Cheese Pumpkins and Chili

My husband has always wanted to grow pumpkins.  For some reason it seems to be his farm fantasy, but with a SFG it is just not an option.  Still, I decided to give them a try this year....not sure where to sow the seeds since I believe the pumpkins will be too heavy to trellis.

With so many choices out there, I eventually settled on the  "Long Island Cheese" variety for a number of reasons.  The name has always intrigued me, they look cool, they are of the c. moschata family - and therefor hopefully borer resistant- , and they are rumored to give good puree.  Turns out Libby's (my favorite canned brand) uses the cheese variety of pumpkins for their orange goodness in a can.  For an interesting read on pie pumpkins, go here.

I have some of Michele's Crock Pot Chili going in the kitchen, and DANG!  I made a few substitutions along the way to utilize what I had on hand.  Firstly, I cut up some eye of round steak; then I cooked up some dried pintos and made a chili slurry in the blender as a partial substitution for the chili powder (which I ran out of and decided it was best to not use the coffee grinder to make some, great call on my part by the way);  the last bag of garden fresh tomato sauce from the freezer was subbed for canned.  The pinto's and dried chilies came from Rancho Gordo.  They have some of the best dried beans I have ever tasted, and man are those chilies hot!  As I am writing this my husband just asked me if I knew I had more steak in the sink.  *&*#, I thought the meat content was looking thin...seems as though I will be browning up more steak bits before the night is over to toss in the pot!  Anyway, there is a shot of the still simmering Chili, thanks to Michele over at Give A Girl A Fig for sharing such a great recipe with us.  (This batch is going to require some serious sour cream and beer to tame the heat!!!)