Blueberry Farm - Blueberry Pie

We made our first trip to the local U-Pick blueberry farm.  It is close enough that M ran and met us there. (He has just passed 200 miles for the summer and is hoping to make it to 500 before school starts.)We hung our buckets from our belts and started picking.

P was like Little Sal. Kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk. Her recommended method of picking was to  "eat the big ones and put the little ones in the pail."  She did a lot of picking but must have found mostly BIG berries

I like to go early in the morning and listen to the birds while I pick.  I get in my own little pretend world that I am a pioneer woman working to feed my family.  I ignore that the bushes are in straight trimmed rows and the ground below my feet has been mowed.  When I hear the calls of "Only pick the BLUE ones," and "wow, look how big these berries are," and "how many berries have you picked?" coming across the field , I am jolted back to reality.  The spell is broken and I know it is time to go.

Morning's haul: 15 pounds.

For lunch we all had peanut butter and blueberry sandwiches. Ahhh, only a short time each year can you have THAT for lunch!

We will freeze most of them for pies this winter.

Miner's Blueberry Pie Filling

3 cups fresh or frozen blueberries (I use 4 cups for a 10 inch pie)
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix dry ingredients.
Add to blueberries and mix gently.
Pour into pie pan with crust. Add top crust.
Bake at 400 degrees for 40-50 minutes.

Strawberries- Pie, Jam, and Shortcake

Each year when the rhubarb is ready for harvest, we wait for the strawberries. Sure there are some in the supermarket but they have traveled a long way to get here.  They are a different kind of berry.  They are very big and look like strawberries on the outside but the inside of them is white and they taste like apple. So, we wait.  In mid June the Michigan berries arrive.

They are here!  It is time to start filling the freezer!  Friday, we made 8 pie fillings.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

I have a system for making the pies. I line up gallon size freezer bags on the table. Chop up 3 cups of rhubarb and 2 cups of strawberries for each bag.

Then I mix 1 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons tapioca, and 1/4 tsp nutmeg and add to each bag.

Shake the ingredients in the bag to mix them up. Hold the bag upright and roll up like a log and close the bag.

Stack the bags like firewood in the freezer for use all year!  When I want pie in the winter I just pull out a bag to thaw and make a crust. Dump the bag contents into the the pie, add top crust, and bake at 375 degrees for about 50 minutes.

Yesterday B made a batch of strawberry jam for the freezer.

Today, strawberry shortcake.

This is a Sally Lunn base with strawberries and whipped cream on top.

Sally Lunn

1/2 cup butter
1/3 sugar
3 eggs
2 cups flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup milk

Cream the  butter and sugar. 
Add the eggs. 
Combine dry ingredients.
Add the milk and dry mix alternately.

Pour into a greased 9 x 13 inch pan.
Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.

Time for more berries.

Scrumptious Chocolate Pound Cake

This chocolate pound cake recipe has been in the family for years. I understand that my great grandmother used to make it. I have changed it a little bit since I started making it but it is still mostly the same.  I am lucky to have my great grandmother's cast iron bundt pan to cook it in.  It is quite heavy to put in and out of the oven but it is worth it!

Chocolate Pound Cake - basic recipe

3 sticks butter
2 cups sugar
5 eggs
1/2 cup cocoa (I use 1/4 cup Dutch-processed and 1/4 cup black cocoa)
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup milk

Cream together the butter and sugar.  Add eggs.
Mix dry ingredients together.
Add dry ingredients and milk alternately to butter and egg mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for one and a half hours or until toothpick tester comes out clean. 

When I use the cast iron pan, I preheat the pan and cook for an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes.
Variations to add: mashed banana, grated zuccini, raspberry sauce, chocolate chips, frosting (only added for birthdays)

Some members of my family make a meal of this cake. They put a slice on the plate and put peanut butter on it, then a banana cut in half, lastly they smother it in vanilla yogurt. Now THAT is a breakfast. I prefer the cake with just vanilla yogurt.)

P wanted a pink cake for her birthday. We made the basic recipe plus a mashed banana and sprinkled chocolate chips on the cake before baking.  It is frosted with pink frosting and sprinkled with mini m & m baking pieces.  She likes the frosted donut with sprinkles look.

Happy Birthday P.

Three years ago, at 11:11 on 6/6/05, we heard the delivery nurse and the anesthesiologist argue across me as to what time would be the official birth time.  The anesthesiologists laptop said 11:10; the wall clock said 11:11.  The nurse insisted that 11:11 was a much better birth time.  She won.edit: a stick of butter is 8 tablespoons, 1/2 cup, or 1/4 pound.

Best Ever Cinnamon Rolls

We used to love going to visit my grandmother and finding that she had some of "Margaret's Rolls."  Margaret was one of my grandmother's neighbors and also used to be the cook in the two room school my mother attended as a child. They would have fresh bread every day at school. At home, Margaret baked bread in a wood stove.  Now, she uses an electric oven but she still can make great rolls.  She told me she made 100 for the church breakfast Easter Sunday!  We have her recipe; and I made them FOUR times last week.  The secret to making these delicious cinnamon rolls is patience!

Margaret's Cinnamon Rolls

2 1/2 teaspoons yeast (one package)
1/4 cup warm water
4 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup warm milk (or water)

brown sugar and cinnamon for sprinkling
powdered sugar, butter, and milk for topping

Dissolve the yeast in the 1/4 cup water.
Mix flour, sugar, and salt.
Add soft butter and yeast mixture to the one cup of warm milk.
Mix the liquid mixture with the dry ingredients.
Mix well and knead until smooth.

Put in a greased bowl and let rise for about an hour (or more).

Punch down the dough and roll out into a rectangle. Spread with softened butter and then sprinkle generously with brown sugar and cinnamon.
Roll up and cut into 14 rolls.
Place in two greased 9 inch pans and let rise again. 
Patience!
Bake at 400 for 13-15 minutes.

topping:
melt 2 tablespoons butter and add about a 1/2 cup powdered sugar to make a paste (I didn't measure) add a LITTLE bit of milk until the mixture is thin enough to spread easily. 
Put the topping on the rolls while they are still warm.
Devour them while they are warm.

When we made these yesterday we cut up an apple and added that with the brown sugar and cinnamon. That was also quite good.

Spring Eggs

Our chickens like to get outside in the spring. It doesn't seem as if there is much for them to eat yet as they scratch around the yard and garden areas, but we have noticed that they are eating less purchased feed.

The biggest change is in the taste of the eggs!  The egg yolks have much more color and taste when the chickens can get out and forage for food. Yum. Now, THIS is why we raise our own chickens.

And the bonus for Easter is that we don't have to fuss with dyeing eggs.

I hope that they enjoyed their jaunts in the yard this past week, as it is snowing today. We have several inches already, and a total of 6-10 inches of snow is predicted to fall by morning.

March of the Tools - Mixer

I have to say that my KitchenAid mixer is the most used tool in my kitchen. I bought it when we were first married. B was in graduate school, and we lived in government subsidized housing. It was a very extravagant purchase at the time, but I have used it almost every day since, so it turned out to be a wise investment.  I even use all of the attachments.

I make bread with the dough hook. The two bread recipes I make most are the French Bread and English Muffin Loaves in the recipe book that came with the mixer. I use the dough hook to knead the bread. Then, I oil the bowl and replace the dough and it rises in the same bowl. That makes for easy clean up.

I use the whisk attachment to whip butter, cream, and sometimes egg whites.

The flat beater is used the most. I use it for anything that needs to mixed.  Mostly cookies... but also for pie crusts, scones, cakes, quick breads, and even meatloaf. I use it so much that I have worn through the white coating on two beaters. I am on the third beater in 20 years. I think creaming the butter and sugar that does that. I remember creaming the butter and sugar with a wooden spoon when I was growing up; that was a lot more work. Now I can measure other ingredients while the mixer does the work.

March of the Tools - Cookie Scoop

I like to make cookies. With this tool, I can make 6 dozen oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in under an hour!  I have this recipe down to a science. Really. This 1 1/4 inch scoop makes the scooping go very fast. I can quickly make 6 staggered rows of 4 cookies on the baking sheets. I load the second tray while the first is baking. When the third tray goes in the oven I wash everything up. Total time in the kitchen after the butter is soft is less than one hour.

When I am not in a hurry, I can make fancy cookies. These are especially fun with a large collection of great cookie cutters. I picked these up years ago at a rummage sale.

I get them out every spring. P and I recently made some sugar cookies with these.

I have found that I like making roll out sugar cookies a lot better than I like eating them. Perhaps next time we should make some art clay like the box suggests.

You can see some of my other favorite cookie cutters here and the gingerbread man  shapes here.

Cranberry Bread

Over the weekend I did a little inventory of the freezer. I wanted to see how much jam and pie filling was left. While I was digging around I found a bag of cranberries and had to use them in cranberry bread right away!  This is a favorite with the boys. I usually get a few bags of cranberries and put them in the freezer in the fall so we can enjoy this bread in the winter months.

Cranberry Bread

2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
2 Tablespoons shortening
2 Tablespoons hot water
1/2 cup orange juice
1 cup raw cranberries cut in half (I use the whole bag and leave them whole)
1 cup nuts (optional)Mix dry ingredients

Cream together the egg, shortening, water, and juice. Add berries.
Fold the wet mixture into the dry ingredients.
Turn into a greased 9 inch loaf pan.
Bake for one hour or more at 325 degrees F.  (If the berries are still frozen you will have to bake longer.)  Bake until toothpick comes out clean.

Whipped Butter

When I was newly married, twenty years ago, one of the tricks I learned from B's mother was how to make whipped butter. The recipe called for butter, margarine, and vegetable oil. You let it get soft and then whip it in the mixer until it gets white and fluffy. It is then easier to spread on bread. There is also the theory that with all the air whipped in you use less. I am not so sure on that one.

I still like the whipped butter. Last year we eliminated shortening and margarine from our diet so I have adjusted the recipe. I now use one pound of butter and a half cup of olive oil.

I like the way the butter looks in these vintage jelly jars. I found a whole box of these at a garage sale a couple of years ago.

Spice Cake

Happy Birthday Kim!

We don’t need a special reason to make a cake.

A Taste of Summer

This morning it was so cold that our upstairs windows were frosted over and we couldn't see out. It was 4 degrees when I got up.

We had a taste of summer last night, blueberries that we picked last July.

When D was in second grade he loved the Boxcar Children books. I think he read all of them in the library collection. We even got the Boxcar Children Cookbook. Our favorite recipe in the book is the one for Miner's Blueberry Pie.

I love the way the  Boxcar children are independent problem solvers. They are very thrifty too.

Pretzel Day

It’s pretzel day!!

I chose the soft pretzel recipe here because it seemed most like the one that was demonstrated on the pretzel factory tour  on Mr. Rogers.  It seemed fairly simple and also included the boiling soda water step. P must have been paying attention when she watched the demonstration because she knew just what to do.

The thumb print makes each baker's pretzel unique.

Sprinkling the salt was fun.

I had to be quick to get the finished pretzels in a photo. As I mentioned earlier, baked goods disappear quickly with teenage boys in the house.

They turned out great. Next time I will grease the pan better as a few of them stuck.

And I think we'll try a recipe that doesn't have the boiling soda water step. That should be easier but I wonder what the difference in taste will be.

Shortbread Cookies

We did make our shortbread cookies on the weekend.

I have to love a recipe with so few ingredients.

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups flour

Blend butter and sugar until smooth. Scrape sides of bowl and add vanilla. Add flour slowly until well blended.

Divide dough and flatten into two discs. Put each in a plastic bag or plastic wrap. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 1/2 hours or overnight.
Roll out dough on a floured surface to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut with cutters.

Bake at 325 degrees on an ungreased cookie sheet for 15-16 minutes be careful not to let the cookies brown.
Transfer cookies immediately to a cool, flat surface with a spatula.

Dipping the cookies in chocolate did not work as well as I had hoped. The chocolate was too thick and then didn't harden after they were dipped. Next time we want to add chocolate we will just spread some chocolate on top of them which is what we ended up doing this time after making a large chocolate mess.

As you can see, we like them just as well without the chocolate!

Garden Plan

Now, as it is snowing outside, is the time to make our garden plan.

We are thinking of warm rows of soil and what will go in those rows. We usually grow lots of root crops like potatoes and onions because the deer and rabbits like to visit our garden and eat the tops of plants.

purple potatoes

Last year, we fenced part of the garden and were finally able to harvest enough peas to put some in the freezer.

peas

Now, we think we will add some new foods to our garden plan- some tomatoes, more peas, and after trying Amy's pumpkin muffins I know we will be planting more pumpkins to freeze.

We also have our perennial plants like rhubarb and raspberries.

raspberry

Those are the ones I like best, the ones that rest underground under a blanket of snow all winter and then burst through the soil after being warmed by the sun.

That's what we think about when we look out the window on our cold world  of white.

Graham Banana Squares

Back when I was in college, I ripped a recipe page out of a magazine at the doctor's office. That page had this great recipe that I have been making for almost 25 years. Yes, I still have guilt

! I have made myself feel better about it by telling myself that the magazine was old and no one else would be making those recipes! My boys loved these when they were little. M always requested this as his share treat at school parties.

Graham Banana Squares

1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (10 whole crackers)
1/2 cup wheat germ
2T brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking sodadash of salt
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 medium bananas)
1/3 cup peanut butter
2T oil1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Put the graham crackers in the mixer bowl. (I break them up a bit with my fist.) Add all other ingredients except the chocolate chips. Turn the mixer on slow and mix until all ingredients are moist. The crackers may still be a little chunky. Spread the mixture in an 8 x 8 inch pan. Sprinkle the chocolate chips on the top. Press them lightly into the surface of the dough otherwise they will fall off after baking.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Raisin Filled Cookies

This is an old family recipe from B's grandmother.

Raisin Filled Cookies

Dough:
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup butter
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 cups flour
1 cup milk

Cream together the sugar and butter, add eggs, and vanilla.
Sift the dry ingredients together.
Add the dry ingredients and milk alternately to the bowl, beat only as needed.
Refrigerate 2 hours or over night.

Filling:
1 pound raisins or other dried fruit (we have tried apricots and currants)
1/2 cup sugar (1/4 cup is usually enough)
2 T cornstarch

Put the raisins in a pan and cover with water, bring to a boil and simmer at least 30 minutes, adding water as needed to produce plump raisins with sauce. Add sugar and cook 2-3 minutes. Add cornstarch and cook 2-3 minutes. cool
The filling can be made the day ahead also.

Cookies:
Roll out dough on a liberally floured surface and cut with a 2 3/4 inch cutter. Dough is sticky, keep it cold and move quickly. Place bottom pieces on an ungreased sheet. add spoonful of filling and cover with top layer.

Seal edges with a fork dipped in flour.

Bake at 350 degrees 15 to 20 minutes. Bake only 8 per sheet as they will spread.

We make this family favorite only once a year. Enjoy!

Gingerbread Men

We have been doing a lot of baking in the last week. It is getting to be ridiculous. Yesterday we made gingerbread cookies. P loves the cookie boy story and recites the cookie boy's lines "Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me; I'm the gingerbread man."

Even the boys joined in to decorate.

I love the different styles of decorating.

We also made chocolate chip cookies because, well, we always have to have some of those.

We still have some holiday cookies that we have not made! There are those raisin filled cookies that B makes every year. After two weeks of baking and eating, I think we will all be waddling back to our routines in the new year!

If only we had some snow, we could more easily burn off some of these cookies. 

Carrot Cake

The carrot cake turned out so tasty I thought I would share the recipe.

Carrot Cake

2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 cups finely grated peeled carrot
8 oz can crushed pineapple, drained
3 1/2 oz can (1 cup) sweetened flaked coconut (optional)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

frosting:
12 oz cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar

Into a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Stir in the granulated sugar, oil, eggs, carrots, pineapple, coconut, and the walnuts.
Divide the batter between two buttered and floured round 9" cake pans (or one 9" by 13" pan) and bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.
Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for five minutes, then run an thin knife around the edge of each pan and invert the layers onto a rack to cool completely.
In a bowl with an electric mixer, beat together the cream cheese, butter, and the vanilla until the mixture is fluffy, then add the powdered sugar gradually, beating until the frosting is smooth. Frost cake as desired.

P. helped bake and frost the cake. Just as we finished the frosting, I had to leave the room for one minute to help someone else. As I left, I said, "don't touch the cake. If there are fingerprints in the frosting I'll know they are yours."She just couldn't help herself. This is what I found when I returned.

Here's wishing you that "dig right in" excitement.

Tea Party

P. and I had a tea party yesterday. A REAL tea party. We invited her "knitting aunties."

Although we live far from family, we are lucky to have great friends here. P is surrounded by wonderful people as I was growing up. I love that she is so comfortable with these very special women, my friends, her "knitting aunties." We missed you yesterday, "Deller."

We had strawberry rhubarb pie and got to use the pretty china and had tea in the fancy cups.

P used her Peter Rabbit china and had milk in her cup. She told her brothers all about it when they got home from school.

Here is the recipe I use for the pie:

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

1 cup sugar
3T quick cook tapioca
3 cups rhubarb cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 cups sliced fresh strawberries
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Stir together the ingredients for the filling. Let mixture stand while you prepare a crust. Fill the pastry lined 9" pie pan with filling and add top crust. (I am generous with the measurements and use a 10" pan.)
Bake at 375 for about 50 minutes until the crust is golden brown.

When strawberries are in season, I assembly line mix the fillings and freeze them one gallon freezer bags. I measure the fruits and add them to the bags. Then I mix the sugar, tapioca, and nutmeg in a little bowl and pour into each bag. I shake the bag a little to stir it together and then roll the bag. I stack them in the freezer like fire wood. When I want to make a pie, I pull out a bag of filling and let it thaw until it comes apart but not until it is mushy. I then make the crust and pour the filling from the bag and bake as usual.Good food and good friends, not much better than that.

Chickens

Our High School Orchestra program held their annual Harvest Hoe Down fund raising event this past weekend. The orchestra students planned, and ran the whole event. They are good at coming up with activities that the other kids will enjoy. They had a two story cardboard maze, musical chairs, find the candy in the hay pile, pumpkin painting, donut on a string, tug of war, bobbing for apples, pumpkin toss and of course, music. We donated our left over pumpkins to the event and came home with a truck load of straw and a truck load of smashed pumpkins! Our chickens were very happy.

We let them out in the yard to eat bugs and plants but in cooler weather they eat more feed from the store. We were glad to have fresh food for them.

By keeping our own chickens we are provided with artistic inspiration, hours of amusement, and great fresh eggs.