More Pumpkin Goodness

We have really been enjoying our pumpkin harvest. There are about a half dozen pie pumpkins left, and I probably ought to roast them and freeze the puree before long. I read that pumpkins don’t keep as well as other winter squash, so I want to be sure and preserve them before they rot.

Home roasted homegrown pumpkin is sooooo good!

Two recipes I’ve been digging:

• Stevia Sweetened Pumpkin Pudding – In a startling departure from my standard pumpkin pudding recipe (which I’ve been making steadily since Tricia introduced me to it about three years ago), I’ve made this twice in the past week. I’ve been trying to cut back drastically on white sugar, so the stevia aspect of the recipe caught my eye. Additionally, now that we have a nicely laying flock, I’m always looking for a way to use up our eggs. This new recipe uses four eggs (versus the two in the other recipe). I doubled the recipe and baked it in a 9 x 13 dish, using eight eggs (!) and only 1 teaspoon of powdered stevia. It’s so amazingly delicious. I love how creamy and flavorful it is, without being overpoweringly sweet. It does have a slight stevia aftertaste, as many stevia sweetened foods do, but I imagine that could be reduced by buying the right brand of stevia. It doesn’t bother me in the least. I’ve made it with both heavy cream and coconut milk, and it tasted just about the same to me. I favor the dairy-free version because my body doesn’t like dairy too much. I’m sure I’ll still have many uses for the old pumpkin pudding recipe, but for now, this is hitting the spot.
• Pumpkin Cheesecake – My honey turned 33 last week (happy birthday, babe!) and he requested a pumpkin cheesecake for his celebratory dessert. Now, I know I must’ve made cheesecake at some point in my adult life, because we own three very new-looking springform pans that we’ve been moving from house to house for years. But I honestly can’t remember ever making a cheesecake, so I don’t think it counts. So for my first(ish) cheesecake, it turned out very well! (Did I mention that cheesecake is probably my favorite dessert, and also that I have no self control when it comes to such things? This is why I never make cheesecake. Seriously, the leftovers just kill me. They aren’t leftover for long…) Anyways, while I used the recipe here, I followed the baking instructions here (reliable old Martha). Mostly because my only roasting pan large enough for a water bath wasn’t very handy. It turned out great, beautiful with no cracks, and I’m inspired to make more cheesecake for special occasions around here.
• Pumpkin Spice Latte – Okay, so I haven’t actually made this yet, but I’m going to.

(ETA: I’m realizing now that it doesn’t look like I’m trying very hard to reduce my refined sugar intake, but honest, I am!)

Just Because

Sometimes I like to make bullet points out of the things on my mind. Lucky you!

• I brought out the roasted barley tea teapot today. See, my mom always makes hers in this pretty (and enormous) stainless steel teapot. It doesn’t whistle, so you have to watch it. But it holds a lot of tea, and like I said, it’s pretty. She throws a handful of roasted barley in, brings it to a boil, and lets it sit. We drink the tea throughout the day and evening, hot, warm, tepid, then cool. It’s delicious in all stages, and I grew up drinking it. Occasionally you throw more barley it, or add more water, or start anew with new barley and water, but the pot pretty much stays on the stove all the time. She bought me the exact same teapot for Christmas last year (wheeeee!), and I put it away for the summer (since I’m not a big hot tea drinker in the summer time). Finally breaking it out again, this week, makes me feel like it’s really autumn.
• I’m drinking roasted barley tea right now. It’s cool, since I warmed the pot this morning.
• Our other teapot (also stainless steel, but more standard sized, and it whistles, thank goodness) stays on the stove year-round. It’s the same teapot we got as a gift when we first got married. It has ugly brown marks on the outside from years of cooking grease being splattered on it. But it works, and I wipe it daily now, having learned my lesson. My sister bought me a shiny new teapot, which I even asked her to buy, but being the frugal packrat I am, I can’t get rid of the old teapot. It still works! So I’m saving my new one in a box for when the old one finally bites the dust.
• We are burning fires once a day lately. Sometimes twice, sometimes not at all. But with the highs being in the 50s, a fire is necessary once in a while. It’s nice to have that familiar flame to look forward to every morning.
• Asher walked to the fireplace this morning and commented, “The fire is burning very well.” Say what? When do you talk in such nice sentences? These past few weeks have brought many surprises out of his mouth. It’s always hilarious.
• He will be two (two!) at the end of the month.
• Maya wrote an adaptation of The Tortoise and the Hare. She titled it, “The Tortoise and the Hare, by Aesop, adapted by Maya T____ and Jason T____.” She wrote the first paragraph, then instructed her father to finish it, in his own words, and write the moral, again in his own words. She even wrote “Moral: ” at the bottom, followed by a blank line, lest he forget. I have got to scan and post some of her work on here; it is so impressive and funny sometimes.
• She will be seven (seven!) right before Asher is two. I seriously have no concept of how I have an almost seven-year-old.
• More birthdays: Jason on Friday and me 11 days later. October is a crazy month.
• I will be entering a new decade this birthday. One that begins with a 3, rather than a 2. I’m mostly excited about it. I’ve always wanted to be 30; it sounds so grounded and established, while still being young. But still, I have to wrap my mind around not being in my twenties anymore.
• Ellery, our lone redhead and lone non-October birthday girl, hopes that this new baby boy has red hair. Please, God, give the baby red hair for her! I’ve told her that he could have brown or blond hair, and she really seems okay with it, but I think a red-haired little brother would make her just the happiest girl on the planet.
• Ellery, who is four, is learning phonics like a champ. Only four-ish weeks in, and she’s memorizing all the short vowel and consonant sounds better than I expected. She looks forward to school every day, and asks me all morning when it will be her turn.
• My husband, the full-time campus minister, is now also a part-time engineer. Life should be very full (didn’t think it could get fuller, but seems it can) for the next few months.
• When your livelihood depends on a support-based non-profit, sometimes God’s way of providing is to give you a bunch of unexpected donors and/or donations. It is such a blessing. Sometimes, His way of providing is teaching you to live with much less than you’re used to. This is also a blessing, though one that my anxious personality has to work harder to enjoy. Right now, God’s way of providing for us is a combination of the latter (living with less) and now, giving Jason a temp job in engineering.
• I have mixed emotions about him going back to his old place of employment, even if it’s only temporary. He will be gone so much.
• I’m so, so, so, so, so grateful that we’ll have extra money coming in again. It has been a very difficult and stressful six months.
• Please pray that God will bless Jason’s fund development such that he can stop the part-time job again in a few months, if that’s His will.
• Watching little girls learn ballet is so much fun. I’m off to make sure the leotards are all clean…

Well, It Frosted…

…and that uncovered row of sweet potato vines died. Not unexpected, but still, a little sad. Jason’s out harvesting that row right now. I read and read and read (and googled and googled and googled) and I think that if we harvest them within a day or two of the vines dying, they will be fine. Any longer, and they might not keep as well, or taste as good.

(And see, the tricky part about sweet potatoes? It’s not growing them. No, that’s easy; you plop the slips in the ground and off they go. We barely did a thing to them all season, really, truly. But it’s after the harvest that it gets all difficult. You’re supposed to harvest them on a dry, sunny day; let them dry on the soil a few hours; bring them inside to cure at ideally 85-90 degrees and 90% humidity (!!!) for two weeks, then store at 50 degrees – but absolutely no lower – for at least a month before consuming. Then consume them throughout the winter, never allowing them to go below 50 degrees. Easy, yes? No. If you’re in the south, curing at high humidity and heat for two weeks might be possible, but not here.  And with the temps dropping, our fireplace insert zaps any humidity right out of the air, and my hair, and my skin, and makes it necessary to cover the potatoes with a wet towel to maintain some humidity. We have the potatoes and squash in a west-facing window to cure right now, and the afternoon sun helps. But it will never read 85 inside here, at least not until next July.)

I haven’t walked through the garden yet, so we’ll see what else fell do the frost. I noticed the sweet potatoes as I drove by on my way to homeschool co-op this morning. The red cabbage also looked suspicious, and I will be very sad if we’ve lost it. The 2/3 of our sweet potato crop that was covered by plastic survived, but has a little frost damage on some leaves. Since the vines are still alive, with only a dead leave every foot or so, the plants should be fine growing until the next threatened frost. This will allow the sweets to continue growing as long as possible, which is ideal, because sweets like to accumulate lots of mass and nutrition at the end of the growing season. The forecast doesn’t go below the 40s at night for at least the next week. So I think we’re all set. For now.

I’ve got a lot of eggplants, peppers, basil, etc. in the garage, waiting to be dealt with. I think I’ll freeze the peppers, dry the basil, and turn the eggplants into Baba Ghanoush. (Does anyone know if I can freeze that, by the way?)

Maybe Frost Tonight

We have a widespread frost advisory tonight, from 2 a.m. – 9 a.m. Sigh. The low is supposed to be 33. It’s another early first frost year. (We had an early frost last year, too; even earlier, as I recall. I think the average is mid-October.) What am I, a newbie gardener, to do with such information? If I run out and harvest or cover everything I can, surely it won’t frost. If I do nothing, it’ll turn out to be a full-blown freeze, and I’ll lose everything.

Jason was gone all day, and I was busy all day, so we all went out to the garden together at 6 p.m. and worked for an hour or so. We harvested all the eggplants (our first and last harvest of this veggie), peppers (one orange and one chocolate, the rest still green), onions, winter squash (the vines were dead anyway), a large armful of basil for drying, and probably a few other things that I’m forgetting.

I’m most concerned about the sweet potato plants. We have three full rows of them, and they have the potential to do very well for us, if we do it right. We found enough plastic sheeting to cover 2/3 of the plants; if we get the light frost we’re expecting, we will harvest the uncovered 1/3 tomorrow and hope for the best. They should be okay, from what I read, if we harvest them right away. Sweet potatoes don’t tolerate any frost. Jason dug up two plants, just to see what we’ve got down there (we haven’t peeked before today), and the yields were pretty nice. A good mix of lunkers and fingerlings. Encouraging, but we didn’t have time to harvest them all tonight, so covering was the next best option. I hope they do okay and can size up even more over the coming weeks, should frost stay away after tonight.

33 degrees. Doesn’t sound awful. But that’s too close to just ignore. Just hoping for the best. We didn’t do a thing with the beans still drying on the vine (pinto, cannellini, scarlet runner, etc.), nor the red cabbage, nor the napa cabbage, nor the carrots or leeks (which should be just fine with a light frost). Tell me they’ll be just fine.

Oh, the chickens are getting nice and cozy at night. We need to winterize their hoop house/coop/chicken tractor/thingy/etc. before too long. They should be hardy enough for nights like tonight, especially since there’s no wind to speak of. And there are 14 of them to share body heat. We’re getting 8-10 eggs a day now!

It’s a…

…BOY!

Thanks for playing along, all 32-something of you who voted. Either someone let the cat out of the bag, or you all have great intuition, because as of this afternoon, 66% of you voted Boy. Good job!

I always dreamed that I’d have two girls, then two boys. Very, very surreal that it’s actually happening. Girls run on both sides of the family, so I just expected a girl. On Jason’s side, for generations, there’s only one boy in each family unit. He has three sisters. I’m one of three girls. I always expected to have a heap of girls! And until two years ago, I lived in a very female household, Jason being the only male of the four of us. Now, come January, the teams will be even – three and three.

I realized how much I expected to have a girl when the ultrasound technician said, “It looks like it’s a little boy!” And I was shocked. Before she had announced anything, I had even seen the key parts that screamed, “Boy!” on the screen, and still, I somehow thought she’d say it was a girl.

I am absolutely thrilled to be having a boy. I would have been equally as thrilled to have a girl, to be perfectly honest. I didn’t care either way, but I’m delighted to know. Now I know what clothes to wash, and what color yarn to pick out for sweaters, hats, soakers, etc.

So Asher’s going to have a little brother. He’s clueless. The girls were so sweet; they wanted another brother from the get-go. They said, “We have each other, so Asher should have a little brother.” My heart.

I have mixed emotions about the ultrasound. Of course, I’m thrilled that everything looks just fine, and thrilled to know what gender the baby is. Grateful that the technology is there for when it’s needed. But on the other hand, I feel very strongly about avoiding ultrasound unless medically necessary, and the bleeding really scared and frustrated me. Spotting is one thing, but it was heavy, and I was freaked out for most of the day. After suffering a miscarriage, fear is felt completely differently. At that point I was 22 weeks, and knowing the cause of the bleeding (if it could be determined) could be helpful in stopping it. So the ultrasound seemed prudent. I was very hard on myself for a week or two, trying to decide if it was really “medically necessary,” or if I gave in to simply ease my fears. In the end, I think it was a wise choice.

And there’s the boy. (Boy!) I’m still trying to navigate the waters of raising boys; having two just makes my head spin. I need to read some books or something. Even after nearly two years (he’ll be two next month!!!), I still feel clueless.

24 Weeks, 5 Days – Girl or Boy?

Just a fun poll. With nearly instant gratification – I will post the gender of the baby within two days! (No fair cheating; if you already know, which a few of you do, keep quiet, okay?)

(Small pregnancy update: While we were planning to continue avoiding ultrasounds for the rest of this pregnancy, I had an episode of significant bleeding around 22 weeks, so we decided to go ahead and get an ultrasound. If you’ll recall, this is the same thing that happened around 17 weeks during Asher’s pregnancy – unexpected bleeding, unexpected ultrasound. While we were peeking, we were happy to find out the gender! Thankfully, the baby looks healthy, and my placenta is fine. If I get more bleeding, we’ll have to see about running some labs, but until then, we’re doing fine. Very grateful that I’m not dilating or anything, and my placenta is right where it should be.)

ETA: I figured out how to insert a poll! So go ahead and vote.

Breakfast-y

Jason, my dad, and a man from my dad’s church are out splitting and stacking wood. Such wonderful help! I look forward to the first fire of the season. It was October last year.

I’m also sipping a homemade chai latte, which combined with the wood stacking, makes this an autumn-drenched afternoon.

A review of some things we’ve been eating (which are breakfast-y foods, but ironically, have all been eaten for dinner):

• Sweet Souffleed Omelet – Yum. I made three to feed my family, and they could have eaten more. Since our pullet eggs are small, I used 5-6 eggs per recipe, rather than the suggested 4. This was my first try at anything resembling a souffle, and I was certainly glad there were no chefs stopping by. They were ugly, and either slightly overdone or slightly underdone; part of the trouble was doing the stove top part on an electric coil top stove, which stinks. But they still tasted good, and it was a superb way for this preggo to get her two daily eggs without feeling like I was actually eating eggs. We topped them with blackberry jam and/or….
• Homemade Brown Sugar Syrup – With maple syrup prices through the roof, and no means/knowledge/time to tap all these maple trees on our property (yet!), I had to find a pancake syrup alternative that didn’t contain gross things, like high fructose corn syrup. I don’t know where I found this recipe, but I have been doubling it and putting it in an old glass maple syrup bottle, with extras in a jar. Start this right when you start to make your pancakes, and it will be done when they’re all ready.
  • INGREDIENTS: 1 c brown sugar or sucanat, 1/2 cup water, 1/4 tsp natural maple flavoring OR vanilla extract, 1 tsp butter (optional)
  • DIRECTIONS: Stir sugar and water in saucepan over medium-low heat, boil 3 – 5 minutes, cool slightly. Add maple/vanilla and butter (optional). Makes 1 cup.
• Apple Pancakes – We enjoyed these last night. I doubled the recipe, and miracle of all miracles, we had leftovers. We never have leftovers of pancakes, so that tells you how many pancakes I made. Asher ate nine, Jason says. More than me. They were delicious. I substituted 1 cup of flour with whole wheat (I would have done half or all whole wheat, but didn’t have more flour ground, and didn’t have time to grind more) and they tasted great. For extra flavor, I added cinnamon and nutmeg.
• Pumpkin Butter – I used this recipe as a springboard. I started with one pie pumpkin from our garden, roasted it a la Pioneer Woman, skinned it, and dumped it all in a pot. It wasn’t quite done, and it was much more than 3.5 cups (more like five cups, I would guess), so I added just a little water, covered the pan, and let it simmer while I chopped up a medium apple (skin left on). I added the apple + 1/4 cup more water to the simmering pumpkin and let it all cook for a few minutes, to soften. Then I dumped in the spices and the 1 1/3 c sugar (half white, half brown), heaping the spice measurements to make up for the extra pumpkin. Then I added an extra tablespoon of cinnamon and 1/2 cup sugar, just for good measure. Then I blended it all with my hand blender (WHICH I LOVE AND CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT) and simmered it for probably an hour, mixing quite frequently with a bamboo spoon. (A mesh spatter guard is very helpful for this, as sauces tend to get spattery as they get thicker and continue to simmer down.) It made two pints, two jelly jars, enough for dinner with Apple Pancakes, plus one baby food jar of leftovers. Lots! And so, so delicious. I forgot the lemon juice, but will try it next time.

Pumpkin Butter and Apple Pancakes

Autumn is just around the corner. And I can’t wait. It’s my favorite season, by far. (And not just because it contains my birthday!) The abysmal state of my garden depresses me (that tomato blight just broke my wannabe-canner’s heart), and my pregnant body is keeping me from doing as much garden work as I desire, but I’ve gotta keep thinking harvest-y thoughts and just power through. There are still green beans to harvest, and our amazing zucchini plant is still producing (can you believe it?), and there’s cabbage to eat, lots of herbs to dry, a smattering of winter squash and pumpkins that survived the squash bugs, sweet potatoes to harvest soon, onions, kale, swiss chard…see, there’s lots to be happy about! If you don’t think about the work too much.

Anyways. Tonight, I want to try my hand at making pumpkin butter (only replacing the apple juice with diced or shredded apples) and apple pancakes, in addition to roasting some red skin potatoes. We live amidst orchards galore, and my fridge box is full of apples, which makes me ridiculously happy. (Have I mentioned how much I love apples? I do. So very much.)

What are you eating?

Garden and Chicken Update 9/14/09

School is back in swing, and I’m crazy busy. But there are things I don’t want to forget to record:

• Blight. All the tomato plants are blighted. Yes, all 40 of them. It spreads fast. We are in the process of hand picking the green ones to ripen or turn into green tomato salsa, and burning the vines. It is heartbreaking. Even with 40 plants, we were never overrun with tomatoes. I canned less than 10 quarts of anything tomatoey. With a cool, dry summer and blight attacking the whole country, it was a hard fought battle. We were blessed with a nice couple of months of nice fresh eating, and that’s more than other people had. Next year, we hope to get enough for canning.
• Curcubits – the cukes all died a few weeks back (they were done, not diseased). The squash have been slowly dying all season, and they might finally be done in. But I waited long enough that I think we’ll still get a small harvest of pumpkins and a decent haul of butternut squash. The watermelons and other assorted melons are now looking horrible; I’m thinking squash bugs and powdery mildew were the main problems for all the curcubits. We have eaten two yummy watermelons and three or four cantelopes. That’s probably all we’ll get.
• Kentucky Wonder green beans continue to produce. All the rest of the beans have been left unpicked to produce dry beans.
• Dill is finally ready, now that the cukes are dead. What to do with all the dill? I think I will pick and dry all the herbs for winter use: dill, basil, thyme, oregano, lemonbalm, and mint. And parsley, if I can find it. There’s not much out there.
• The girls made their own little gardens outside of the family garden; they each grew lettuce, spinach, radishes, and basil. They water somewhat faithfully. Asher tromps on their plants accidentally once in a while, just to keep things lively.
• All potatoes are harvested. They are yummy.
• Cilantro is now coriander, almost. It has to turn brown before I’ll harvest it.
• Waiting on sweet potatoes. Not patiently!
• I think we’ll have napa cabbage and daikon radishes for kimchi within a month. I’m hopeful. They’re doing well, despite no rain. It hasn’t rained on our garden for two weeks, and it’s not forecast for another seven days. Beautiful weather for humans, not for plants!
• We’ve eaten jalapeno peppers, and one red pepper. The eggplants are producing, but I don’t know that they’ll be big enough to eat before first frost.
• Swiss chard (garden) and kale (cold frame) are producing, but I haven’t been in the mood to cook greens, with all the summer bounty. So I harvest every once in a while, to keep them producing, and the chickens get the goods. They are happy.
• The chickens also get our overstock of tomatillos. Since the tomatoes are not going to produce for me, I might harvest a bunch of tomatillos and can more salsa.
• Just have to say that the chickens are loving September. They get at least one five gallon bucket of kitchen and garden wastes every day. We are rewarded by more eggs daily; yesterday, Jason brought in 11! It’s been around 8-9 a day for most of the week. We figure it will peak around 10-12/day. We’ve had no trouble eating all that we’ve been getting, esp. since they’re teeny little pullet eggs. But we finally have over two dozen in the fridge. So it’s time to share.
• We do plan to sell eggs, eventually. First, we want to share all our extras with kind neighbors and friends for a while. Then it will probably be winter, and the production will slow, so we’ll only have enough for our family again. Perhaps by next spring, we’ll be selling. But if you want to buy eggs from us, please holler! I’ll sell them this fall if there’s a need. But I’ll probably just give them to you, at least the first dozen. Don’t be shy.

Garlic Roasted Red Skin Potatoes

I told some friends I’d post this recipe, so here you go! There are bazillions of tutes and recipes out there on roasting red skin potatoes; this is just the way I’ve been doing it. It’s so easy, I almost feel silly posting it. But it’s so good!

We’ve been enjoying our Red Gold potatoes at least twice a week lately. We only planted one little row (2.5 lbs.), but it yielded very nice for us, and we’ve probably got 10-15 lbs. left.

INGREDIENTS

• Red skin potatoes (start with about 3 lbs., or 12-14 potatoes, and work from there)
• Garlic or garlic powder
• Herbs of choice (I like rosemary, thyme, and oregano)
• Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)

DIRECTIONS

1. Pre-heat oven to 450.
2. Spray a 9″ x 13″ baking dish with olive oil spray, or pour some EVOO in and spread with your fingers, including up the sides.
3. Wash and dry potatoes. (I air them on a towel.) Quarter them, or half the small ones.
4. Fill the baking dish with them. I arrange them in 3 or 4 tightly packed, neat little rows, and then throw a few more potatoes around the edges and middles. Once you mix them, you’ll find room for more.
5. Drizzle EVOO all over potatoes. Don’t skimp, as this makes them nice and brown. But neither should you drown them; I end up with perhaps a 1/8″ layer on the bottom when it settles. If you need a measurement, start with 1/4 cup.
6. Sprinkle with garlic powder (generously!) or fresh pressed or minced garlic (generously!). Sprinkle with herbs of choice. I like to go heavy on the rosemary; it’s so fragrant and perfect with potatoes.
7. Carefully mix it all up with a (stainless steel!) spatula.
8. Bake for 60 minutes, taking dish out and mixing with the spatula every 15 minutes or so. As the potatoes cook, they get softer, so mix carefully if you don’t want mashed roasted red skins.
9. Enjoy with sour cream, hot sauce, and/or ketchup. Or plain!

I love this because it only dirties one dish, and despite my ability to ramble, it’s really a simple recipe. When served along side our own fresh scrambled eggs, I’m pretty much in heaven!