Pioneer Woman at Heart

  I have roasted and preserved all of our garden pie pumpkins now.  I saved some puree for baking/cooking.  I typically freeze the puree in containers, but I ran out of them, so I froze the rest in ziploc bags, and froze them flat on a baking sheet to save space, and store more easily. New recipe tried - White Bean Turkey Pumpkin Chili (SkinnyTaste online).  There are no tomatoes in this chili.  We found this to lack flavor, so I added more chili pepper and some diced jalapenos.   I have also saved some fresh puree for making pumpkin waffles .  There may be some cookies, muffins or other baked this coming week. Tip:  Did you know you can use pumpkin in place of eggs, butter and oil, depending on what you are making?  There is a good article about it HERE .  I am thinking of trying the Pumpkin Alfredo recipe shared on that article.

  We have had non-stop problems with the pipes leaking under the kitchen sink.  When the kids lived here, they would shove stuff under the sink and bump the pipes, hence the leaks.  No kids, and now we have a leak?  I took everything out, and took assessments.  Not to mention, clean everything off, and wipe the cupboard dry.  Not the worst kitchen catastrophe, but I use my sink several times a day. Once the pipes are all fixed, I will be replacing the cheap dollar store placemats I had in there, with this . . . It's washable too!  If we spring another leak, at least it will protect the wood.  The absorbent fabric is USA made.  I found it on Amazon.  I'm not sure if stores have this or not.  I wasn't very patient for looking for a better solution (for keeping things dry). I am late to the game so to speak.  I got one jar of Four Thieves started. I got about 3 more trays dehydrated of sage, more thyme, and rosemary. I am gatherin...

  Although fall is here, we had another odd warm day.  I took advantage of it again, and washed all the towels and put them on the clothesline.  There were lots of bugs again, but a good shake before tossing them in the basket did the job.  The weather is all over the charts, making coop building the most difficult job (more like the job not getting done). Woke up to find that a deer had trampled my chicken run fence.  Looks like it got in by jumping the fence, and could not get out, so it took down the other side.  By the size of the hoof prints left behind, it was a small one.  I finagled the fence back up, but it won't last long.  Deer season has been very bad this year.  I took advantage of one rainy day.  I caught up with shredding bills, and started unpacking more boxes from the renovations over the last year and a half.  We will probably be unpacking, sorting and purging for another year around here, ha ha! I had enough potti...

  The weather is all over the map.  We recently dipped to 35°F, and yesterday we hit 80°, but then rain moves back in later this week.  They predicted the next weekend to be very cold, and that changed quickly.  Friday they are saying we may hit the 80's in our area.  It's literally crazy weather. The Thanksgiving Cactus is blooming more blooms right now.  I will definitely be re-potting the plant.  It has more blooms this year than last year. We have been so busy with just about everything here lately.  The AC units have been put in in storage for winter, and we started back on the new coop (very slow going, always running into an issue). Heck, I still have to take down the hanging porch plants that have died off.    I am contemplating putting any Christmas lights outside this year.  They are sitting in the kitchen awaiting my decision.  I'm just not into it this year (yet), and I believe it's due to all the unfinished project...

  I finally got around to freezing some of our apples.  They are keeping fresh pretty well in the fridge.  By the way, when the directions say to bang your baking sheet on the counter, it really works.  It freed up the frozen apple slices right away, making bagging it easy. While the apple slices were flash freezing, I baked us an apple crisp.  A different recipe, and one that was actually in my recipe box.  We haven't baked a lot over the years with apples, due to lack of harvest, but this was good.  No brown sugar oddly.  My husband said it "tastes like apple pie." I made biscuits a few days ago, and realized they did not rise as usual.  I opened my cupboard to check the expiration date on my baking powder and it literally expired the same day.  I have not been using it as much lately.  Note:  be sure to check your label when buying baking powder, as one popular brand contains bio-engineered ingredients.  It's easy to m...

Shallots, Organic Baby Bella Mushrooms   I have been making homemade condensed mushroom soup, for the freezer.  The link still works on my older blog post, but I do not add the thyme to mine.  I never know what I am going to use it for, so I leave that out, but the link for the recipe is on this:  Blogpost. The original recipe calls for cremini mushrooms.  I used to find them in the stores, prior to covid, but all I can locate here, are organic white or baby bella (so I buy the baby bella).  I did some research and baby bellas are basically the same as cremini mushrooms. Mushrooms are very healthy for us, and I love this recipe, as it uses butter.  Organic store bought condensed soup contains soy oil and other soy products.  The recipe does contain a bit of flour, but I adapt the entire recipe using all organic/non-gmo ingredients.  There is no corn starch in this recipe. It smells so good when it's being made.  The link goes to a recipe...

  Winter is on the way.  These very short beautiful snippets of a sunrise are coming to an end.  We enjoyed one, mostly likely the last, grill out on the porch.   Stormy, rainy days moved in here and there, and the camper was finally cleaned out for the season.  Leaves are starting to change color around the area now. I use my melon baller to remove the seeds/stringy innards.  I use it for all of my squash.  It works great. We got 9 pie pumpkins this season.  One rotted before I could bring them inside, and we gave one to the chickens for a treat. I line my baking pans/sheets with parchment paper and roast at 350° for 60 minutes.  I typically check them, and continue roasting if necessary.  The above pie pumpkin (Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkins from Baker Creek), weighed in at a little over 5#!  Not all of them are that large, but wow!  Save those delicious seeds to roast.  Here is our favorite recipe:  Whiskey-Bacon ...

  I had a handful of mushrooms to dehydrate.  I used my smaller "Dash" dehydrator.  It has 5 trays, and I can dehydrate with how many trays I need.  They only thing I don't like, is no way to set a time on it.  I set and watch it, shutting it off when they are dry. Do you make mushroom powder?  I am reading up on that, but what I'm thinking, is why powder?  I just rehydrate for meals.  How would powder come in handy?  Thoughts on this? I didn't really get a definitive answer on blanching rutabaga or flash freezing, so I opted for blanching this time around.  We do love them, so I will be doing this every year.