Pioneer Woman at Heart

  I took a walk out to the bell peppers, and brought in the last 28 of them.  Even the smaller ones are very thick and smell wonderful. As for the hot peppers? There are a few baby jalapenos on some plants, but that is it.  Oddly, the 3 Anaheim plants have tons of flowers.  It's pretty cold here now, so I'll be pulling the plants in a day or so. We harvested the pie pumpkins, spaghetti squash, and there was only one very small acorn squash. I follow King Arthur's Blog, and they shared a tip for when you bake with your pie pumpkin puree:  Blog Post Here .

(2018 photo, the last time we grew them on the homestead) There was a point when organic butter at the grocery store became horribly high priced.  It's still high, but I try to stock up when they have coupons or a sale. However, I learned something new!  I have not tried it yet, but I have pie pumpkins planted this year.   There are concerns all over this country dealing with certain foods, shortages, price hikes and the like.   Most people are aware you can substitute unsweetened applesauce for oil when baking, but this next tidbit is new to me. You can substitute pumpkin puree for oil or butter when baking, using 1 to 1 ratio.  Meaning if your recipe calls for 1 cup oil, use 1 cup pumpkin puree. At harvest time, I roast the pumpkins (cut in half as shown in the photo), and let them cool down.  I scrape out the pumpkin, puree it in the food processor and freeze it in freezer containers. Of course there are many other uses for pumpkin puree, and w...

I have never made pumpkin soup of any sort, so this year I did. I roasted one entire pumpkin for this soup.  The recipe in my "pile" or "stash" called for potatoes.  I did some searching, and found there are so many ways to make this soup. I didn't follow the pumpkin and red lentil soup recipe I found online, but adjusted it to what I had.  I seasoned it with home canned hot sauce and garlic both fresh (heated with the onion) and some garlic powder to add more flavor.   I served it with a dollop of sour cream, and freshly chopped parsley.  Some of it is going in the freezer.  The hens are happy gals too.  They are getting the pumpkin "guts" for a treat. The taste test with the soup? Delicious!   I used 2 carrots and 2 potatoes in my soup, as well as the pumpkin. Guess what arrived at the library?

I purchased 8 pie pumpkins so far, and roasted them all for puree.  The first 6  weighed in about 1 5 . 71 lbs.  I typically cut them and clean them all, and roast them all in one day.  This time I roasted two a day, until I was done.  I have a dog that likes to steal food , so I made sure I didn't have a lot going on.  Funny how all the dog s don't touch the tomatoes.  An yway... I used parchment paper this year.  I usually add water and cover, but not this year.  It works pretty well too.  Parchment paper isn't cheap, so I buy it at our dollar store for $1 a box.  It gets me th rough the ho liday baking sea son on a dime as well.