My pumpkin patch has a total of 4 pumpkins. Well, had 4, now there are 3.

One is gigantic and beautiful. Two are probably not going to have enough time to ripen properly. The fourth one was majorly damaged when it was small.

Critters made some big marks in it, but I left it alone and it continued grow and the marked up part healed over and the pumpkin became a lovely reddish-orange color. (Perhaps I should clarify that these are Cinderella pumpkins just in case you didn't know.)

I thought I'd harvest the thing and bake a pie today. I brought it in and washed it off and used a mallet and cleaver to split and and, ... ew.

There were parts of orange pumpkin-y goodness that smelled sweet and wonderful and there were parts that were brown and mushy and smelled like low tide.

Sadly, Mr. pumpkin went back into the patch where he can compost for next year.

Meanwhile, I decided to use a Grange cookbook recipe that caught my eye. Long story but I had this box of yellow cake mix that I didn't know what to do with and this recipe uses 1 box of yellow cake mix.

For the recipe you bake the cake mix according to package instructions (9x13 pan); take the baked cake out of the oven and while still hot, poke holes in it with a fork and then dump a can of crushed pineapple, juice and all, over the cake. Let the cake cool and then make two packages of instant vanilla pudding and when it sets a bit, spread that over the cake. Then spread a tup of Cool Whip on that. I've never even bought Cool Whip before.

It came out fantastic.