Pumpkin pie

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Tessa

We had a few decorative sugar pumpkins that were starting to look old so I decided to cut them up and see if I could use the pumpkin flesh. They are edible, after all. So while Eve ate her breakfast yesterday I grabbed a knife and cutting board and went at it. She was very concerned. “Ohh… the cute pumpkins. You’re hurting them!” She fussed for a few minutes while I continued to cut. Then she asked if we could make pumpkin pie. Sure, I said. Fussing over. She happily watched as I cut the three little pumpkins into chunks and stuck them in the oven.

pumpkin chunks

While the pumpkin cooked Eve and I made my all-time favorite cream cheese pie crust from the Joy of Cooking.

Eve helped

My oven isn’t great (as you’ve heard) so these cooked and cooked and cooked, but eventually I had to take them out so Eve and I could get on with our day. They were probably 80% done. I left them on the counter all day until we got home from school. When the kids were settled with their movie (sick afternoon, remember?) I went back to the pumpkins. I was able to get the flesh out, but it was still too hard to easily puree. So I stuck it in the microwave.

Semi-cooked pumpkins. Not a very pretty sight.

This is when I discovered that the microwave had finally bit the dust. It turns on, lights up, makes all the right noises, but doesn’t actually get hot. After 15 minutes of cooking this pumpkin puree and only having it get cooler and cooler I decided to give up on that effort. I dug out the blender. No good. I don’t know if blenders are not meant for pureeing pumpkin or if mine is just old and lame or what, but the blender did nothing. So I went back to the immersion blender (my original tool) and put some muscle into it.

Eventually I got the puree smooth enough for my standards and I was finally able to start making the pie! By this time the movie was almost over! I used a recipe from King Arthur Flour called Smooth and Spicy Pumpkin Pie. You really can’t go wrong with a recipe from KAF. The rest of the process went smoothly and I got a beautiful (by my standards!) pie.

Pumpkin pie, fresh from the oven.

By the time it came out of the oven it was nearly 9:00pm, so we decided to let it cool and have pumpkin pie for breakfast.

Pumpkin pie for breakfast.

The verdict? Pretty good pie. The whole time I was dealing with the pumpkin puree I kept saying that I would never again make pumpkin pie from scratch. It’s just not worth the effort. I had half a blog post written in my head about it. But…. the three pumpkins yielded me enough puree to make three pies… or something else. The pie came out pretty good except the crust bottom was a bit undercooked (should have prebaked the shell a bit) and the filling was a bit overcooked (I was mistakenly doing the “knife test” in the middle instead of the recommended 1″ from the edge) so now I’m thinking about making another one. I have the puree all ready in the freezer. I’ll have to do something with it! :) Anyone want some fresh pumpkin pie?

I was trying to take an artsy picture of the pie, but Eve wanted a picture of her vitamin instead.

Yum!

Dinner

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Tessa

Potato leek soup and parmesan garlic bread for dinner. Fresh from the farm. Yum!

Food awareness

Posted on September 11, 2011 by Tessa

The longer I follow the Weight Watchers plan, the more aware I become of my eating habits and the effects food has on me. I know it’s been over three years… what can I say, I’m a slow learner. One thing that has really come to my attention lately (perhaps I’ve noticed this in the past, but clearly I never did anything about it) is the immediate effect my food choices at dinner have on my evening. When I eat a reasonable portion of healthy food I feel great. Bath and bedtime go well. Everyone is happy. However, when I don’t… ugh!

Today I ate well until afternoon snack when I prepared a plate of cheese and crackers and veggies for the kids. We all sat down at the picnic table to eat and I ate the cheese and crackers and veggies! Oops. I ate a piece of cheese sort of mindlessly, then it was all down hill from there. The kids wanted nothing to do with the veggies (buggers!) so I ate most of those, but I also ate 8pts worth of cheese and crackers. At dinner time I had 6pts left for the day, which isn’t a lot, but it is do-able. I had a healthy meal planned in my head, but we got caught up in outdoor afternoon chores and the kids dug in the garden. When we came in at 5pm I scrapped dinner plans in favor of getting the grubby children cleaned up before our house looked like our garden. Shortly after 5:30 they were both clean and we were in the kitchen talking about dinner. I was mildly annoyed at having a PYO dinner instead of cooking something healthy. Eve wanted PB&J on toast with mandarin oranges and Lex wanted grilled cheese and yogurt. In the process of preparing their dinners I ate a handful of peanuts (while opening the cabinet to get the peanut butter), half a slice of PB&J toast (Eve wouldn’t eat two whole slices anyway), a piece of bread/butter/cheese (while preparing Lex’s grilled cheese) and then half of his grilled cheese sandwiches. He’d asked for two and I made them, but it seemed like a lot when I put them on his plate so I somewhat mindlessly ate one half. I love grilled cheese! By this point I had more than blown through my six remaining points for the day, but I hadn’t actually sat down and had dinner. I was tempted to say to hell with it and make a huge bowl of cereal (NOT point friendly!), but instead I went for yogurt and granola. That was about six points. Had I just had the yogurt and granola for dinner I would have been full and felt great, but instead I ended up headachy, nauseas, and sluggish. And of course angry with myself and therefore short and crabby with the kids. Poor kids.

When will I learn? Awareness is the first step, right? Someday I’ll be able to stop myself before I blow it, instead of realizing it a little too late. Someday. Sigh.

A tasty summer salad

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Tessa

The idea for this came from a Price Chopper flyer. Fancy, huh? I made some modifications and it turned out to be an excellent summer salad! I’d highly recommend it.

Tropical fruit salad

Take a big bowl of spinach and add to it sliced kiwi, star fruit, and avocados. I made this salad earlier in the week and added sliced strawberries. I should have taken a picture of that one (what was I thinking?!) because the strawberries were beautiful and the star fruit was much more star shaped. But we ate the salad before I thought to photograph it. Silly me. For this one I was out of strawberries so I put in halved grapes instead. Still pretty delicious. Serve with chopped walnuts (on top or on the side) and Price Chopper low-fat raspberry dressing. A perfect summer salad!

Red, white, and blue scones

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Tessa

When we were strawberry picking a few weeks ago I asked the kids what we should do with the berries. They threw out lots of idea, but Lex was pretty insistent on making scones. I wanted to make strawberry jam and I got my way first (yay me!) but when Lex kept asking about scones I finally agreed to make them. Not that I didn’t want to, mind you, but I really, REALLY like scones and I knew that making them would result in me eating them and that, dear readers, is what I didn’t want. However, when Lex started opening cookbooks and trying to find a recipe I decided to go with it. On July 3rd (old news, I know, sorry!) we made strawberry scones and when Lex suggested making red, white, and blue scones for the holiday I thought that was a genius idea and we threw in some blueberries. Yum!

We made Strawberries & Cream Scones from KAF. I doubled the recipe, but stuck with 2/3c. strawberries and added 2/3c. frozen blueberries. The batter ended up a little too moist, so next time I would recommend using fresh berries instead of frozen. As KAF suggests in the recipe :) They baked up just fine though and tasted amazing! I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a high-fat, addicting, super delicious treat! :)

Strawberries, delicious strawberries

Little helpers, washing and hulling the strawberries for jam.

Yogurt and fresh scones for snack. Yum. (yes, Sunday comics all week and underwear helmets are the norm in this house)

I didn't put much effort into the photography of these... too busy eating, but they were quite pretty and festive.

Almond Cake

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Tessa

My friend Elizabeth had this cake at her house one day when we were over for a playdate. It was so delicious I asked for the recipe. Then I made it for the memorial service this weekend and it was so delicious two other people asked for the recipe! I didn’t take any pictures of it (imagine that!) but those at the memorial know what it looks like and the rest of you just need to bake it yourself. Here’s the recipe:

Almond Cake

Ingredients
3/4 c. butter, softened
1 1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp almond extract (I think most any extract would do, almond or hazelnut, lemon or orange, or just vanilla)
1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
pinch of salt
sliced almonds

Directions
1. Grease and flour a 9″ round pan
2. Cream together butter, sugar, eggs, and extract. Mix in flour and salt.
3. Spread almonds on top
4. Bake 30-40 minutes in a 350° oven
5. Cool completely, then turn out (put a plate on top of the pan, hold them together and flip the whole thing over, remove pan)

Serves 12.

Serve with fresh berries, sliced strawberries, shaved or drizzled chocolate, or just plain. The flavor is sweet and mild so it stands alone or works well with company. I wish I had a piece now to go with my hot tea.

Note to weight watchers… while this cake is totally delicious, you do pay for it in points. I’m sure it could be “lightened” but as is each slice is 8pts!

Flower Rose Pie

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Tessa

Today we made Flower Rose Pie, per Eve’s instructions. She has been talking about it a lot lately and several times over the past few days we’ve pretend made it, but this morning she said she wanted to make it and pulled her chair over to the counter. I figured, “why not?!” and followed her lead. She told me what to put in and I gave subtle guidance. Here’s the recipe:

1 purple flower
2 scoops of flour (1c.)
2 eggs
1 scoop of brown sugar (1/2c.)
2 big spoons of vanilla extract (2T)
a dusting of baking powder
chocolate shavings and chips for the top

Mix everything together in the bowl, pour into a pan (she was disappointed that we couldn’t find the “pumpkin pan” but I have no idea what she’s talking about so we used a little stoneware dish instead), bake at 350° for about 23 minutes. She insisted it only needed 8 minutes, but when we checked it then she agreed it needed a bit more time :)

Quick sandwich break.

You have to dip the flower in the egg a few times, then lay it down and coat it with flour. She was quite precise about that step.

Scrap the batter into a pan. This lasted long enough for me to get a picture then she decided it was too hard and went back to her sandwich.

Licking the paddle, another important step.

The hardest part... waiting.

When it came out of the oven we shaved up some chocolate chips across the top. Eve then made a “cross face” with full chips, but decided to “smooth it out” with the back of the measuring cup, so it mostly just looks like a chocolate mess.

We shaved chocolate chips across the top...

Then Eve went to work decorating the top with chocolate chips.

It looks messy, but yummy.

Look at that proud baker!

We ate it for snack and it actually tastes ok. Dense and mildly sweet, a little heavy on the vanilla, but overall not too bad. We all went back for seconds.

The finished product.

I thought I was being such a fun mommy, but when Alan came home he chastised me (gently) for baking with an unknown flower. Apparently he considers that to be an unnecessary risk in life. Oh well. If we all end up sick tonight at least we’ll know why! :)

Name that flower...

Rhubarb

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Tessa

I have a lot of rhubarb in my freezer. A lot! Through the CSA we’ve gotten it for two weeks in a row now and I need to figure out what to do with it. The first batch sat on my counter for far too long and I finally decided to throw it in the freezer for awhile. A quick google search sent me here (a great site I frequently end up on when I have questions about preserving fresh produce) and the freezing process went smoothly enough. Rhubarb is really annoying to peel! Did you know that? It’s all stringy and weird and smells like celery (not a veggie I like!) I persevered though and now have a ton in the freezer… What do you suggest? Strawberry rhubarb pie was my first thought and the obvious answer, but I just can’t motivate myself to make a pie. I found this site with 9 Perfectly Pink Rhubarb Recipes and I’m thinking about making the Rhubarb Buttermilk Mini Muffins but I’m afraid I will eat every last one of them. Not good! Hmmm… ideas?

Waste of time?

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Tessa

We had a busy afternoon today. Alan and Lex worked together to put in the air conditioners while Eve and I did some gardening. I read in a magazine that cats don’t like the smell of lavender, so I thought I’d plant some lavender around the yard and see if that reduced the amount of cat poop we are always cleaning up. I got two packs of seeds awhile ago but failed to read the directions or do anything with them. Then I thought it would be easier and more immediately effective to just buy lavender plants instead of starting from seed. I haven’t made it to a plant store though, so today we decided to just throw the seeds in the ground and see what happens. You are supposed to plant them indoors, wrap them in a plastic bag for awhile (humidity, I presume) and then slowly acclimate them to the outdoors. Or put down some dirt, drop in a few seeds, watch what happens. A total waste of time? We’ll see!

Fresh dirt, seeds...

Water, water, everywhere...

This was her favorite part of the process.

After that I prepped the old iris garden in the back yard, right next to our raised bed garden, and we planted some pumpkin seeds. Also potentially a waste of time. I’ve tried them in the past but we’ve never actually gotten pumpkins. This year they are in their own bed, with more space, and were more properly planted. Once again, we’ll see :) That seems to be my philosophy on gardening. Toss in some seeds and see what happens!

Something that is not a waste of time is our CSA this year. Look at what we had for dinner! Sesame tofu on a bed of romaine, spinach, and tatsoi. Soooo yummy!

One healthy photo per dozen cakes/cookies photos. That's a good balance, right?

The kids are in bed so I’m going to bake some Alaskan Sourdough bread (KAF mix from their overstock sale today!), try hard to stop eating animal crackers (though I’ll probably sample some fresh bread tonight!), and crash. I’m tired! Hoping my voice comes back tomorrow. Eve insists their is a frog stuck in my throat and my voice can’t get out. I love how kids hear expressions and run with them. At some point in time I’m sure she heard someone say “there’s a frog in my throat” and now she thinks the one in my throat is so big the voice can’t get past. Sweet silly girl.

Pasta, pasta

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Tessa

We had exciting happenings at our house last night. Exciting! I made Pasta with Sun Gold Tomatoes (with asparagus becuase it’s delicious and cherry tomatoes because I couldn’t find sun gold tomatoes at the store!) from Bon Appetit magazine. I also put out fresh baked French baguette because I wanted the tired kids to eat something. Well, eat they did! Bread of course, and Lex was feeling so brave he even tried a little butter on his bread (seriously!) That was such a success (because who doesn’t like butter with bread?!?) that he even worked up the courage to try the pasta!! This is big happenings in our house! Whole wheat spaghetti, asparagus, tomatoes, all mixed together with a cheesy sauce (not super WW friendly)… and he ate it! He didn’t love the veggies, but he ate a small serving of the pasta. It was amazing and exciting :) I know many parents of kindergarteners with their kids would eat anything besides pasta, but in this house we are thrilled when they finally eat pasta!! Of course, Eve happily ate her food once Lex decided it was acceptable. I wonder if he’ll try it again. Should I press my luck and make mac & cheese? :)

Calm and Chaos: Life with kids

Tag Archives: Food