Scrumptious Saturday...a pie for my guy

My husband starts a new job on Monday...Friday was his last (official) day at his old job.

So technically he is unemployed this weekend.

So I made pie.

Somehow it seems fitting.

He wanted cherry pie.

I didn't have enough in the freezer.

So this is what he gets.

Mixed Berry Pie

One recipe double pie crust

about 6 cups blackberries, blueberries, and cherries

2 TBS cornstarch

1/4 cup flour

3/4 cup sugar

Mix the berries, flour, cornstarch, and sugar in a bowl.

Roll out the crust and place in a greased pie pan.

Put the berry filling in.

Put the top crust on in any manner you see fit.

(I did lattice, but I saw a lovely one done once with cookie cutters and seasonal shapes.)

Brush top crust with milk and then sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

Bake at 350 for about an hour.

You may want to cover the pie with tinfoil once it turns the correct color brown.

Enjoy it.

A quarter pounder without cheese

A quarter pounder

Two eggs from the same chicken

This egg was the only one layed the day after the great mucking. 

 I consider it a thank you from the girls.

I'll pay for this tomorrow...

Monday is usually my work day.  I work one day a week and am home for the rest.  I had a cancellation so I went home for a few hours in the middle of the day.  The weather has started taking a turn for the damp coolness that usually precedes the blasting heat of summer around here. 

 I figured I would hoe the beds I started last summer and fall.  It took all of 10 minutes to do this as the soil was the best I have ever seen.  Soft, crumbly, dark and rich, it will be the best food for our food.  I then decided it could maybe do with a little nitrogen from our chicken coop aka "chicken poo."  I went in with a bucket and extracted a mass of our deep litter from the past 6 months.  It was starting to mature to a nicely aged mass of fertilizer.  So I put one bucket on each of our raised beds.  

Then I figured I shouldn't stop there. 

 I opened the muck door in the back of the chicken coop that goes straight into the compost heap.  After 2 hours, I had finally cleaned out 6 months of weekly layering of chicken litter.  I also took the time to use some of the compost from last year and layered compost with chicken litter in order to get a lovely bacterial colony going in the heap.  Worms were everywhere in the deep layers about one foot below ground, a sure sign of healthy soil that has been produced.  

With the work all done, I jumped in the shower (I bet my afternoon clients were happy I did this!) and went to the local feed store.  There I bought a big compressed bale of peat moss for lasagna beds and mulching later in the season, and on a whim asked how much for a discarded pallet.  The pallet recycler gives them a dollar each so he'd give me the same deal.  I also got a few seeds that I saw and liked.  

With all that done, I went back to work, clean, energized, and hopeful about my garden.  But I knew after all the lugging, pushing, and tugging, I'd be paying for it the next day...

and boy o boy am I ever.

Scrumptious Saturday

As long ago promised, I have made a vegetarian meal.

(Yes, you could add bacon and it would be great, but for today, we are all out of bacon.)

Often I will "accidentally" make too many mashed potatoes.

What is one to do with leftover mashed potatoes.

Mashed Potato Pancakes

2 cups leftover mashed potatoes

2 eggs

1/2 c. flour

1/2 c. cheddar cheese shredded

salt and pepper

Stir everything up in a bowl.  Place on a very hot oiled pan (I love my cast iron griddle for this.) by the 1/4 cup full and mash down into a pancake.  Let cook for a few minutes until golden brown, then flip.  After flipping, I like to give it a little smash so that it is about 1/4 inch thick.  Let cook for a few more golden minutes and serve hot.  I use it as a main course, a side, a breakfast whatever my fancy is that day.  But there is no doubt about it, they are rather scrumptious. 

Any one up for sinzibukwud?

Sinzibukwud...the Algonquin word (and also Cree) for maple sugar.

Just in case you didn't know.

(I didn't until I read the handouts I got from our field trip.)

To tap a tree you don't need fancy equipment...

You don't have to spend money on buckets or spiles.  

Everything needed to tap a tree, I found in my house.

A drill fitted with a bit.

A gallon milk container.

A nail and hammer.

A drinking straw (about 1/3 per tree.)

(A big bucket may come in handy too.)

In order to keep the trees healthy, there are a few ground rules.

Only drill to 1 3/4 inches depth.

I put a rubber band on my bit in order to make sure.

Only tap trees that are over 36 inches around at 52 inches above ground level.

For every 15 or so inches further around, you can add a tap.

So then we went to our neighbor's yard (yes, we asked permission first.)

We drilled a hole in 3 trees.

It's amazing how hard maple wood is.

Smoke started coming from the bit and when the cold sap touched it, we heard sizzles.

After the holes were made, we put one of the plastic drinking straws into the hole.

As you can see from the picture, sap was already dripping down the bark.

Next, we put a nail in the tree about an inch above the "spile."

Then two holes were placed in the milk jug.

The top one holds the jug to the tree via the nail.

The second allows the spile to pour cold crisp sweet tree sap into the jug.

This morning I went to the tree to see how much sap we had collected over night.

About 1 cup.

Since sap only runs when the night is below freezing and the day is above freezing this was pretty good.

Last night wasn't even freezing.

This week, the days are supposed to be warm and the nights below freezing.

I can't wait until we get some more sap.

I also got a great tip from the field trip.

Place the sap in the freezer or outside on a freezing night.

In the morning you should have a layer of ice on top.

Throw it out.

It is just water ice, and it will save about an hour of boiling off time.

A pile of fermentation

We got back from a mini-vacation yesterday afternoon.  

Typically I make yogurt on a weekly basis, but I didn't have time to before I left, 

so our old yogurt was a bit icky.

So today I had to revamp the yogurt from here.

I also received a package in the mail from Alaska thanks to 

This is my life at 720 square feet, she is such a sweet fierce momma!

In it was a pack of sourdough from Alaska!

(Have I ever mentioned my obsession with Alaska...

I have a ULU my parents brought back for me and now a living sourdough... and some beautiful books! 

Oh it is just too much!)

I love sourdough.

I love it with passion.

I have wanted to make a good one for a while, but just didn't have the courage to make one from scratch 

(what if it made awful sourdough) 

and I couldn't find a starter that was an old strain locally.

C. and I mixed it up (with a bit of a struggle over the whole spoon issue.  

C. didn't want to use a wooden spoon.  

Her metal spoon would spell certain death for the dough.)

So now I have that fermenting over the top of my yogurt on a heating pad.

I have a large pile of fermentation slowly cooking away.

I love all the little creatures making food yummy.

So I will post this without pictures in hope that I find my camera after the long car ride and will later post a picture of my heap.

Scrumptious Saturday...Cook once for 3 days.

Sorry, the whole household has been sick.
The seasonal flu and cold took me out for a while.
I was planning on posting this last Scrumptious Saturday.
But, better late than never.

I love making roasts.

Why?

You cook once and can eat for days.

I made a 2 pound pork roast make 3 meals for 4 people

(aka 12 meals or about 1.25 oz/person/day at a cost of less than a dollar a meal.)

Day 1 Recipe

1 2 lb pork loin roast

1 can tomato paste

4 cloves garlic peeled

veggie stock

seasonings to your liking

Rub seasonings onto pork.  Cut 4 deep slits into the pork and insert garlic into the holes.  Place the roast into a hot pan with some oil and sear it off.  Pour in veggie broth mixed with the tomato paste.  Put in oven at 300 degrees until tender. Serve with rice (hint...make too much rice so you have leftover rice) and savor.

Save the roasting liquid and make into BBQ sauce by adding

sweetener (molassas, brown sugar, and honey all do nicely and play together nicely as well.  Amounts vary as some like sweet bbq and some like hot.  It also varies by the type of sweetener(s) you use.)

hot pepper powder (I use a touch, like 1/8 tsp of chyanne pepper)

garlic powder (as much or as little as you wish)

ketchup (about 1/4 c)

lemon juice (about 1/4 c)

vinegar (again depending on what kind you like and how sweet/sour you like it.)

Take half of the leftovers and dice...refrigerate with your leftover rice and then make fried rice.

Take the other half, shred it using 2 forks and cook in the above bbq sauce.

My family doesn't always like to eat "theme and variations" style, so I will let you know that the bbq and the fried rice all freeze nicely. 

What else would you do with this "theme and variation"