Tonight's Dinner: November 2, 2012

Tonight for dinner I finally made the pumpkin stew that I've been planning all week.  Nick helped me hollow it out while I prepared all of the veggies for the stew.  He seasoned the inside with EVOO and salt and pepper before throwing it into the oven at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.  While the soup simmered I took Emmy for a run.  I run so much faster, longer, and harder when it's dark mostly because I want to get home as quickly as possible.  We ran 1.5 miles in less than 15 minutes.  When we got home the pumpkin time had 7 minutes to go.  Usually when we run this route we stop to walk for a little bit so that it takes us about 20-25 minutes to complete.  It was already 6:30ish and the sun was pretty much down.  The trail was full of people, but we were still booking it.  Emmy seemed to understand that I didn't want to be out when it was dark and kept trotting along with few marking pit stops.  We run street-side on our way back because of the street lights.  The trail we run has no lights and is behind houses.  I'm sure it's perfectly safe, but it still makes me uneasy when it's pitch black. Running on the sidewalk, however, poses other safety issues.  I swear drivers don't look both ways when they're coming out of their complex driveways.  I don't wear a white shirt, blinking headlamp, and reflective wrist bracelets because I think it looks cool and Emmy doesn't wear her neon blinking collar because she likes the layered collar look.  I know it's dark, but all I ask is that they look both ways before you turn into the street and almost side swipe me and my bright white dog. Really, we can't be that hard to see.

When we got back safe and sound, though a little frustrated, the pumpkin was almost ready for the soup.  I added some sour cream as well as cornstarch to the soup to thicken it up and make it stroganoff-y.  After adding the soup to the pumpkin, it went back into the oven for an hour.  

Onion, garlic, celery, red bell, and yellow bell pepper. 

This is how the pumpkin looked at the 20 minute mark.

After an hour and 20 minutes.