{Foodie} Pumpkin Pie Recipe and Tutorial

Since today is the first of October, I thought I would share what we did to honor this fact. Well, Remember Orion's School pics? Well we decided to make use of the props. :D So this is  my tutorial for making your own pumpkin like you would get in a can.  You can get so much more from a pumpkin than from a can that would cost about $1.99. Yes, two dollars does not seem like a lot but it really is especially when you can get a 10-15 pounder for roughly the same price. The best thing I learned was that you can use regular field pumpkins for the pie. This rocks! So here we go. 

Making your own canned pumpkin...minus the canning

Scoop out all stringy stuff and seeds.  You may need to scrape with a spoon to get everything out. 

Make sure to save the seeds on a cookie sheet  try to pick out most pumpkin parts. I sprinked with sea salt and roasted at 350 for about an hour. Be sure to stir halfway. 

once pumpkin is cleaned out cut into chunks that will fit in your pan. 

put pieces with skin up and ad a little water to pan. Bake at 350 for an hour or until fork can be inserted into the skin. 

Let pumpkin cool for 10 minutes or until able to handle. 

scoop out pumpkin and mash.

You may have to strain some water off.

Mash or puree to desired consistency.  Viola! You can now add desired amount to your favorite recipe. NOTE: The average can of pumpkin is 16 oz. 

MMM Yummy  Roasted pumpkin seeds. 

Pumpkin Pie Recipe

1 3/4 cups pumpkin puree

3 eggs

2 TB unbleached flour

1/4 cup unbleached sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp salt

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (tweek to liking)

3 TB Butter

2 Tb Milk or cream

1 uncooked pie crust

Preheat oven to 350. 

Mix all ingredients until at desired consistency. Pour into pie shell in pie pan (some people have actually poured it into just the crust, no pan).

Bake at 350 or until knife inserted into center of pie comes out clean.

There you have it my first recipe that I created. WOOT! 

{Foodie} root cellaring, harvest time

Well, we didn't go on a field trip today (the weather is nasty, floods everywhere) but we are learning about habitats, we harvested our sunflowers today and brought them in so we learned all about the different bugs that use sunflower heads as habitats. Yuck.. We learned that at least 10 different kinds use them. Our upstairs living room is being turned into a root cellar. :P We harvested our seed cucumbers and have the seeds drying now. I think it is pretty exciting to have our own seeds drying. Last week we harvested our corn. I think tomorrow we will be going potato diggin'. Exciting!


You can see the new color of our living room. It is very bright and vibrant in there. I love it. It makes me feel special to have our own living room even though we are living with my parents.


So since we didn't go anywhere I did some baking. Not your typical baking. I made some broccoli cakes.

They surprisingly are pretty good.


For the Craft show in November, I am planning on making a Harvest time cook book. We will see what happens.  Here is the recipe for the broccoli cakes.

Equipment
Stand mixer or electric beaters
12-cup muffin tin, greased and floured well (or silicone)

Ingredients
12 trimmed broccoli florets (each one should fit into a muffin cup with room to spare)
275g (1 cup and 2.5 tbsp) butter, softened 
50g  (1/4 cup) sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
300g (1 1/4 cup) flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
60g (full 1/4 cup) strong cheddar cheese, grated

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Bring a pot of water to the boil and blanch the broccoli florets for 3 minutes. Rinse well in cold water to stop the cooking, then dry each floret well with paper towels and set aside.
2. Beat the butter until soft and creamy, then add the sugar and continue beating until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix together the flour, baking powder, turmeric, cayenne and salt, and beat this into the wet ingredients as well. Finally, fold in the grated cheese with a spatula.
3. Place one heaping tablespoonful of batter in the bottom of each muffin case, then tap the tin against the counter to spread batter out. Stand a single floret in each muffin case, and top with the remaining batter, dividing it evenly between the cases. Spread the batter over the top of each floret roughly, but don't worry about it looking perfect. 
4. Bake the cakes for approximately 30 minutes, until golden brown and hard to the touch. While baking, some butter will bubble up around each cake — you can mop this up with paper towels if you like, but don't worry too much about it. Allow the cakes to cool completely on a wire rack before serving, but do try to eat on the same day.