Gator Pam

For the pumpkin purée, I cooked the pumpkins one at a time in the Instant Pot. The skin falls right off, the flesh separates easily from the seeds. Puréed in the blender and liquid squeezed out. I use a store bought graham cracker crust. Easy and yummy.

Thanksgiving prep is underway. Turkey is thawed and dry brining. Giblet broth is made. Homemade poultry stock is thawing. Pie pumpkin has been cooked down into pumpkin purée. Cranberry orange sauce will be made tomorrow.

I honestly thought I wasn't purchasing anything. Then, I saw the announcement for Grim Oak Press' Black Friday sale. Just an announcement of date and time, and phots of some of the seconds being offered, but no actual list of titles or prices. Still, if the items are severely discounted, the quality of Grim Oak Press' editions, even warehouse seconds, will make trying to get them worthwhile.

If you're on Facebook or Twitter, and would like to see the progress on my tattoos so far, feel free to visit either or both of these links. Same photos on both, but be aware they are photos of my bare reconstructed breasts. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1490173147676194/posts/pfbid02Mrmekfo1CDZwRbPikcVfd1Z8iBDujCLUz1kN8NHwpcBquiLBdjPKVr6GkJQ256rKl/?mibextid=Nif5oz Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/IllumeEltanin/status/1593427316814008320

I understand about doing keto/low carb during festive Meals. I'm at the point where I'm comfortable splurging on holidays,but if you want me to point you in the direction of favorite keto recipe sites to help build your menu, let me know. For instance, Pressure Luck Cooking recently posted a green bean casserole recipe made in the Instant Pot, which except for the French fries onions is completely keto, as far as I can tell. No cream of soups or any fillers that I see.

Yesterday Tattoos by KJ and I got together and did shading on my dragon and phoenix mastectomy tattoos. Pretty much immediately after, Krystin had a radio interview about P.ink Greater Seattle. The interview starts at about 30 minutes in and has a lot of good information for people not familiar with the organization. ...and my tattoo is very briefly mentioned. If your on Facebook, you can listen to a recorded stream of it at: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=667043704861887&id=283303208173

Congratulations!

Everyone got their Thanksgiving menu ready? My turkey is bought and defrosting, but that's as far as I've gotten. Menu will most likely be our carb heavy feast, i.e., crockpot stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potato casserole, and green bean casserole.

On October 23rd I posted an update in last year's prize thread about hanging and wrapping my green tomatoes. You can see that post at: https://forums.gottadeal.com/topic/341927-gottadeal-2022-black-friday-prize-club-thread/?p=1526247 Three weeks later, I still have quite a few green tomatoes. So, today I attempted low carb fried green tomatoes with a couple of them. Not bad. Not bad at all.

If I was shopping for littles, the best deal for me is the Barbie or Hot Wheels Powerwheels Jeep for $88.

What I'm calling my "prize" tomato has ripened on the hanging Vines in the solarium...

The prize should be super awesome. 20 year anniversary of GottaDeal. 5 year anniversary of Prize Club. Let's do this!

Congratulations!

Y'all do you. For me, especially as November has Thanksgiving, which I love to cook for, and Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I say...

Rabbit Rabbit! Rabbit!!

I'm subbing at a middle school in the office this week, and the office staff are dressed as Starbucks baristas today. They emailed me a couple of weeks ago about it, so I could take part. How fun!

1. For my budget and giftees, Walmart. 2. I anticipate not buying anything this year, so am not planning on hitting the brick and mortar stores at all on Black Friday. If anything should jump out at me while I'm online, I may check it out. But, I'm currently not even planning on looking at ads. 3. I've never participated, but I loved reading about the several day camp out line ups at Best Buy. I would love for the in-store sales to justify that happening again and reading about the experience of those who do so.

Congratulations!

Even though this year's prize has been sent out, I'm missing the off topic updates from everyone. What have y'all been up to? Our extended dry summer here on the Eastside of Seattle was predicted to end Thursday night/Friday morning with the prediction of our day long gray skies and all day mist/rain returning. Yay! The air quality here from wildfires, and the fires themselves, have been awful. I have been taking advantage of the dry weather, and left my tomatoes on the vine, as they were planted late and most of them are still green and hard as rocks. This novice gardener has heard I can still ripen my tomatoes 'on the vine' by clipping them, bundling them together, and hanging them upside down in a protected space. I spent Thursday afternoon doing so, and wound up with three hanging bundles, as well as a window ledge of tomatoes which fell off the vine wrapped in newspaper. I'm glad I got this done, as yesterday morning we had a pretty intense hail storm for about 5 minutes. If it hailed as hard in the community garden where my box garden is located, I think I would have lost most, if not all, of the tomatoes. I need to drive by and see how my collard greens and chard weathered the hail storm. But, I've been told those vegetables are hardy and can go through the first frost, so I'm hoping if slightly damaged that they'll bounce back. Has anyone else done this with tomatoes? Does it work?

Huzzah!

Photo #1: How much is that toddler in the window? The one with the cute yellow car? How much is that toddler in the window? His imagination will carry him far! Photo #2: "All clear to the right." "All clear to the left." Here we are Stuck in the middle with you. Photo #3: "I dunno, hon. Maybe we're carrying this Baby Shark theme too far?"

I make vanilla essence in the Instant Pot. The recipe claims it's ready right away, but I still like to do it a couple of months ahead. The IP gives it a definite head start,though.

bah... Sometimes I forget to do some things I've been looking forward to doing for quite awhile. This year is my first year with a garden box at Marymoor Community Garden. I planted my first ever heirloom tomatoes, two Chocolate Stripes from starts by the local TomatoLady. We got a late start due to waiting for the boxes to be constructed, but the plants are thriving and are full of fruit, although most are still green. However, I just cut into the first ripe tomato, which is delicious! ...but I forgot to take any photos. Hopefully I'll remember with the next one. It's an unusual coloring.