Pumpkin

While most of the garden is starting to slow down, and the late crops of lettuce and spinach I planted still haven't come up, pumpkins are in abundance. The pumpkins I cut from the vine and placed on my porch aren't just for decoration, they're delicious, nutritious food! Most of the pumpkins we harvested a few weeks ago are Cinderella pumpkins. I planted the pumpkins close to the chain link fence, and the tendrils climbed the fence. It was fun to see the little versions of Cinderella's carriage hanging along the fence. On my porch after hauling them in from the garden in the wagon, these pumpkins are so cute and kind of make me feel like fall might be an OK season after all. In the kitchen, one of these pumpkins, baked and pureed, makes about 14 cups of sweet, smooth pumpkin. Today I roasted one, turned some of it into a pie (for tomorrow's breakfast, of course), and with the help of kids eager to push buttons on the blender, put 12 cups of pumpkin puree in the freezer for later.
Turning a pumpkin into pumpkin puree (as in the stuff most people buy in a can) is easy. You can either bake the pumpkin whole or cut it in halves or quarters and remove the seeds prior to baking. Put the pumpkin on a shallow pan and bake at 375 degrees for two or three hours. You can get away with a shorter cooking time, but the longer roasting time really makes the pumpkin turn a more vibrant color, and adds to the flavor. Let the pumpkin cool enough that you can scoop it into a blender or food mill. Drain off any excess liquid. Puree the pumpkin or run it through a food mill. Scoop into containers. Use, refrigerate for three days or freeze for up to six months..
Nutritious pumpkin is easy to sneak into other foods to trick picky family members into eating more vegetables. (Technically it’s a fruit, but who cares about technicalities?) It won’t be hard to find ways to use an abundance of pumpkin.

Sneak pumpkin puree (in judicious amounts) into macaroni and cheese, meat loaf, mashed potatoes, spaghetti, smoothies, oatmeal, pancakes, enchilada sauce, ground beef taco meat, refried beans, or anywhere else you  can imagine.

Here’s a few basic recipes using pumpkin puree:

Number one, pie. Because pumpkin pie contains a vegetable, protein, dairy, and grain, it is a healthy, complete meal, right.

Pie Crust
Ingredients:
1 1/3 cup pastry flour
½  teaspoon sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup butter, straight from the refrigerator

5 Tablespoons cold water

Directions:

Combine Dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Using a pastry blender, cut in butter until well combined with flour, resembling a coarse meal. With a fork, mix in water, a little at a time, until it forms a dough ball. You may or may not need all 5 tablespoons of water. Refrigerate for about half an hour before rolling out onto a floured board and form into pie pan.

Preheat oven to 425F, then mix together the filling

Pumpkin Custard Filling:

2 cups pumpkin

1 ½ cups evaporated milk (usually one can)

2 eggs

¾ cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

Mix ingredients by hand, with an electric mixer, or in the blender. Pour into pastry lined pie pan. Bake at 425F for 15 minutes, then reduce temperature to 350F and bake for another 50 minutes.  Pumpkin pie is best after being refrigerated at least overnight, making it an ideal breakfast!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Dip

My kids and I love to dip apples in this creamy, delectable dip. Best of all, it’s quick and simple to make.

Ingredients:

1 package softened cream cheese

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 cup silted powdered sugar

1 t pumpkin pie spice

Directions:
In a medium bowl, beat together first two ingredients with electric mixer. Add second two ingredients and beat again till well blended. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Use as a dip for apples, pears, or hard cookies.

Pumpkin Corn Muffins

Preheat oven to 375F

Ingredients:

1 ¼ cup all purpose flour

1 cup corn meal

1/3 cup sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 ¼ cup pumpkin puree

1/3 cup milk

¼ cup vegetable oil or applesauce

Directions: Combine dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in another, then combine the two. Spoon into muffin cups.  Bake 25-30 minutes.

Quick Dinner

Aztec Spinach is a new member of my garden this year. A relative of the common edible weed lambsquarter, Aztec Spinach looks just like its weedy counterpart. The leaves can be eaten raw in salads or cooked as you might spinach. As they mature, they develop small florets that can be eaten cooked like broccoli raab.

 I had a couple of small potatoes that the chickens dug up for me when they were loose in the garden.









   

                                                                       

I fried them in a little olive oil in a skillet along with some Aztec Spinach florets.






                           Dinner.

Cinderblock Garden

A few months ago I posted about my thrown together cinderblock garden. It wasn't pretty, but now that it's full of food and some beneficial flowers, you don't really notice the crooked cinderblocks. The compost I got from a local facility that composts yard waste turned my seeds and starts into giant food producing biomachines!!!  Here are a few photos, actually taken about 6 weeks ago, just now getting around to posting them.

peas growing up chain link fence on the back side of the garden

carrots, nasturtiums, a few beets hiding in there, Aztec Spinach and peas in the background

Red Romaine lettuce

Wider view- you can see zucchini, tomatoes, peas, nasturtiums

red quinoa

peas and other stuff

Nasturtiums, cucumber, alyssum, cabbage. I ended up pulling up the cabbage and feeding it to the chickens because it became completely infested with aphids. Need to get some green lacewings to control those.

Cucumber, volunteer soft white wheat. Clover and marigolds in the little rectangles in the cinderblocks.

Burgers, Easy Homemade Buns

Burgers are a common meal at our house, especially in the summer. I don't think anyone ever gets tired of them, and they're quick and easy to grill outside, not heating up the house more than it already is by trying to cook inside.
We're very blessed to live on my dad's farm, where we raise our own (mostly) grass fed beef. Our cows also eat some oats grown by our neighbor, and some extra wheat spilled on the ground while someone was fixing a combine, but for the most part they eat pasture grass and hay. I know not everyone has access to grass fed beef, a shame because it's really the only kind of beef. Simply put, cows fed lots of grain in feedlots aren't natural or healthy and they don't make healthy meat. I'd really encourage everyone to read philosopher farmer Joel Salatin's book Folks, This Ain't Normal. He not only explains everything that is wrong with our food system (and a few other pet peeves he has with our unusual society), but also gives some simple ways that we can all help fix it, so that we can all have access to real, normal, natural, healthy food, like grass fed beef.
I could easily go on, but the purpose of this post is not to rant on the modern food system. I'll save that for another month. Right now it's August and there is just too much good food to talk about, so tonight I'm just going to write about tonight's dinner.
Burgers, as I said. I've always purchased my burger buns in plastic bags at the big grocery store in town, paying a couple bucks for eight buns, some of which inevitably will get either stale or moldy before we have burgers again. Or freezer burnt if I put them in the freezer so they don’t get moldy or stale. Since there are five of us, eight is never the right number of buns. Plus those buns are filled with all kinds of chemicals like Azodicarbonamide, which is outlawed because of health concerns in many countries, but not in the United States. Most of the buns contain high fructose corn syrup. And if I decide one night that I want to make burgers, and we have all the ingredients except the buns, I end up going to the store to buy buns, but I can’t just buy buns, because that would be a wasted trip, so I have to buy a bunch of other stuff I don’t really need right now. Now, my family is kind of picky, and normally when I try to make something myself that we usually buy premade at the store, they don’t like it. But one Sunday night a few weeks ago, I found myself in that position of a family wanting burgers for dinner, but having no buns. So I found a recipe online for quick and easy homemade burger buns, made them quickly and easily and my family loved them! Said they were the best buns ever! In fact, these buns are so good, they are delicious with just butter as a side dish for another meal, or as the bread for an egg sandwich for the next day’s breakfast. So with these buns, the leftovers never go to waste. And although they are made with white flour and a little bit of sugar, they don’t contain any weird chemicals.Oh, and they cost about 60 cents a dozen to make, saving a whopping $2 off what we'd pay for eight at the discount grocery store, up to $4 at the more expensive stores in town.
I used this bun recipe, from Taste of Home:  http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/40-Minute-Hamburger-Buns
Keeping it simple, we topped our burgers with Red Romaine lettuce from the garden. Side dishes were sautéed zucchini and sweet onions with garlic, and fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, all from the garden except the onions.

Apple Sauce

Making applesauce is certainly not a contender for the most exciting summer activity. It's tedious and it's messy, and it means spending a day or two or three in a stuffy kitchen. It’s not glamorous, but temporarily turning my kitchen into a cannery is one small way for me to help provide for the family while staying with my kids. It’s also the best way to keep a big crop of apples from going to waste, including bruised and wormy apples. Along with just eating it, I add applesauce to my oatmeal, along with a little cinnamon, and I use it in place of vegetable oil in quick bread and muffin recipes. The latter is good because it adds fruit instead of fat, but also because most of the vegetable oils in stores are genetically modified, and non-gmo oils can be expensive and hard to find. To can applesauce you’ll need a large, quality, stainless steel stock pot to cook the apples in. To strain the skins and cores off the cooked apples and leave you with smooth applesauce, you will need a food mill. There are many different styles, large and small. The one I use is called a Juice Mate. You can even buy different attachments for this simple machine to help you make juice and fine pumpkin for pies. You’ll need all the general canning equipment: jars, lids, rings, and a water bath canner. And of course, apples. There are four ways to get apples. The first way is to go to the store and buy them. Do not, under any circumstances, ever make applesauce with apples from the store. That would be a complete waste of money and apples that somehow made it from farm to store without worms or bruising. So that leaves three ways to get apples for making applesauce. Lucky people (I’m lucky this year) have a bumper crop of apples on a tree in their yard. Some years our trees don’t produce, and I have to go another route. My second favorite way to get apples is for someone to give them to me. Maybe you know someone who has a tree in their yard and doesn’t want to deal with that much fruit. Drop hints around them that you are thinking about making applesauce, but not sure where to get apples. If you don’t personally know someone with an excess of apples, and you are very brave, look around town for people who are letting their apples go to waste, rotting on the ground. Chances are there will still be some good apples left even after many have fallen and begun to rot. Again, if you are brave, politely approach the owner and ask if they are planning to use their apples, and if not, if they would allow you to clean them up for them. You’ll be saving someone the trouble of cleaning up rotten fruit, saving the rotten fruit from going to waste, and getting your family some free apples. Your third choice is to find a local farm and either pick your own, or buy apples buy the box at a discounted price. Some farmers may offer #2 fruit, which may have bruises or scabs for you to remove, for a deep discount. If you don't already know of an apple orchard near you, visit pickyourown.org. Once you have your apples, fill your sink with them, fill the sink with water, and rinse off the dust and anything else that’s not apple.

Cut the apples, removing bad spots and worms if there are any. If you have chickens, they will be overjoyed to receive the worms. If not, add all this stuff to your compost pile and cover it with something like dry leaves or grass clippings. I keep a bucket by my feet to drop the junk into, and the good stuff goes into a stainless steel stock pot on the counter.

Once that’s full, pour a little bit of water in with the apples and stick them on the stovetop on medium. Once the apples come to a simmer, turn them down to low or medium low, so they cook slowly and don’t scorch. You’re going to need to give them a deep stir once in a while to keep the bottom from scorching and help the apples to cook evenly. The apples take a long time to cook. If you haven’t already, get your jars ready by washing them in hot soapy water and bringing them to a boil in the canner, or put them in the dishwasher. Wash your jar rings. Get the food mill put together and ready. Follow the package directions to get your lids ready, usually by putting them in a saucepan of hot water on low on the stovetop. Give the apples a stir, go put in a load of laundry, stir the apples, read your kids a book, give the apples a stir, vacuum the living room, stir the apples, get a drink of water, cut up some more apples for the next batch….. OK, it’s been an hour or so and now the apples look pretty much like mush. There might be a few pieces that still look like apples, but they need to be soft. Put these into the food mill, and get another batch of apples going on the stove while you start cranking the handle on the food mill. If you have kids, use them as child labor. It’s good for them, and they might think it’s fun. Mine think cranking applesauce for three to five minute intervals is great entertainment. When they get bored, think of it as a good arm workout for you.

Once you have all that apple mush strained into apple sauce, dump the skins in your waste bucket along with the bruised apple pieces and worms, then start funneling the applesauce into jars. Wipe the rims, put on the lids and rings, and put them in the canner with warm water just covering the lids. Cook on high or medium high until it reaches a full boil, then turn it down a bit. Boil for 20 minutes, then remove them onto a towel on the counter, somewhere they can sit overnight. Meanwhile, remember to stir that next batch of apples once in awhile, and put it through the food mill when it’s ready….. you get the idea. When you're done for the day, make sure to wash all the parts of the food mill immediately. Don't try to soak it, that does not make it easier to clean. We canned fourteen quarts of applesauce today from two and a half 3-gallon buckets of apples.. I plan on getting started earlier tomorrow and cranking out another 21, maybe 28 if I’m really productive, and then the only thing I’m doing with applesauce till this time next year is eating it.

Thank God for August

Thank God for August! Praise God for the harvest of soft white wheat. Thank God for zucchini to give away and eat and give away. Thank God for juicy sweet-tart sunny flavored tomatoes and refreshing crisp cucumbers on a hot day. We can truly taste and see that the Lord is GOOD. Thank God for cool evening breezes, and for meteor fireworks in the clear night sky.

Random happenings

My family and I spent most of the weekend building and filling a huge raised bed garden in our yard. We built it with cinder blocks and it is neither level nor straight. My mom said it looks like a model of the Great Wall of China. It might not look tidy, but it will be a fine home for strawberries, cucumbers, carrots, beets, onions, and salad greens. Hopefully some trailing flowers down the front will make it look pretty. I've spent the last few weeks filling every spare plastic container (empty salad and strawberry containers, etc) with soil and starting seeds in them. Soon I'll be transplanting those into the new raised bed or into the larger garden which will be planted with corn, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, and broccoli. We're getting quite a bit of delicious, thick, dark yolked eggs from our chickens, who are happily tilling and fertilizing next year's garden. Two of our silkies are setting eggs for next year's layers. Spring is here :)