The Fall Harvest?

Hello, ya'll....Deliverance here....

I know it has been a long time but I have been really busy. On what you ask? Fighting to make all that work in my garden worth something before the season is over. Now I usually have no big problems with my garden. I am up to my elbows in tomatoes by now and have so much canning done by now that Frederick and I have had with the whole busy by now. Not the case this year.
It seems that the gardening fairies were working against me this year. No matter what I tried nothing seemed to matter. I have canned 9 quarts of tomatoes this year and those were given to me by a friend of mine. It seems that it was a good year for some(*%$@#*)!!! What you see above is the first good harvest of tomatoes I have gotten this year. I have more coming but the question is will they ripen before the first frost.
Let me back up a bit here and let you know that it was a long winter this year and I didn't even get started on the garden until mid-May which around here is very late. And then it went from very cold to very hot almost over night which is not good for a healthy garden. It seemed that the seedling were just getting started when the sun would hit them with close to 100 degrees and they didn't have a snowballs chance in hell of getting thru the day. I spent alot of time re-seeding. Spinach...died. Squash...suffered badly. Green beans...not bad...have canned 18 quarts. Potatoes...not sure at this point, but the plants never got very big. Beets...big question there, I'll know in a week or so. Same for carrots but at least they look like very healthy plants. And then there are the tomatoes...which after 2 months some of the plants never got out of sproutsville before they would die.
Now don't get me wrong I am so grateful for what I have managed to harvest, it is just not the harvest I am use to. So now I am ready for this season to be over with so that I can start working on next year. There will be some changes in how the garden is planned, planted, and prepared for planting. More chicken coop cleaning, more sand to get this clay work into a nice soil, and tilled at least twice before the first snow flys. "And as God is my witness, I will never be hungry again" Sorry, my alter-ego, Scarlet O'Hare, just stepped in but I think she is gone for now.
On another note, for all of you who care...That is Barney in the background. His is a very healthy rooster and learning how hold his own with the "ladies". But he does live on the back porch and probably always will, the other chickens know that he is not whole and they are a bit funny about these things. He is a very well taken care of rooster. He comes to the back door just about sun down and either Frederick or myself will bring him in to sit on the couch and watch television a while before we put him in his house for the night. I mean a well rounded rooster has to stay on top of current events, Right?
Mama has given us four more chicks. I think she is one of those Moms that loves to have babies around so she just keeps hatching them out. Bertha, our biggest hen, hatched out two of her own. And she had a serious change in attitude, very protective. And Dolly has one new one and still sitting on a clutch of 8 more eggs so we will see what comes of that. I really think that Mama is a good influence on the rest of the flock. And this also means that I may not have to incubate next year. Which may not work for me...I also like having babies around...baby chicks that is!

Well, that it all for now. I will try to let you know how the rest of the harvest goes as long as I don't slip into a depression or have Scarlet take over my life.
Love ya'll..Deliverance

Pie, Pie, Apple Pie

Fall is here and, to me, that means more cooking than usual, and making exclamations of joy whenever I see an apple or a pumpkin. In accordance with autumn spirit, the apple tree in the back of my house, which did not produce at all last year, was graced with a few apples this season, just enough to make a pie.

Now I have to explain a little bit about how I feel about pie.

Pie is magic.

Being initiated into the art of it's creation is a right of passage. Practices of making pie, especially pie crust, vary widely, but once one's method of pie making has been perfected, innovations in pie making technique are met with skepticism and/or outright hostility.

Consider this: I am usually mild mannered and polite when meeting new people, and I am not given to bouts of rude obstinacy. Unless you insult my pie. I found this out during a Pinot Noir tasting party, where I was explaining my pie crust technique to a culinary minded friend. Another guest at the party overheard and made the mistake of telling me that my described pie crust was subpar because it was made with only butter and not shortening.

I rolled my eyes. "Butter is better because it provide superior taste and browning. Shorting give a great texture, but it just doesn't taste as good." I told him. He shook is head patronizingly. "My grandmother," he intoned, "makes the best pie crust. And has won numerous state pie competitions with her recipe. So her pie crust is better than yours."

"Don't talk to me about pie crust that you don't even make when you haven't EVEN TASTED MY PIE CRUST!" I shouted. And granted, I should have just let his comments slide, but I had had three glasses of wine and this was PIE CRUST, man. This was personal.

He tried to argue it with me a little longer, but I refused to back down. Finally I glared at him until he looked away. We didn't speak the rest of the night. Take that, pie insulter!


Ok, down to business. I did try a slightly new variation on my crust when I made my apple pie last week. I used a slightly higher ratio of butter to flour and I really liked the results. I've never made a more flaky crust. The extra butter idea came from the gal who does the smittenkitchen blog. Here's her recipe with my tweakings:

2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (8 ounces, 16 tablespoons or 1 cup) unsalted butter, very cold

Whisk the flour and salt together in a chilled bowl and then cut in the butter with a chilled pastry cutter. Do NOT use a food processor. If at any point while you're working in the butter it starts to feel warm or greasy, stash it in the freezer for a few minutes. You want it to stay as cold as possible during the whole process. Once the butter is in little crumbs in the flour (with some big crumbs left), add cold water, one tablespoon at a time until the dough just comes together. Stash in the fridge or freezer until the dough is firm and you're ready to roll it out.

It really helps to have a chilled marble pastry board to roll the dough out on, but if you don't have one just use the counter and try to work quickly. The colder the dough stays, the flakier it will be in the end.

Roll out the bottom crust, line your pie pan with it and fill with a mixture of peeled sliced apples, cinnamon, vanilla, a dash nutmeg and sugar to taste. Dot the filling with some extra butter. Roll out the top crust, lay it over the filling and crimp the edges to seal. Cut some holes for steam to escape (or use a heart shaped cookie cutter when you roll the top crust out if Martha Stewart inexplicable takes possession of your soul, the way she does with mine). This pie crust recipe makes more than enough for 9 in pie. I wrapped the extra dough in plastic wrap and stuck it in the freezer for a rainy day.


Bake pie at 400 degrees for twenty minutes, then lower the heat to 350 and bake for another 40 to 50 minutes, until pie is brown and your neighbors start dropping by to investigate what smells so good.

Feed the pie to good friends and enjoy the tuning of the seasons. Winter will be here before we know it!

Squash Casserole . . . Sort-Of

Earlier today I had some gorgeous zucchini in my fridge. It was from the farmer's market so it was fresh, luscious and impeccably healthy. There was only one problem with it; I had no interest in eating it. Honestly, I was really just craving a big bowl of pasta with meat sauce. But, I decided it's probably a sin to let farmer's market produce wither in the fridge uneaten, so I set about trying to find a way to make it palatable.

Now, Deliverance makes a mean squash casserole and by "mean" I mean I could eat the entire pan of it myself, given half the chance. I called her up and asked the basic ingredients. She said: "squash, cooked rice, onion, garlic, green chile, bacon and cream of mushroom soup." Great, I thought! Let's make this thing! Then I realized I had another problem: I didn't have any green chile or cream of mushroom soup. I thought about making a white sauce to substitute for the soup, but I didn't have any milk or cream.

Oh well! Time to wing it!

Here are the instructions for my version. Amounts of ingredients are approximate, since I wasn't measuring anything.

Five minutes before your piano lesson, boil water and pour it over the collection of rice that you found in little baggies in your cupboard. Spill rice all over stove. Leave it there and go teach your lesson. By the time your lesson is over, the rice will be nice and cooked. If it isn't, boil it for a while, then drain.

Semi-defrost your bacon. Claw at the solid mass of it until you get three slices off . Cut them into chunks and brown them in a skillet. Remove bacon and try not to eat all of it. Pour off most of the bacon fat (save it!) and in the same pan, throw the not-too-sad remains of half an onion, chopped, along with two minced garlic cloves. Remember that you have some mild shoshito peppers in the fridge (ah, farmer's market) and chop those up and add them to the onions. Once the veggies are brown, remove them from the skillet. Add two tablespoons of bacon fat back to the skillet, along with two tablespoons of flour. Whisk and cook until golden. then add one cup of chicken broth and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thick. Then whisk in the 1/4 cup of cream cheese that came with a bagel you got the other day. Slice your squash and mix all the veggies and the rice together in a casserole dish. Grate 1/2 cup manchego cheese into the mix. Grind lots of pepper and salt over everything, then pour the sauce over it and mix it up again. Dot the top with bacon and grate some Parmesan cheese over it (you used up all the manchego already). Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until the squash is tender.

This was really good, but if I were to make it again I would make a larger amount of sauce; the casserole wasn't dry, but it could have been better with more goo.

Breakfast of Champions. Or, Alternately, Mach 4 with Her Hair on Fire

Willfull and Deliverance here. Today was a very special day because Willfull beat her record time for running a mile. Previously, the fastest mile she'd run had been completed in 7 minutes and 23 seconds, but this morning she wittled that time down to 7 minutes and 9 seconds!

To celebrate Willfull's accomplishment, Deliverance made chocolate chip strawberry pancakes! Breakfast of champions! The pancake batter recipe is included at the end of the post. Here's the visual instructions:

Pour your batter into little circles on your griddle. Then sprinkle them with sliced strawberries and chocolate chips. Preferably big chocolate chips. Preferable big Ghiradelli chocolate chips.

Then flip your cakes over. See if you can take a picture of one of the cakes in mid-air.

Put them on a plate with butter, maple syrup (the real stuff, not that corn syrup with the yucky colors), bacon and a strawberry cut into the shape of a fan. Then eat!

And now for the recipe...

3 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons sugar

1 egg

around a quarter cup of vegetable oil

and enough milk to make a nice pourable batter.

I know that it may seem that I should made something a bit more calorie conscience but you must remember that she had just worked off enough calories to cover two of these breakfast...don't you think? Besides everyone needs a bit of chocolate and strawberries in their life every now and again!!

Singing off for now. Love you! BYE!!

Deliverance & Willfull

My Name is Willful and I'm a Tomato-Plantaholic

Willful here and I have a problem. My problem is that I anthropomorphize my plants. I give them names and talk to them and ask them if they're having a good day. When I get home from work I check on them before going inside my house. Last year, when a hail storm flattened the top halves of my monster early girl tomato plants I actually cried.

So today I went to the nursery because I had room for one more tomato plant in my garden. I was anticipating picking out a new plant and wondering what I would get. Would it be an heirloom? A large salad tomato? Well I walked into the green house and immediately spotted an early girl variety tomato that was practically busting out of its small container. Its branches were full and leafy and already laden with a few golfball sized green fruit. "Mine!" I said, happily picking up my new friend and turning to walk to the check out counter.

Then I saw them.

Rows upon rows of healthy tomato plants. All lined up under pictures of what the tomatoes would look like from each plant and descriptions of how each one would taste.

Uh oh. Well . . . maybe I could squeeze in one more plant?

But the harder I looked the more difficult the decision became. Did I want one of the Purple Russians, which yields a tomato so dark it almost looks black? Or maybe an orange variety, high in vitamin C? The list went on. I was having serious trouble.

I finally decided on an "Amy's Sugar" plant which advertised "juicy 2 oz. golf balls as sweet as candy." But then I saw the Brandywine plants which yield tomatoes that are "surprisingly large and can weigh up to 2 pounds." Sold! I took one of each.

And then, because once I start buying plants I can't stop, I picked out some eggplants and a few strawberries to put in a hanging basket.

Here are some of the plants I've amassed so far. The tomato at the heading of this post is my new early girl friend. I've decided to call her Punctual.

First zucchini of the season!

Hanging strawberry basket:


Love,
Willful

Hi ya'll.....Deliverance here.

Well the farm is busy. Let's start with the garden and those beautiful strawberries! My first handful and they are sweeties. They are coming along very nicely and they are an early variety so they won't be around very long. So we pick and freeze until we get the whole crop in or we get enough to make that wonderful jam that everyone loves to get in their care packages. So ya'll get ready, there will be a nice crop this year! On the bigger scale is the regular garden. I was very late this year getting it in the ground due to some other business that needed my attention but it turned out to be a good thing this year because the weather has been very hot and cold. Even with the delay it is going along very nicely. Beans, peas, carrots, lettuce, beets, spinach, radishes, pumpkins, melons, squash, cucumbers, and don't forget the tomatoes, my garden it not complete without the tomatoes. I have a very large problem surviving the winter if I don't have enough tomatoes canned and waiting for me to put them in my soup, make a sauce for pasta, or just warm them up and lightly season...yummy! Made myself hunger there, sorry I'll try to get thru this first...! Everything is coming up (along with the weeds!) and looking great. So I'm very excited for a big crop this year and a long canning season.

And now for your chicken update......
I released the youngin's into the general population on Saturday and what a release. I now have chickens everywhere. It is so cool to have hatched these from eggs and watched and helped them grow big enough to run with the big chicks! Saturday was slow going them really where not sure what to do with that open gate and it took most of the day for them to get very brave. The older chickens had no problem go in the nursery to visit the teenagers but there was no blood shed which is a good thing because it is hard to change a chickens mind once they remember they have a mind. By Sunday morning everyone was running free like they have been doing it all along. I also let "Mama" and her babies out of their hutch for the first time and that was interesting. "Mama" is the best hen I have and she hatch out three babies and they have been living in the hutch for the past month. "Mama" was getting a bit restless the last few days and I just decided that I would let her out, leaving the babies to grow a bit more. She thought better of leaving the babies behind. She wasn't out more than a second before she was calling the babies out as well. Some of the older hens were not happy about her being out with the babies. Again no bloodshed but it was a little scary for a bit. Hens get chesty with each other and a lot of clawing when things are changed and they get uncomfortable. "Mama" set them straight and peace reigned the coop! And then there is the matter of Goober, Billy Bob, and Barney....not an easy situation...It took me a while to decide what to do. Goober and Billy Bob are normal (if there is such a thing) and would have no problem being part of the flock. The problem is Barney with the bum leg...he would not last long out with the rest of the flock...chicken kill the weakest or anything that they think is unwell. So I had to make a pretty hard decision,the choices were take the chance that the flock would accept him, twist his neck (the Doc's words), or move him on the porch and finish raising him as a pet. Everyone knows what I did...Goober and Billy Bob are doing great with the rest and Barney is learning to live on his own on the porch. It will be a long road but I think Barney and I will become famous buddies and he will learn to follow me around in the yard and garden and he can live a long life being the "worlds most pampered chicken". By the way I have no idea if this is a hen or rooster. My luck runs towards the rooster but we will see.

I will sign off here. Happy Spring to everyone and good night~
Deliverance

Canoe Cake

Ok. Wilful here. I've posted about my "Cavecakes", which are cupcakes with giant sinkholes in the middle. Now I've got to tell you about Canoe Cake, which is a loaf cake that does the same thing.

The first time I made Canoe Cake it turned out beautifully: golden brown and moist, with a perfectly risen high dome. There were no witnesses to this miracle as I ate almost the whole loaf by myself. The second time I made the cake, something went terribly wrong.
The cake is question is from Nigella Lawson's book "How to be a Domestic Goddess." She calls it Lemon Syrup Loaf Cake and it's divine, even when it sinks so much that a tiny person could sit in the middle of the loaf and paddle the cake around a small lake.

After examining the recipe many times I think my problem is that I'm not using cake flour. Nigella specifies "Self rising cake flour", which is just too British to find in America with any ease. I found a conversion online for how to make your own and the first time I made the recipe I used cake flour combined with baking powder. Every time after that I've used regular flour because I haven't had any cake flour around. If you make this cake I would recommend you use cake flour. I'm going to try that next time and I'll post about how it turns out.
Anyway, this is a fantastically delicious cake that you should make. If it sinks in the middle like mine did, just cut it up into cubes, layer it with whipped cream and fruit and call it a trifle. No one will know it came out of the oven looking like a canoe.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 Cup butter, unsalted
  
• 1/2 Cup + 1 Tbls. Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• Zest of one Lemon
• 1 Cup plus 1 Tablespoon self rising cake flour OR 1 Cup + 1 Tablespoon Cake flour mixed with 1 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
• Pinch Salt
• 4 Tablespoons Milk

For the Syrup:

• 4 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
• 1/2 Cup Sugar
• Fresh Thyme Sprigs (Optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a loaf pan and line it with parchment paper (NOT WAX PAPER). Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs and lemon zest. Add flour and salt and then mix in the milk. Bake cake for 45 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.
While cake is baking, make the lemon syrup: boil the lemon juice and sugar together until the sugar has dissolved completely. if you like, strip some leaves off of from fresh Thyme springs and add the to syrup while it's cooking. These will add a light herbal scent to the cake.

Now for the fun part: poke the cake all over with a skewer or chopstick. Pour the syrup over the cake and let it cool while the lemony goodness soaks in.