Bon Voyage

My friend Carol left for London today.

(My 4 chickens live with her 18 chickens - like the Brady bunch)

I am so jealous!

She's going to tour London and Paris.

I hope she tries macarons and takes lots of pictures.

Bon Voyage, Carol!

~

I visited the Ladies today.

Carol said I could collect and keep all the eggs while she is on vacation.

Yay! I love collecting eggs!

Today there were 6 eggs.

There were 2 broken/eaten eggs underneath the roosts and another half eaten egg in a corner.

Uh-oh!

Egg eaters!

I'll take some golf balls out tomorrow and try to get them to stop eating their eggs.

Hopefully banging their beaks a few times on the golf balls will stop them from sampling eggs OR I'll have to make a few mustard eggs.

Don't Be A Hero Pickled Peppers

Someone at work brought in 3 huge bags of hot peppers.

I dried all of the red ones and then pickled the rest.

These pickles are not for me!

They are too HOT!

They will be gifts.

*wink*

Don't Be A Hero Pickled Peppers

3 lbs peppers

6 cups vinegar

2 cups water

Combine vinegar and water in a large saucepot.

Bring mixture to a boil.

Pack peppers into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.

Ladle hot liquid over peppers, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.

Remove air bubbles.

Adjust 2-piece caps.

Process 10 mins in a boiling water canner.

Yay! for free vegetables!

Another Use For Canning Rings

I have a million canning rings.

There is no way that I will ever use all of them at the same time, so

either I have to start stuffing mattresses or I need to find a use for them.

Egg Sandwich

Grease the rings really well.

I used butter.

Place them in your frying pan.

Crack eggs into the rings.

Cook on low, flip and cook on the other side.

Pop cooked eggs out of the rings.

Serve on round bread or hamburger buns.

Yummy!

Thanks for the eggs Ladies!

I love knowing where my food comes from.

For example, the broccoli seeds that I started in my house last spring, planted and watered all summer and then fed to my Ladies (chickens) last week turned into an egg that I ate today.

Lemon YumYums

These are the easiest cookies to make.

Three ingredients!

Perfect when you have unexpected guests, like your mother-in-law, and you want to impress.

Or if you forget about the bake sale, that starts in an hour.

Lemon YumYums

Ingredients:

1 pkg cake mix

1 stick of cold butter

2 large eggs

In a food processor blend cake mix and butter for 2 mins. Add eggs, mix until thoroughly combined, another 2 mins.

With wet hands roll the batter into walnut sized balls, about 1 Tbs of batter each.

Place on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10 mins., until light golden brown on edges. Cookies will still be soft in the center.

Optional: Roll cookies in powdered sugar before baking.

These are so good! Soft and chewy with crispy edges.

I'm adding a few of these to the giveaway box - don't forget to enter!

Purple Potatoes

Remember waaaaay back when I told you about my purple potatoes?

And how they were so sweet and yummy?

They're actually blue potatoes - a variety called "All Blue", because they not only have 'blue' skin, but blue flesh too.

Do these potatoes look blue to you?

Whatever, it was probably named by a color blind man.

No offense men!

but you're more likely to be color unaware.

This is the only recipe for scalloped potatoes you will ever need.

Really.

No joke.

Write this down.

Ingredients:

Potatoes

Onions

Cream

Salt

Pepper

Nutmeg

Chop onions

Thinly slice potatoes.
Your color choice.


In a greased baking dish layer potatoes and onions.
Sprinkle salt, pepper and nutmeg lightly over each layer.



Keep making layers.

Pour your cream over the top until it covers the potatoes.

It should look like this.
And I hope you are not making this with milk!

No cheating!

You have to use whole fat yummy CREAM.

It won't work with milk - not even 2%.

Sprinkle on some more pepper, salt and nutmeg.

Bake at 350 degrees - until bubbly and light golden brown on top.

About 1 hour.

Now looking at the pics - when it's cold it looks blue, when it gets warmed up it looks purple.

So weird.

But tasty.

October Giveaway

I mailed the prizes from last month's giveaway last week, so everyone should be getting them soon.

Yay!

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to send everyone jars of marmalade and jelly.

I really tried, but they wouldn't fit in the small flat rate boxes.

Sorry.

So, I sent macaroons instead.

I hope you like them!

~

~

~

Now, on to the October Giveaway.....

I have one box of macaroons left over and hanging out in my freezer.

To win this box:

Post about this giveaway on your blog

and then leave a comment here, telling me that you blogged about it.

The giveaway ends on Sunday at Midnight.

Supposed To Be Butter

This butter was supposed to be whipped cream for my Perfect Pumpkin Waffles, but I turned away for 1 min (!) and it was butter.

Good thing I was making waffles and not cake or something.

Waffles and butter - good.

Cake and butter - not so good.

I threw in a little liquid cinnamon flavor and made cinnamon butter.

It would be easy to make lots of types of butter - lemon, rum, almond, ect.

Pumpkin Waffles - Vote For Me!

This month's challenge, on The Leftover Queen's Royal Foodie Joust, is to use orange, black and sugar.

So, Orange: pumpkin or squash - Black: Dark ale or cola - Sugar

I have to be honest, before this recipe I'd never bought beer.

I know nothing about beer.

At first it was a struggle to think of a recipe that used pumpkin, beer and sugar.

But then I thought of pumpkin waffles.

After that, the only thing left to do was to buy the beer.

Whew! Who knew that there were soooo many types of beer?

I stood in front of the cooler for a long time.

Finally, the clerk asked me if I needed help.

"Yes! Do you have any dark beer? Besides Guinness?"

"Ummmm, noooo. Just Guinness."

Ok then. Out of a million types of beer I went home with the only dark beer - Guinness.

Now to the recipe!

Perfect Pumpkin Waffles

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup oatmeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1 1/2 cups pumpkin (canned or cooked)
1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
6 Tbs. butter, melted
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cup buttermilk (or milk with 1 Tbs lemon juice added)
1/2 cup dark beer

Mix together in a large bowl dry ingredients. Stir in Pumpkin, butter, brown sugar and eggs.
Add milk and beer, mix until thoroughly blended.
Scoop batter into a preheated waffle iron.
Bake until waffles are golden brown.
Serve with butter and warm maple syrup.

I made oat flour by grinding whole oats in my mini food processor.

All of the ingredients.
Look at those bright orange yolks!
Thanks for the eggs Ladies.




I made the buttermilk by adding 1 Tbs. bottle lime juice to 2% milk.
Then let it stand for a few mins. and add the beer.
Why do you even need to use buttermilk?
The acidic buttermilk reacts with the baking soda/baking powder and results in lighter waffles with a higher rise. Have you ever made a baking soda/vinegar volcano? Same idea - poof!



I threw a few chocolate chips into the batter.




Nice and golden.

What do they taste like?

Well, do you like pumpkin bread or cake?

They taste just like that.

However, because there isn't as much flour they don't taste starchy, the spicy pumpkin flavor can really shine through.
Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

And they re-heat well too.

Just follow the same refrig or freezing directions

as I used for the In a Hurry Pancakes.

I served mine with home-made cinnamon butter.

Now, how can you vote for me?

Well, on Nov. 1st The Leftover Queen Forum will start voting on every one's recipes.

Please vote for me!

Everyday Pizza

I love, love, love pizza!

Homemade pizza is the best, but when I'm working I want something easy to grab and heat.

So, I buy frozen pizza, but I'm on a spending diet.

-I haven't bought groceries (excluding milk) in over 2 months!-

This is my recipe for Everyday Pizza.

Make up a bunch and freeze them or have a party and eat them all.

~

Everyday Pizza

Ingredients:

1 egg

1 cup water

2 1/2 cup flour (plus 1/2 to 1 cup more - see recipe)

3/4 cup white or yellow corn meal

2 Tbs olive oil

2 tsp yeast

1 1/2 tsp salt

Add all ingredients to your mixer.

Mix together.

If you are making this in the winter you will not need to add the extra flour, because the air in your home is dry.

However, if you are making this in the summer or in humid conditions you will

need to add the extra flour.

Slowly add 1 Tbs of the extra flour until you have a moist, but cohesive ball that pulls away from the wall of the mixer bowel.

Your dough should look like this.

It will be quite sticky.

Scrape the dough from your mixer and with wet hands make the dough into a ball.

Place the dough ball into a greased bowl.

Cover the bowl and place it in a warm place.

Let it rise for 30 mins.

After it rises it will look like this.

Pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees.


With wet hands pull the dough apart into 6 separate balls.
Place the dough balls on your greased or silpat covered baking pan.
Let the dough rest for 10 mins.




With wet hands shape/flatten the dough into pizza shape.

Spread 1/4 cup pizza sauce/tomato paste into the center of each pizza.

Bake pizza crusts for 15 mins.

Remove from oven.

Now 2 choices:

A. Let cool, wrap in foil and freeze.

B. Add cheese, spices and toppings.

Return to the oven and cook an additional 15 mins.

To cook frozen Everyday Pizzas -

Add toppings and cheese (you can also add these before freezing).

Bake at 400-425 degrees for 10 -15 mins

until cheese is bubbly.

Yum!

Lunch With Grandma

I visited my Grandma last week.

She gave me a cute brown sweater that she had knitted

and cooked a wonderful lunch.

The main meal was Tater Crust Tuna Pie, mashed potatoes and green beans.

It was so yummy!

Tater Crust Tuna Pie

Crust: 1 cup flour

1/2 cup potato flakes

1/2 cup butter

4 Tbs. ice water

1 can 2.8 oz french-fried onions - divided

Filling: 3/4 cup potato flakes

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese - divided

2 Tbs. chopped green olives

1 can 6.5 oz tuna - drained and flaked

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 egg

Combine flour and potato flakes, cut in butter until crumbly.

Add water, 1 Tbs at a time, until dough is moist enough to hold together.

Press pastry over bottom and up sides of ungreased 9 in or 10 in pie plate.

Set aside 1/2 cup of french fried onions.

Sprinkle remaining onions into pastry shell.

In a bowl, combine all fill ingredients except 1/2 cup of cheese.

Spoon filling over onions.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 mins.

or until crust is golden.

Sprinkle with reserved cheese and onions.

Bake additional 5-10 mins or until cheese is melted.

Let stand 5 mins before cutting.

6-8 servings.

Then we had a delicious squash pie.

It's just like pumpkin pie, but fluffier and lighter and made from my Grandma's homegrown squash.

And then we had blackberry/apple pie.

Hee hee!

We like pie.

My Grandma's blackberry crop was really good this year.

My Grandma with one of her giant squash.

She's 86 years young.

The squash is 4 months old.

My Grandma's food closet.

Look at that beautie!




Potatoes, onions and garlic too!

How To Make Charcoal

This is one of those recipes where you should not follow my directions!

In fact, don't even bother making this.

It was gross, even before I burnt it up in the oven for 9 1/2 hours.

Yes, 9.5 hours.

~

The recipe is from Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates - Vegetable Pot Pie page 218

There are a lot of ingredients and a ton of steps and to make matters worse it messes up the whole kitchen.

So, if you still want to make this.

Foolish, foolish (shaking head ruefully).

Ingredients:

1 Tbs. veg. oil

1 1/2 cups chopped onions

2 bay leaves

2 1/2 cups cubed potatoes

1 cup veg. stock

2 cups cut green beans

3 cups peeled cubed butternut squash

2 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms

3 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley

1 1/2 Tbs chopped fresh dill (BAD! BAD! - This tastes horrible! Dill ruined the whole dish!)

Saute the veg. and then discard the bay leaves. Cover the veg. and set aside.

Next, make a roux or cheese sauce.

1/4 cup butter

1/3 cup white flour

2 cups veg. stock

1 1/2 cups grated cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter - whisk in flour - add veg. stock - whisk until thickened - add cheese



Pour into a 9x 13 x 2 inch greased dish
Bake at 375 degree
for 30 mins until bubbly.




Now if you are following MY recipe (please don't!)
bake for 9 and 1/2 hours.
Just pop it in, go to work and forget about it.
When you come home you will have
perfectly toasted ........

CHARCOAL!







Yum!
*sigh*

More Snow

The garden this morning.

Ouch!

More snow.

Heavy and wet.