Headless Horseman Strikes the Garden

With Halloween around the corner, we all know that monsters might appear at any time of day or night, but the mere picking of our first orange sugar pumpkin brought to our garden…duhn Duhn DUHN… the Headless Horseman!

There it is, our first orange sugar baby.
 

I spent the evening creating this Pumpkin Cheesecake with Chocolate Crust using a fantastic recipe I found at The Hungry Mouse. It’s made with cognac. Enough said. Well, not enough — I want to add kudos to Jessie for her detailed photos and instructions on the making of this yummy and divine dessert.

But alas, I confess that I resorted to canned pumpkin to make it. Here’s what happened: When I cut open that little sugar pumpkin that passed all its tests on ripeness, I found that there was a fair amount of green mixed in with the orange inside. I honestly didn’t know whether a little green was okay, but as the pumpkin was already cut open, I went ahead and scooped out the seeds and pulp and baked it. I figured I’d give it a taste test after baking and decide then what to do, all the while feeling pretty much like a pumpkin murderer knowing that there was a good chance I wouldn’t use it.

Well, the baking went fine, but when I tasted it, my first sugar pumpkin, I couldn’t tell whether it tasted the way it was supposed to, so I erred on the side of safety and decided to open a can of pumpkin. Well, it turns out that the canned pumpkin tasted exactly the same, so I could have used my little sugar pumpkin, but it was too late!

But the good news is that I remembered that pumpkin is good in a variety of ways for dogs, so the little orange-greenish pumpkin will not go to waste. I’ve already given some to the dogs, and tomorrow I hope to try my hand at making pumpkin dog treats, perfect for the holidays. I might also try making some muffins or other yummy human treat.

The cheesecake is for today’s annual pumpkin carving party at our friends Stepan and Jennifer’s house. It’s our first year growing our own jack-o-lanterns, which have been behind schedule due to the hot summer and fall rains. But we chose three of our 10 growing pumpkins for early carving. Two are small, and one is still a bit green, but we grew these for carving, so carve them we will! The other seven pumpkins still on the vine will be for carving later in the week or for fall decorating.

My yard is going to look so empty after I have to remove all these pumpkin vines…