A satisfying October week.

One of my callings right now is that I'm a stake family history director. (My other calling is assistant ward clerk. They released me from being a family history consultant, but that was my smallest calling and overlaps with my stake calling anyway.) This week we had our third, and final, FHE in the stake where we helped people find names. This third one was at our own ward building (with the other three YSA wards that meet there), and it was our most successful yet. I conducted the meeting and controlled the teacher's computer while he explained what to do. We had sheep to give to everyone representing the names they found. The original pasture "murals" we put up fell off the walls, but we put a much simpler one up and stuck all the sheep on. We were pleased with the success.

My dad had a heart ablation surgery this week. He had a pacemaker put in last year, and then this surgery was done to regulate his heart rhythm. I'm hoping my heart takes after my mom, rather than after my dad.

There have now been six times when I've been to North Canyon in Bountiful, and two of them were this week (and all of them were within the last six months). I suspected North Canyon would have the best fall colors, and I was not disappointed. To get to the North Canyon trailhead, you have to go up a steep, rough dirt road that my little car certainly could not handle. I was quite pleased this week, because I ran up the entire road, even the steep parts, which I haven't done before. As far as scenery goes, North Canyon is probably my favorite trail, but it's steep, muddy, and further away from my house, so I don't go there as often. I'll let you look at cellphone pictures taken at dusk (meaning they're not going to win any photo contests).

The aspens were apparently unhealthy this year, sadly...

...but other trees provided yellow leaves.

North Canyon has a few bridges to cross streams.

The place where they cleared the land for the gas pipeline is so weird, because you feel like you're in a forest, and then you're almost in a desert, and then you're in a forest again.

I only have a few weeks left of evening daylight, so I have to squeeze in weekday trail running while I still can.

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A few people erroneously believe that I'm a healthy eater, but this week's Pumpkinundation Roundup will prove that wrong.

 These Fiber One Pumpkin Bars are fairly good.

 These Thomas Pumpkin Spice Bagels are pretty good. I'm not always the biggest store-bought bagel fan, but these are good. They have little bits of pumpkin and spices in them. (Sorry my knee's in the picture.)

 This Stephen's Caramel Apple Cider is something I would never buy. We just happened to have some in the house. I've never liked powdered apple cider, and I've hated it even more since I've had the real stuff. It's so fake tasting. Now, I think this apple flavor is even more fake than usual, and then add a fake caramel flavor, and it's entirely unappealing.

 I continue to go to Kneaders, this time for their pumpkin chocolate chip cake. You'll notice that it's in a to-go container. Two years ago I got this cake, and it was so fantastic I was determined to finish it. I got two-thirds of the way through, and I just couldn't do it. I had to save some of it for later, and even then I felt too sick. I've had similar experiences with their carrot cake at Easter. This time, I didn't eat it in one sitting, but I did finish it a few hours later, and I didn't feel sick. I don't know whether that's because I ate smaller breakfast and lunch, or because I'm getting more tolerant of sugar (which would be a bad thing). This cake has chocolate chips and cream cheese frosting. I highly recommend it, but I don't recommend eating it by yourself in one sitting.

 You know the slogan "Nobody Doesn't Like Sara Lee"? I thought these Sara Lee Iced Pumpkin Cakes were a good illustration of that: I didn't like them, but I didn't not like them. They're a little dry and could have benefited from some Hostess-style filling. They certainly aren't worth the 200 calories in each.

 These Little Bites Pumpkin Muffins, on the other hand, were quite  tasty, with an enjoyable texture. But the packaging seems a little wasteful; each big bag holds four small muffins.

 Who would have guessed that Taco Time had pumpkin pie smoothies? I'm glad they do, because it was very good, probably even better than the Jamba Juice version.

 Taco Time also has pumpkin empanadas. Honestly, whenever I have these, I feel like the inside is so hot you can't really taste it. I think most of the flavoring of these comes from the cinnamon coating. They seem like a random pumpkin item, but they've been around since at least 2009 (the first time I heard of them, and they've probably been around longer).

 My mom picked up this Great Harvest Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread, which was about average for pumpkin bread. Now, pumpkin bread is a very good thing, but I didn't think this was particularly noteworthy pumpkin bread.

 Lest you think I get all my pumpkin stuff from prepackaged "foods," Saturday I was quite ambitious and spent a long time in the kitchen cooking with pumpkin. And not the canned variety--no, I used fresh pie pumpkins. One of them I cut up and put in the oven to harvest its flesh.

 For the other pumpkin, I cut off its rind (a bit of a hassle) in order to make a recipe from my new vegetarian cookbook, panfried pumpkin with tomato sauce. First I fried the pumpkin.

 Then I combined it with other ingredients--tomatoes, garlic, onion, chili pepper--to make a sauce, then put it on rice and topped with parsley. My dad and I didn't really care for it, but my mom did, so at least my efforts weren't entirely futile. It was too garlicky and too canned-tomato-ey. Also, parsley is much more bitter than I expected. It was very time consuming.

 Using the cooked pumpkin flesh from the other pumpkin, I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies using the first recipe I found on the internet. I was worried, because the cooked pumpkin's texture was nothing like canned pumpkin; it was grainier. Putting it in the blender sounded like too much of a hassle. However, the texture turned out all right; you couldn't tell there was fresh pumpkin in it.

Straight out of the oven, these cookies were very good. However, after they cooled, they weren't as flavorful. I made them for a ward activity, and someone else brought pumpkin cookies as well. Mine is the one on the left (or I should say on the top, since the picture is sideways). Mine were less pretty and less tasty.

Now I have to figure out what I'm going to make with all the leftover cooked pumpkin flesh.

And then we have Hostess Pumpkin Spice Cup Cakes. I was hoping for the little curly frosting design, but the leaf sprinkles are fun. These are very good, better than most Hostess products, in my opinion. They have a strong spice flavor--almost to the point of cinnamon bears, which isn't what you'd expect, but it's surprisingly good. They do use pumpkin, but probably not much of it. They have a disconcertingly long list of ingredients. Who would have guessed that cupcakes had beef tallow?