How to Make Pumpkin Pie (from a pumpkin!)

Well, it was the last item of our farm share, but come Christmas it was time to make the very last pumpkin pie of the season...sniffle.  Anyway, here are some instructions, I culled them from several sources so I claim nothing is actually either original or mine.

Ingredients
1 pie pumpkin
1 cup sugar
1.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground allspice
one half teaspoon ground ginger
one half teaspoon salt (optional, I don't use any)
4 large eggs
3 cups pumpkin glop (ok... "sieved, cooked pumpkin")
1.5 cans (12oz each) of evaporated milk (I use the nonfat version)

Start with a 6" to 8" pie pumpkin and a full deep dish 9" pie plate. You will have enough to fill the pie and then some left over for muffins or mini pie or whatever.

Step 1: Wash pumpkin with water (not soap, unless you want soapy pumpkin pie). Split down the middle. Scoop out seeds.

Step 2: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Put each pumpkin side down flat on a cookie tray covered with aluminum foil. Cook for 45 minutes or until soft. Alternately, you can cook at 450 degrees in a baking dish with ½ cup of water to keep the flesh moist. Peel flesh from skin and put into bowl. Puree using a food processor or blender.

Step 3: Mix in:
1 cup sugar
1.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground allspice
one half teaspoon ground ginger
one half teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
3 cups pumpkin
1.5 cans (12oz each) of evaporated milk

Step 4. Pour into crust

Step 5. Bake at 425 F (210 C ) for the first 15 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 350 F ( 175 C ) and bake another 45 to 60 minutes, until a clean knife inserted into the center comes out
clean.

Step 6. Let pie cool…the longer you let it cool, the tastier and firmer the pie. We cool ours for a day.

The joys of cleaning the chicken coop

“There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot.

Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question where a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in the things natural, wild, and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech

These wild things, I admit, had little human value until mechanization assured us of a good breakfast, and until science disclosed the drama of where they come from and how they live. The whole conflict thus boils down to a question of degree. We of the minority see a law of diminishing returns in progress; our opponents do not.”

-Aldo Leopold

The Sand County Almanac

I think I’m at the point where I’ve just had too many classes on food and the environment, food and big business and just on food to sit quietly anymore.  This morning my husband and I were trying to find a recipe for chicken and dumplings, preferably in the crock pot. Every single recipe involved biscuit mix and boneless, skinless chicken.

What the Hell?

Have we really forgotten chickens have bones and skin? Has it been so long since our ancestors made biscuits about of a bit of flour, some butter and some baking soda on the trail?

The whole thing would depress me terribly if I hadn’t spent my morning prying frozen chicken poop off the coop floor (it’s 12 degrees this morning) while my chickens complained and pecked at my boots. Somehow, collecting a couple eggs after cleaning the coop and whipping up some french toast made me feel so much better.

Personality

Our chickens have totally developed a personality and one in particular, Luna, is a total escape chicken.  She’s very crafty, cuddles up to you and clucks softly then the moment your back is turned, BACACKK! She’s making a run for it! 

I have to admit, she’s my favorite chicken. 


Also, chickens are brutal little cannibals.  Whenever I find an egg inside the coup (not the nest box) I smash it and they all come running like its Christmas morning to devour it.  They even eat the shell.  I think this is probably an evolutionary thing, predators are less likely to find a nest that doesn’t smell like decaying eggs so they tidy up whenever possible.

Halloween PSA

Just a reminder, even Darth Vader practices proper car safety!

Buckle up and be safe this holiday season!

Just clucky, thanks!

Well, the humans have been battling the DEMON FLU for the past week, luckily I'm recovering...just in time for my husband to get sick.

The chickens, however, are doing fantastic.  We now have two layers, one with pale brown eggs and one with dark brown speckled eggs.  I am so pleased at my wonderful little layers...now half the chickens are laying! 

Luna let me pet her today, she's so friendly.  Lately she's been following me when I go in to feed the rest of the chickens and today she just sat down and let me pet her feathers and scratch her little chicken neck.  Good thing I took care of all those exotic birds as a petsitter, now I know all the "spots" to make chickens happy!

We have Eggs!

I don't know which one did it, and she certainly didn't use the nest box, but we have an egg!  Whohoo!

In lieu of an actual post...

Not much to report right now, tomatoes are growing, chickens are clucking (but not laying), pumpkin has powdery mildew. I will note however that apparently our little chicken house was the talk of the Reedville baseball practice last week. Apparently we are "some house by Indian Hills actually has chickens right in their backyard."

So, anyway, here are some pictures from McMenanims Edgefield:

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

Our first "predator"

Well, have had our first "predator" yesterday.  It was a small cat who sat on top of the chicken coop and meowed plaintively I think he was saying "pllleasssee…plleeeaseee."  I took a video from my phone and will post it as soon as I can find the micro-sd card reader, which is…somewhere in the house.

We have chickens!

At long last we have chickens!

We put up the welcome sign:

Felix investigates the package

Meet our Araucana, Tonks:

Our Buff Orpington, Luna and our New Hampshire, Ginny:

And our Welsummer, Hermione

Right now they are all pullets but they should be laying soon!

Today's harvest

I can't believe our potatoes and carrots are still producing!!

We still have a couple more weeks to go on the potatoes and carrots and by then the tomatos should be ready.

Yum!

Itty Bitty Carrot Harvest

It's always...interesting the first year. Our fingerling potatos are doing very well, here is the yield from just on plant.

Our carrots...well, I dub this year the "itty bitty carrot" harvest year. Next year I promise we will plant you farther apart and in deeper soil.

If it's August, it must be Fair Season!

We went to the Washington County Fair yesterday and today...

Sweet little sheep


When he's not taunting trolls to their death, this Billy Goat hangs at the fair.


Sooo...hungry


Please Don't Eat Me. (Alas, he was purchased by a meat company, so his fate is sealed)


This is Silver Laced Polish chicken. I am in love with this chicken. Unfortunately although they lay awesome white eggs, it's advised not to keep them with other breeds because they pick on the polish and pluck out it's head feathers.


Pizza Garden!


Corn!



.

It's a heat wave

In case anyone hasn't read the news lately, the sun has apparently settled directly over the Pacific Northwest and normally mild, 85-90 degree summers are now a boiling 100-105 degrees with some reports predicting 107 in Portland.

We don't have AC...or I should say we didn't have AC until about 10am this morning when we finally gave in, went to Standard TV and Appliance and offered our first born for a window AC unit.

Fortunately for Max, they refused, preferring instead to empty our bank account.

Whatever, it's not 100 degrees in the house.


In other news, I harvested our pathetic little red onion crop two days ago. Next time I will plant them were the dog can't trample on them.

(Don't) Do it Yourself

So, one of the most annoying things about my house is the kids bathroom. Unbeknown to us, the former owner had decided to do one of those "make it sell" details by painting the bathroom floor. Not tiling or re-laying vinyl for $500, but spending $30 for a can of paint and splashing it down on the floor over the current vinyl.

All of this would have been fine if we didn't have...boy children in our house. As anyone who has raised children with penises knows, they don't really master the whole "aim" thing until long after college so after a few days the bathroom starts smelling like a homeless shelter if you don't go in there with bleach and scrub brush. Imagine my surprise the first time I did this and floor started bubbling.

A year and a half passes and the bathroom floor looks like this:


So, we went to Lowes to find out how much it would cost to replace the floor. Lowes essentially fed us a bunch of crap and demanded $40.00 to come out and measure the room, even though we came in with measurements. They also said they couldn't do it even though they did the exact same job for us in our Beaverton condo. We thought "ok, we will just scrape up the paint" like this:

After a few days, it became clear that we were tearing up the vinyl trying to get the paint off so I went to Floors with Flair where I found out we were actually scraping up some asbestos(!) with that paint (it lives in the glue and felt in pre 1986 vinyl). Despite having two screaming children running around, the sales guy was very nice and took me into the warehouse to view "the absolute cheapest vinyl available because, seriously, this is a kids bathroom and it just needs to be durable." I found some remnant for $30 and made the deal to have the whole thing done for $380.00 including labor and materials.

The next day they came out and now I am looking at this:


So, despite being total DIY people, don't do this at home, just have the professionals do it in 2 hours.

Summer Fruit Popcicles

Ingredients: 2 pints fruit (this was supposed to be 1 pint of raspberries and one of blueberries, but the raspberries did not quite make it all the way home.) 2 cups apple juice.

Wash fruit thoroughly.

Add apple juice to fruit and smash.

Use child labor as appropriate.

Pour into Popsicle molds (note there are only 5...I have no idea where the 6th is).

Freeze overnight.

Enjoy!

Sparkle, sparkle, boom!

As we all gear up for our BBQs and other assorted 4th celebrations, I just want to spend a little bit time on the document that started it all, the Declaration of Independence. This document, crafted by 13 colonies who had just had enough. Enough of tariffs, enough of military occupation, enough of...everything. I imagine those who signed the document must have known they were committing treason against England, I mean, of course they knew...but how terrifying it must have been to risk everything, none of the men who signed the declaration were poor and they all had plenty to lose by declaring themselves a sovereign nation. Yet, they did it.

How radical a notion our country is founded upon: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Summer is here!

I finally got around to planting most of the plants that were hanging out in our kitchen window, including the pumpkin. I'm really hoping the dog doesn't trample it, because Max is really proud his pumpkin grew so well in the plastic cup from kindergarten.

I'm giving our onions a 50/50 chance of making it to the end of the season.


We also released 1500 ladybugs into the garden, to eat whatever has been eating my precious potato plants. The next morning they were still there, so that's a good sign.

Here are some ladybugs on my tomato plant.