year.  The soil is bought (ours is really bad where we live), we have all the containers.  We are just waiting for the weather to warm up.  Anyone else here just starting their gardening for the year?  What do you grow?

Blessed Ostara!

Ostara Blessings to all my Northern Hemisphere friends, and a Blessed Mabon to those friends in the Southern Hemisphere!

Hope everyone has a lovely time today with whatever they have planned.  We will probably bundle Brianna up and take her out to break the ice on the puddles if it gets a little warmer - it will be good for her throat.  As I type this, I realize I haven't really blogged since this all started, but Brianna has croup.  It feels like it has been forever, but really it has only been since Friday.  She is getting better, but still coughing like mad.

We are planning on doing a family Ostara ritual within the next day or so, depending on how the muffin feels.  What do you all have planned?

A PSA

For some of you, this will be a repeat, but hey.  Repetition is good for the memory, right?

How many here saw Teo Bishop's blog post on changing his name?  The Gods always seem to work these things out well, because this was perfectly timed for me to read.

You see, I've been considering something similar.

Not legally changing my name, because I don't really need to. However, I've been thinking about a switch to the longer version of my name for some time now, which is Anastasia.  "Stacy" doesn't really fit me in many ways anymore.  Needless to say, this has been a very difficult decision, and after talking with many friends and family members, I've decided to go ahead and do it.  If someone wants to know the personal reasoning behind it they are more than welcome to message me, and I'll tell them what I feel comfortable telling.

Suffice it to say, I'm not the person I used to be.  I feel that my name should reflect that.

I will say this:  As I have already talked to many people I respect about this, I feel I have all the thoughts and opinions I need to make this decision.  This was in no way an easy decision - taking a step away from who I used to be - but a necessary one.  If someone (yay for trolls) decides to post a negative comment, I will delete it without posting it.  This is going to be a happy time for me.  Support, however, is always welcome.

Over the next month or two, there will be changes made slowly.  My Facebook accounts will reflect the name page.  My G+ and YouTube accounts will change, so keep an eye out for me to post the new links to those.  I will keep the name Stacy for my writing, and so nothing in that arena will change.  Over the next 6 months to a year (it depends on how much time I have) I will be moving this blog to my own domain - it will be an interesting switch.

For those who know me personally, while I would prefer to be called by my new name, I will not be upset at a slip up.  I'll probably only gently correct it.  Stacy is still part of my name, after all.  There are a few people I don't expect to make the change.  If they do, it will surprise the heck out of me -  like Sean, and my parents.

So, I hope you all follow me across the interwebz as make this change, and subscribe/like wherever I end up.

Thanks, all.

The Sunday Dinner

There have been numerous sources state about the detriment it is that families don't eat at the table together anymore.  Something that I haven't seen a lot of though is the lack of Sunday dinners.

It wouldn't even have to be on Sunday.  Any day.  The whole family, gathering together for a special meal - not your normal weekday fair.  Maybe the Grandparents would come.  There would be a tablecloth, maybe even those special salt and pepper shakers received as a wedding gift, used only on what is deemed a special occasion.  The places are set just so.

It ceases to be a meal.  It becomes a ritual.  The ritual of the Sunday dinner.  Or Friday dinner, or Wednesday dinner.  Whatever works for the family.  It's more than just food, or the day it is on.  It is about community, and communal eating.  We aren't that far removed from societies who would live together, learn together, and survive together as a family.  Cooking and eating was communal - part of the reason potlucks are still so popular, I suspect.

The Sunday dinner gives us that time to be with the rest of our "tribe".  In a group with many ties together, by blood or choice.  It gives the opportunity for us to gather as we once did - as a community.  Pagans are awesome at this - we are seemingly addicted to potlucks.  So why save the communal eating just for major events?

What do you think?  Does your family still have a Sunday dinner?

Sabbat Cooking - Beltane!

Hey, All!  Guess what's here?!

This cookbook is filled less with seasonal things (although they are still there) and more with foods specific to symbolism.  Spice, Aphrodisiacs, and pure deliciousness.  


Here is the blurb from it's page:  
"Beltane - the time of year for honouring love, fertility and the sun. Beltane foods focus on spice and aphrodisiacs - with seasonal foods mixed in. 

This eBook contains recipes for appetizers, side dishes, mains, and desserts. Recipes with oysters, fruits, and oats, amongst many other ingredients, can all be found inside. Also included are the magickal properties in many of the ingredients, as well as ways to utilise them while cooking. This interesting eBook is a great addition to your collection. "

It's set to be released April 7th - it's coming up quick!  


Closer to the day I'll be posting a picture of one of the recipes here...or, if you want to see it early, you can "like" my author page on Facebook, where it is already posted!

Goddess Bless,
Stacy

Timeline

Well, I've taken the plunge.  Upgraded to Timeline for my Facebook Page.

I'm not sure I like it, but since they are forcing everyone to make the change I might as well get it over with.  Apparently, it makes it more difficult to use Networked Blogs...we shall see.  I'm going to be in the process of switching my Author page over as well, but I'm a little stumped on what to use for a cover image.  Any suggestions?

By the by, I may be MIA for a day or two.  Our gentle snowstorm which started yesterday evening is slowly turning into a raging blizzard, so our internet might go out.

Goddess Bless,
Stacy

Vlog # 2

Hey all.  Second vlog went up today.  The editing is kind of....bad.  Yes.  Bad.  I'm getting better though, lol.

Thanks for watching!

Goddess Bless,
Stacy

Liturgy: Coming of Age

First, some awesome personal news - it is official, we no longer have any debt except our house - no credit card debt, no consolidation loan debt - It's all payed off!  We are still kind of in shock.  Now, on to the post! 'Tis a short one today.  

As in my previous post on Liturgy, I talked a little about the coming of age ritual(s) I want to write for my reference book.  So, what makes a child come of age?

For a girl, the main indicator is menstruation.  For boys, there is no physical marker - unless you wish to go by the not-oft followed thought that the main indication for boys is their first wet dream.  There is the option to go by age for boys - 13 being thought of as the proper age.  Yet, what about mentally?  Both boys and girls go through mental changes at this time.  Maybe they finally get their own house key, stay up later, are able to finish what they start (most of the time).

So here is my next question for you:  In your opinion, what things mark a child's coming of age?

Goddess Bless,
Stacy

Liturgy

Within the past couple of weeks, I've begun writing a personal liturgy book.  I need it in two senses, one in that it's on my 3rd Degree (which, if I didn't say it, I'll say it now!  I finished my 2nd Degree, haha!) which I didn't know until after I started it, but mainly I wanted to make one because of my Clergy position within the community.

If someone comes to me and says "I NEED this ritual done in 3 days, can you do it?" I can have something ready to go.  I'm trying to cover all my bases, so to speak - and in the process of it, have been having some interesting thoughts.

For one, I've discovered I think differently than a lot of people do on Coming of Age rituals.  I think that there are two parts to them - one with family and friends present, which is what I personally call a Coming of Age - an acknowledgement and recognition of the new adult presence in the family, and the young adult's acceptance of greater responsibility within the family.  The second part would be initiation into the mysteries of their specific sex.  So much of what I've seen is specifically about the initiation into the mysteries, but I think that really misses a large part of the equation.  Not only for the new young adult, but for their family - being able to acknowledge that the child is no longer simply a child, but a complex human with his/her own experiences that will help direct them on their path.

I've also been asking around a little bit, getting opinions on what the most important ritual is and why.  I've gotten a lot of different answers, but now I want yours!  So here is the question of the day:  What, to you, is the most important ritual, and why?  Handfasting?  Initiation?  Coming of Age?  Eldering?  Something else entirely?  

I'm looking forward to the answers!

Goddess Bless,

Stacy

A post in which (*sigh*) I sort of ruin Valentine's Day

So, Sunday evening.  Sean and I are talking while each doing our own thing.  After a few minutes of easy silence, he says, "What are our finances like right now?"

My first reaction, of course, is panic.

"Why?  What happened?  What broke?  Did something happen with the car?"

"No," He says.  "Why can't I know?"

"I mean, I like when you actually show an interest in finances," I say.  "I just get worried when it's out of the blue."

"Honey..." He says with a sigh.  "Tuesday."

"Tuesday?  Is this about your prescription getting filled?  We can afford that.  Or your blood work?"

"What else is Tuesday?" He asks, a little more exasperated now.

"Our date night?"

"VALENTINES.  Tuesday is VALENTINES."

"Oh.  OH!  Ohh..."

Yeah.  So then he spouted off about how hard it was to ever surprise me with anything.  We had a good laugh about it, and I assured him that I would forget about it by then since I forgot it was even coming.  Which was a fib, because since he is planning on doing something for me I want to do something for him, which requires me thinking about it.

So that is how I sort of ruined Valentine's Day.

Goddess Bless,
Stacy

Cycles - in Life

Did you ever hear that luck comes in threes?  That three good things will happen, then three bad, then three good, repeating over and over?  Wicca and many other branches of Paganism are all about cycles  - the Wheel of the Year, any of the Triple Goddesses, and the idea of Maiden, Mother and Crone.  Being that most of Paganism is based on a form of Nature worship, we take our spiritual cycles from nature - the changing moon, the seasons, and of course the cycle of birth to death.

So many things happen in cycles, even if we are not aware of them.  There a couple of things that have made me think about this a lot lately.  In my personal life, I see evidence of a Karmic-like cycle - what goes around comes around.  As a specific example I gave to my Dad yesterday, I've been doing a lot of fundraising and charity work over the last few months - and now Sean has his promotion (8 months early, I might add) and over the next couple of months, that raise.  To me it is a great (and very specific to money, strangely enough) example of what you do coming back.  Could it be coincidence?  Sure it could.  I choose not to look at it that way, though.  

On a larger scale, another area I'm noticing a cycle shift in is the human rights movement, in particular the GLBT rights movement.  This Ellen Degeneres/JC Penneys thing going on right now is a huge part of that.  The fight for GLBT rights is the next part of the human rights cycle.  I'm just going to pick a random point in history to start here - say the reformation.  The fight for the right to believe something other than what the Catholic Church said was right.  Take a few more jumps, look at the fight for women's voting.  Look at the fight for African American rights.  After each of these struggles for equality, the majority of people assumed that all was well - there were no more rights battles to fight.  Now the tide is turning in the GLBT battle.  It will continue, and it there will still be struggles, but more ground has been gained than has been lost.  Closer to the Pagan side of things, look at what Ginger Strivelli is doing for religious equality.  I think within the next 20 years we will see a new shift towards life rights instead of human rights - all living things deserve to be treated fairly, not just humans.  Who knows where these fights will go - but it will never be completely finished.  Such is the nature of something cyclical.  History repeats itself, after all.  

What cycles have you noticed, both in your personal life and on a larger scale?

Goddess Bless,

Stacy

As a Note:  This post isn't exactly what I wanted it to be - my words aren't working this morning!  I felt it was a neat topic though, and not something that my brain would ever figure itself out on, so I posted it anyway.  Yay for weekends?

What a Week

Hey All!

Read through, even if it looks boring, haha.  There is we got some AWESOME news which I'll share at the end of the post.

Thanks so much for the awesome response to my first Vlog - I definitely think I will be doing more of them, especially if life continues in this crazy busy way.  Even just doing that first Vlog, I learned a lot - I saw "Um" far too much, and lose my train of thought far to easily!  But, that is the point.  I got my first piece of Troll hate, and was really impressed that they took the time to make a new account and send me a private message to tell me how awful and ugly I am, lol.  I got 4 words in, realized what it was, and deleted it.  It made me giggle.  So, would you guys like to see me vlog more?  Yay or nay?

Sean went to the Doctor yesterday, to see the final results from his tests (except for the one that hasn't been scheduled yet).  About a year ago, Sean had gotten bloodwork done and we were told that his bad cholesterol was in a good range, but his good cholesterol was a little low.  So we changed a bunch of things, and this last round of bloodwork which we got the results of yesterday showed that his good cholesterol has gone up, but so has his bad cholesterol - still within normal range, though.  That's it.  That was the only thing "wrong".  They still can't find a reason why everything happened.  Regardless, because of Sean's family history of heart disease, Sean and the Doctor decided that Sean should start taking medication for blood pressure and cholesterol now - just because he is on the high side of normal and has the history.  I'm glad that Sean has decided to be proactive about it.

We've been in a crazy flurry of cleaning over the past couple of days, because we are getting a bunch of new furniture super cheap; the reason for which I will tell you at the end of this post because it is AWESOME.  We are getting a China hutch, an antique phone table, two end tables, a computer desk and an office chair.  For $110.  So, we are sorting stuff.

Now, the awesome stuff?  Since it is finally official, I can say it.  Sean's boss has been out here in Alberta for years, but his plan was always to go back home to Ontario once he had enough money.  They put their trailer up for sale last year and were having trouble selling it, because they wanted WAY too much money for it.  Well, the papers were signed yesterday - it sold!!!!  Why am I so excited about this?

Well, we get cheap furniture, because they don't want to take it back to Ontario.

Mostly though, it means a promotion and a HUGE raise for Sean.  Like an extra 4 dollars an hour.

FOUR.

Seriously.
SERIOUSLY.

Yes, so we are excited.  Back to cleaning for new furniture!

Goddess Bless,
Stacy

First Vlog!

Go easy on me!  I, of course, can only notice horrible things about this video...heh.