Earth Mother in an RV

I decided this afternoon that since Halloween and Thanksgiving are now officially over, it was probably time to do something with the two little pumpkins that have graced my outside table with their orangey autumn presence since I got here in October. They've been outside the whole time, and since the weather has been mostly temperate during the days and frigid at night, they still look pretty good. The earth mother in me refused to just throw them in the trash; somehow that didn't seem right. There aren't any cows nearby to eat them. Hmm...guess I could cook them. I used to cook pumpkins all the time. But, that was before microwave ovens. The whole process was messy. Cut them up in cubes, boil on the stove, let cool, then scrape the insides out. Oh, and be sure to save and roast the seeds. I never thought of just baking the things, so it's probably a good thing pumpkin-cooking time only came once a year.

Because of a dealer-error, my little RV has only a microwave oven. When I want to bake something, I use my Kenmore toaster/convection oven on the counter. Well, it's not really on the counter since there really isn't a counter. Actually, I removed the lid from the three-burner propane cooktop and balanced the toaster oven over the back two burners. I'd never use them anyway. That leaves the large front burner accessible. Perfect. But, no way was I going to bake pumpkins in the toaster oven. Nope, it would be the microwave or the trash.

I cut open the little creatures and scraped out their guts and seeds, then cut them into fairly large pieces. Stuck them, by turns, on a microwaveable-plate, covered them with plastic wrap, and proceeded to nuke them until their insides turned soft. Cooled them off on a tray, then scraped out the insides. So easy! No watery mess to contend with; just nice, soft pumpkin guts, perfect for pies, soup, bread, cookies. . . .mouth watering yet?

A few days ago I wrote about needing to garden. When my son asked me what I wanted for my birthday and Christmas this year, I went to the Amazon.com website and made a wish list which included three container gardening books. Wonder if you can grow a garden on top of an RV? Pumpkins might be a bit much, though.