Ready for Halloween

Aldi is so cool because they don't sell their produce by weight. So I got us a 30-pound pumpkin there for a flat $3.99. We carved it into a howling wolf. Maybe it will win us a prize at the pumpkin-carving contest this Friday. We have tricks and treats ready for Trunk-or-Treating and we'll bring our best chili for the Chili Cook-off contest too.

I'm treating the pumpkin again to keep it fresh after carving. It worked pretty well last year, so we'll keep doing that from now on. I dunked the whole thing into a gallon of lukewarm water with 1 tsp bleach to kill the bacteria to keep it from going bad too quickly. I just put it out on a towel upside down to air-dry. Once it's dry I'll spread a solution of 2 Tablespoons of vinegar, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, and 1 quart of water onto the flesh of the pumpkin to keep it fresh.

Coming up with a great design is the hardest part of pumpkin carving. We looked at a website where you can find hundreds of beginner-easy to hard-advanced printable designs for FREE!

We saved all our pumpkin seeds too so we could toast them for a snack. I also saved some seeds from the acorn squash we had for dinner last week. I made one batch into a salty-spicy mix and the other into kettle corn flavor. Both are yummy!