Baked Pumpkin Fruit Salad

So, I'm baking pumpkins galore when I realize that both...yes, both...of the recipes that I'm making call for brown sugar. I haven't had brown sugar since Christmas.

I look up a recipe on making a brown sugar substitute, which calls for molasses. Really? If I had molasses on hand, I'd probably have brown sugar, too. So, I looked up a substitute for molasses. Now, we're getting somewhere!

I found this recipe for Baked Stuffed Pumpkin and it called for a fruity filling, rather than custard or pumpkin pie filling. A couple of modifications for things we have on hand and things we like to eat, and we have a tasty treat.



BAKED PUMPKIN FRUIT SALAD

1 medium sugar (pie) pumpkin
4 apples, cored and chopped
1 cup walnuts
1 (14-16 oz) can whole berry cranberry sauce
1 (20 oz) can pineapple chunks
1 (15.25 oz) can unpeeled apricot halves
1 (11 oz) can mandarin oranges
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground nutmeg

1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Make sure oven setting is center rack.

2.) Cut off the top of the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds.

3.) In a large bowl, combine the fruit, nuts, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Spoon mixture into pumpkin.

4.) Place pumpkin on a baking sheet or baking pan. Bake for 1 hour & 30 minutes, or until the pumpkin starts to get soft. After it's baked, stir the mixture to get some for the soft pumpkin flesh mixed with the apple mixture.

Meet our son, Nicholas David-Alger

I know that I haven't written a blog in forever. Life has been crazy busy, but I'm going to *try* to make the time to do it a little more often. We'll see how that goes.

IT'S A BOY!

October 11th was my BIG ultrasound to see how the baby was growing and to see if baby would show us the goods to find out the gender.

As soon as the tech got a clear shot of the baby in my belly, it was very obvious that baby was a boy. Very obvious. Throughout the ultrasound, he would wiggle and roll to show off his baby boy bits.

His measures a little bit big, but the radiologist wasn't concerned. He'll probably just be bigger than his older sister was.

Either way, the name was picked out. Both honored family members.

His first name, Nicholas, is Daddy's middle name. As for the first-middle name, David, that is Daddy's first name. Alger is a family name that goes back at least 3 generations. Nick will be the 4th generation to have the name Alger.

We get to take another peak at Baby Nick at the beginning of December. Nicholas is due to arrive February 23, 2011.