Bread Crumbs, Pumpkin Soup and Carrot Salad

I've had a loaf of bread in the freezer for awhile and realized after a bit that it wasn't toasting very well. The piece of toast would fall apart and make a ridiculous mess in the toaster. The first recipe I was looking into to make my Cinderella pumpkin into pumpkin soup called for bread crumbs so I decided to make those. They came out really well and very tasty, no salt necessary. 

All I did was process the bread and bake the crumbs in the oven at 350. Ta da! 

The first pumpkin soup-in-a-pumpkin recipe called for dry white wine, so I found another recipe by Alton Brown. Turns out my pumpkin was a little small and the soup was heavy on onion and garlic, but I liked it.

The pumpkin, I think, is a Cinderella. It's a beautiful pink color with lovely orange flesh. 

When I added the apple, chicken soup, onions, and milk, the pumpkin was about to overflow. But the real problems didn't start until I put stuff in the oven.

It looks nice, right?

My mom's oven, though, is rather temperamental. You set it to 250 and it jumps up to 350. But if you want it to go above 350, you set it to 300 and it doesn't heat any higher! So I had the pumpkin in for almost 2 hours and when I pulled it out, the soup was hot but the pumpkin flesh was not cooked.

But look at how pretty it is with Swiss cheese and sage!

By the time I got it out of the oven, Mom and I had to chow down before going to chorus. She didn't like it because it had too much onion and garlic, but I liked it okay. I even ate the leftovers for lunch the next day. 

Because I needed more than just that soup, I made my mom's carrot salad. I remember it being sweet with a vinegar bite. I found a recipe with mayonnaise, sugar and raisins. I added apple cider vinegar to the last bits of mayo in our fridge and shook it up with some sugar. It tasted exactly like what I was looking for. I can't remember where I got the basic recipe but if you Google "carrot salad" you're sure to find something.