Cooking with Pumpkin

Back in November I cooked and processed pumpkin to put in the freezer. 


I spent part of my Memorial Day fixing 2 different pumpkin desserts from one container of the frozen pumpkin.

Pumpkin Nut Cookies

70 cookies later

Recipe:  Pumpkin Nut Cookies

1/2 cup butter or shortening (I used shorting)

1 cup sugar

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup pumpkin

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1 cup raisins

1 cup chopped nuts

Cream shortening; add sugar gradually.  Cream until light and fluffy.  Add eggs and pumpkin; mix well.  Sift flour, baking powder, salt and spices together.  Stir in dry ingredients and mix until blended.  Add raisins and nuts.  Drop by teaspoonfuls on greased cookie sheets.

Bake in preheated 350 degreeF oven for approximately 15 minutes or until cookies are golden on edges and set in center.  Be careful not to overbake! -----------Make 4 dozen cookies  (I got 70 smaller ones)

NEXT I made 6 of these

Pumpkin Custard

1 cup canned or fresh pumpkin (I used my frozen pumpkin)

1 egg, slightly beaten

1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed (I used regular brown sugar)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon dark rum or 1 teaspoon vanilla (I used vanilla)

1 regular can evaporated milk (about 1 cup)

Beat the egg until foamy. - Combine all ingredients in a blender, food processor or Vitamix.  (I used my blender)  Pour into heatproof custard cups.  Set the custard cups into a shallow pan of hot water and bake in a preheated 325 degreeF over for about 40 minutes, or until custard tests done.

Note:  To test custard for doneness, insert a sharply pointed knife about 1 inch from the side of the cup.  Knife should come out clean, but center may still be unset and will continue to cook after removed from the oven.  

Mickey really loved the cookies.  Not so much the custard.  I'm trying very hard to leave the cookies alone, although I did taste them and they are very, VERY good.  I'll serve them to the WOW Woman tonight.

HAPPY PUMPKIN IN MAY !!!!

Both of these recipes were from Cooks.com

COOKING PUMPKINS

Last year Mickey & I tried cooking the pumpkin to use it for baking.  We had a terrible time and when we were finished it was a lot of work and did not taste good at all.  At my bible study Tuesday night I asked the gals if they'd like to have my pumpkins and immediately 2 of them told me I should cook them and make puree to cook with.  SO......with their instructions we decided to give it another try.

First Mickey cut the top off, and cut it into 3 pieces. 

  Then I took the pieces and cleaned out the pulp and seeds.



Mickey cut the large cleaned sections into these smaller pieces ......

So we could boil them.  It took about 45 minutes until they were soft. 

Then we dumped the first pan full into the sink and let them cool as we began boiling another pan full.  This food grinder that we used to puree was my mother's and has to be probably 50 years old and it works like a charm!!!  They don't make appliances like they use to.

Mickey is using the food processor as I am peeling the skins off and handing them to him.

This is what the wonderful result looks like as we puree each pan full.

Four pan fulls later here is our finished product, ready for the freezer and to be used for delicious pumpkin breads and I might even try a pie, although I'm not a very good pie baker.  We ended up with these five 3 cup containers and the one 2 cup or a total of 17 cups of pumpkin.  Thelma told me pumpkin was selling for $2.50 a can this year and this would be equivalent to 11 cans or $27.50.

Thanks Thelma & Betty for encouraging me to take the time and effort to prepare this!!!

When I bake the first item I'll let you know if the final results are good.  I'm believing they are going to be great!!!

WHAT DOES ONE DO WHEN SNOWED IN?

At the beginning of the New Year Mickey and I had been deep cleaning, sorting out things, taking things to Good Will etc. so when the snowed in time came all that was done and accomplished except for some remaining garage straightening and reorganizing but far to COLD for that right now.  SO.........

I spent the past 2 days baking and filling our freezer up with goodies to serve guests and friends later on when I'm too busy to bake.  

I had 9 banana's frozen in the freezer so took them all out and made not one, but three batches of Banana Nut Bread on Wednesday.  As always you can see we had our hot slices out of the first loaf before the pictures :o)  The reward of the cooks!!

Yesterday I made two type cookies.  Oatmeal Crispies and Peanut Butter.  These plates full is just a sampling of the quantities.

Today I am going to make a Chocolate Chip Cheesecake that I saw on Mari's blog.  Eager to try this.  Thanks Mari for posting the recipe.

A snow update:  Yesterday we had an additional 5-6" of snow.  Here is Mickey's truck covered up even more than before :o)

Earlier this week I made another batch of Powdered Laundry Detergent.

I am posting this on my frugal blog, Hands & Hearts for Him.  Drop over there to learn about it. 

A DAY IN THE KITCHEN

I wonder how many of you are like me and sometimes end up spending the better part of a day in the kitchen. That is what I did this past Saturday.

Last Monday, after bible study, Kelli & I drove to the peach orchard and split a 1/2 bushel of fresh peaches. Yummy!!!!

In addition, Mickey's garden has been producing tomato's and cucumbers galore. So I decided Saturday was a day to get some of these items put up. A couple of weeks ago I had stewed enough tomato's to fill 4 two cup containers each for the freezer.


I stewed another 2 cup container of tomato's for the freezer. In addition I had a bag of apples that were getting too ripe so I stewed up all but 2 of them and made this bowl of Cinnamon applies. I also made a fruit salad of peaches, apples, & pineapple.

Next I baked 3 loaves of one of our favorite breads - Hawaiian Banana Nut Bread. I was going to take a loaf of this over to some new neighbors who moved in 2 doors from us but they were not at home :o(

By now it was lunch time so I fixed up a big bowl of Tuna Salad to have with our garden fresh tomato each. We love tuna salad with a lot of ingredients in it so I added: celery, pickle relish, dill pickles, apples, walnuts all blended in a mayonnaise/milk mixture.


Last, but not least, after lunch I made a peach cobbler. Sorry, but I forgot to take a picture. But trust me it was very good!!!

So I spent a great deal of time Saturday in the kitchen.

APRICOT BLESSING

Wednesday night at church our friend, Carmel, brought us a sack of apricots from her apricot tree!!!

Here they are poured into a bowl to begin.

The first thing I wanted to make was an apricot cobbler. After washing, pitting and slicing some I lined a pie pan.

The finished, delicious Apricot Crunch Cobbler.

And yes, as always, Mickey & I had some hot out of the oven!!! Aric was with us and he ate the crunch but didn't like the apricots :o)

I washed, pitted and halved the remaining 8 cups and put them in my pot to make some jam.




About mid-way, through 3 hours simmering, as they are cooking down to jam.

The finished two jars of wonderful, tasty, fresh apricot jam. Oh, this tasted so good on my toast this morning.

Thank you so very much, Carmel.

ANOTHER FUN DAY SNOW DAY

We have been so very busy the last several months that I must admit I am enjoying the snow and an excuse to just stay home and stay in.

Prepared some more sweets today. First was Date Oatmeal Cookies

The first pan full of 4+ out of the oven.

Another full cookie jar to go along with the Butterscotch Chip cookie jar from yesterday.




The over flow from the 2 cookie jars. You can see the Buterscotch are disappearing :o)

Next was this big batch of delicious fudge. There is not much better than fudge in my opinion.

While I had been busy inside baking cookies my Mickey had been out several times working on the ice and snow in our drive way and walk. The ice is literally about a 1/2" or more thick.

I decided to go out and see if I could help out a little bit on this huge job, for us, since it got up to 45 degrees today and began to melt a little bit and we are expecting cooler weather and more snow in the next few days.

I've taught him to well about blogging and he snuck up on me and got these pictures!!! I was so busy in the kitchen I didn't get any of him when he was out doing this.

I'm not real fond of this kind of hard work!!!

All day long I kept running back to the computer to check out what was going on with Facebook. Boy, you get addicted to this r-e-a-l quickly.

Elsie sent me a little quiz to do and so I took it and this was my result.

What is God's gift in you?

Susan took the What is God's gift in you? quiz and the result is A PRAYER WARRIOR

Your destiny is a prayer warrior. Prayer is not a mysterious practice reserved only for clergy and the religiously devout. Prayer is simply communicating with God - listening and talking to him. You can pray from the heart, freely, spontaneously and in your own words. Prayer is your direct line with heaven. Prayer is a communication process that allows you to talk to God! He wants you to communicate with Him, like a person-to-person phone call.

Now you can imagine how pleased I was with this response, since Prayer is truly a passion of mine. Could be why I started Hearts For 1 Accord prayer blog and why we have the S.W.A.T. (Spiritual Warrior Attack Team) prayer meeting here in our home every Friday night.

I also posted on the frugal blog, Hands & Hearts.....for Him, this morning. It's a tip about how to soften up our feet. Drop by here and check it out.
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RED & GREEN CHILI PEPPERS

We had another VERY exciting week. One facet if it was spending parts of 3 days working up Chili Peppers.

Our friends who have the Bi-Polar dog, (remember "Bear"?) brought us back 2 large size bags of lovely, wonderful Hatch chili. If you are familiar with it you know how very happy we were to receive this lovely gift.

The first thing with Chili peppers is to roast them. The last time I did some, about 3 years ago, I did it in the oven. Which took forever!!! We do not have a grill but our son, Marc, does so on Tuesday went to his house to do the roasting on his nice, big, gas grill. Can you believe I forgot my camera :o( ? Well, I did.....so no pictures of the process. Oksana pitched in and helped us and we were finished within 2 hours. Oh my they smelled sooooo good. We left a few with Oksana.

I couldn't wait to come home and have some on a baloney and cheese sandwich. Yummy.....but the red ones were also H-O-T.

This picture was taken on Wednesday of all of the roasted chili dumped in my kitchen sink. Don't know why the green chili looks yellow!! I began peeling and removing the seeds from this huge pile on Wednesday. Any one who has worked with Chili knows you have to be very careful not to touch your eyes with your fingers. All the instructions tell you to wear gloves, when working with them, but I am one who absolutely cannot stand to use gloves and have never had any trouble being careful and cautious with my hands.

I share some more of the roasted one's with Marc and my friend, Wantha.

Ahhhh....I finished the peeling and de-seeding on Thursday. Here is the finished product. The 3 tomatos are from our small patio plant and the orange (that is the true color) tomato is a heritage tomato we got. Just one so far!!!!!


Finished, bagged chili ready for the freezer. 9 bags of the green

8 bags of the red.

Can anyone say "YUM"? We can, and do. Thank you so very much Mike, Loretta & Mikey.

TWO GREAT BREAD RECIPES

I wanted to share 2 great bread recipes that I have recently found on blogs. I just love how we share so many things on our blogs, including great recipes.

The first in Applesauce Bread.

This recipe can be found on Double Nickle Farm in her post of August 20th.

This is a very moist bread and it is great because it makes 4 loaves at a time.

You can see I made 2 regular loaf size and 2 mini loaves.

I made mine out of whole wheat bread & adjusted for use of honey in place of 1/2 of the sugar.

It is delicious right out of the oven, as you can see from the 1/2 eatten loaf!!!

What I really like about it is you can freeze it and have on hand when you get a call that someone is coming over. Just pull it out and slice it, put on the coffee pot, and you are ready to serve your guests a delicious little snack with their coffee.

Thanks Jen for this great sweet bread recipe .

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I have baked a lot of bread and rolls in my lifetime but I think the recipe below is the greatest one I've ever found.

It is called Artistan Bread and you can find the entire recipe, instructions and wonderful pictures on

Lynn's Kitchen Adventures for September 12th

What is so wonderful about this recipe is 1) it is a yeast bread recipe, 2) you can make it up ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator & 3) the best part you can take a piece out of it when you want and have fresh, hot bread for the meal.


Here is my bowl of dough as it looks ready for the refrigerator.

As always I used 1/2 whole wheat flour & 1/2 white for our bread.

Here is a section (about 1/3 of the loaf) of the finished product. As you can see, once again we ate it right out of the oven and I forgot to take a picture before we'd eatten part of it!!!

Here is another view of it.

Got two of the pictures in here by mistake and don't know how to remove one :o(

I cannot tell you how excited I am about this recipe. I made it up Monday afternoon and we have had hot bread with our meal that night, last night and we'll have it tonight. This is Aric's night to be with us and I know he'd going to really think grandma is the best with hot bread!!! He is a bread lover!!!

Be sure and check out Lynn's blog. She has one of the best cooking blogs around.

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Thank's Jennifer & Lynn for sharing these two wonderful recipes with me

SHOW & TELL #24 - Cooking with Honey

It's Show & Tell Friday again. Time to drop over to Kelli's blog and enter your show & tell on Mr. Linky and then visit the various blogs to see all the interesting things shown to show.

I posted here about Honey extraction and showed these lovely jars of fresh honey. When Mickey first began this new venture of becoming a bee keeper I told him I would have nothing to do with the bees & hives, but that once we had honey I would learn about cooking with it. True to my word, here are my first honey cookies.

Here is a closer look and the recipe.

Crispy Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup flour (I used 1/2 white & 1/2 whole wheat)

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1 1/4 cut walnuts, chopped

1/2 cup sweetened coconut, flaked

1/2 cup raisins (I used golden raisins)

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 Tablespoons boiling water

1/2 cup butter

3 Tablespoons HONEY

Preheat over to 325 degrees.

In a large bowl combine the first 6 ingredients

In a separate bowl stir together baking soda and boiling water. Set aside.

In a saucepan melt butter with honey over low heat. Remove pan from heat and mix in the baking soda mixture.

Pour into dry mixture, stirring until well blended. Form the batter into 1-inch balls and arrange on a baking sheet. Press the balls into disks about 1 1/2 to 2-inches in diameter.

Bake in middle of oven until edges are golden, about 12-14 minutes.

Yield: 30 cookies (approximately).

They turned out very rich and very delicious!!!!!

Original recipe from Golden Blossom Honey