Pumpkin Puree

We've had our first killing frost the first of November.  That is so incredibly late for us.  Most of the plants in the garden have died, but it takes more than a measly little frost to kill the cold tolerant plants.  We are still picking beets, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, Swiss chard, , celery and cabbage to sell.  Plus there are small amounts of things like broccoli and celery root that Mike and I can eat ourselves.  The Peninsula market is done, but the Shaker market is still going so we still have an outlet for our produce.  In addition we have a wholesale order this week for 150 bunches of beets and 150 heads of cauliflower.  Pretty sweet!

Some of you heard about the great pumpkin disaster last week.  Kay from Covered Bridge Gardens gave Mike an heirloom variety of pumpkin for me to turn into pumpkin puree to use for pies and such.  Mike got the pumpkin on a Monday, but it had to sit on the counter all week until I could find time to mess with it.  Mike was sitting in his recliner and I handed him the pumpkin so I could take a picture of it.  Neither of us realized that the pumpkin had rotted inside and while Mike was holding it, the pumpkin burst spilling all the seeds and rotten liquid all over his lap.  In hindsight, I guess I should have still taken the picture.  Instead I made him sit there covered in goo until I could clean most of the mess before any more of it dripped down into the inner workings of the recliner.  Yeah, that was fun.

So a couple days ago, Mike came home with pumpkin #2. These heirloom pumpkins are really cool looking and way bigger than a normal pie pumpkin. The pumpkin looks good in this picture, but I am thinking that a certain farmer really needs a new shirt for Christmas this year.  But on to the pumpkin puree.  It is VERY simple to make homemade pumpkin puree.  A little time and love for good homemade food is all it takes.  Oh and a pumpkin that isn't rotten in the middle.

First I cut out the stem and cut the pumpkin in half.

Next, clean out all the seeds and fibery strands of goo (that is the technical term you know).

Put the pumpkin cut side down on a baking sheet lined with foil and sprayed with just a little cooking spray.  Bake in a 350 degree oven.

Cooked it until the pumpkin was soft.  I read one recipe for homemade puree that said cook for 45 minutes.  Are you kidding me?  A baked potato takes longer than that in a 350 degree oven.  This was a big pumpkin.  It took 2 hours to bake.  Last night was a work night and the pumpkin finished baking kind of late as in after 9pm which is after my bed time.  So I just set the pumpkin on the stove top and came back to the next step this morning.

The next step was to cut the rind away from the flesh.  I put all the soft baked flesh into a big mixing bowl and used an electric mixer to whip it into a smooth puree.  A food processor would work too, but the beaters on the mixer are easier to clean I think.  Then I lined a colander with coffee filters and put the puree in the colander over a large mixing bowl.  There is a lot of water in the pumpkin flesh that needs to be drained off.  I just left this set in the refrigerator all day and when I got home from work, it was ready to pack and freeze.  Unfortunately I am out of freezer containers, so off to the store tomorrow and I will finish tomorrow.  I pack the puree into 2 cup portions.  This is the right amount for one pie or two pumpkin rolls. We will be enjoying pumpkin baked goods all winter long.

W(h)ine and cheese

This is the part of blogging that is totally self-indulgent.  Probably a bore to the reader, but very cathartic for the writer.  Tuesdays are my late day at the clinic.  Sometimes I get out by 6pm, but often it is later.  Today I had the extra pleasure of having to run to the grocery store after work.  A short trip, but still it had me getting home at around 7:45pm.  After being gone for 11-12 hours, the first thing I want to do when I get home is sit.  Oh sitting sounds so good.  But I know me and I know if I sit, I am done for the evening.  Animals come first.  Every Tuesday it is the same.  I come home and inside my head is this incredibly whiny voice that is complaining about having to do evening chores.  It is funny how I struggle with this every Tuesday.  Seems as though being tired = being whiny inside my brain.  In the summer it is a little easier because it is warm and light outside.  But today, it was chilly and rainy and dark.  But I went outside to feed and water the chickens because I have to.  Because they can't take care of themselves.  Doing the chores in the morning is way more distasteful to me then just getting them done in the evening.  My brain says "just get it done".

And every Tuesday it is the same.  I get home from work.  I want to sit. But I go out to do chores.  And when I get into the chicken pen and it is dark and quiet, I hear this quiet cooing from the roost.  It is one of the most beautiful of all sounds.  It is the sound of contentment.  To know that the animals you care for are content is a beautiful feeling.  My soul is healed and the whining is gone.

So to celebrate my incredibly whiny voice that was mellowed out by the simple purring of chickens on the roost, I decided to open a bottle of wine to have with my 8:30pm dinner.  River Rouge from Chalet Debonne winery.  Here's a trivia question for you: how many wineries are  there in Ashtabula County?  There are 17.  Or least according the visitashtabulacounty.com web page.  All along the south shore of Lakes Erie and Ontario is winery country.  It's not like California wine.  But whenever possible, I like to support the local wineries.  I just don't advertise it much because even though I love a glass of wine with dinner, I am no wine connoisseur.  Tonight's pairing with the wine was leftover chicken taco burgers with pepper jack cheese.  They were entirely homemade chicken taco burgers starting with butchering my own chicken, but for some reason that pairing just seems odd.  It works for me though and in the end, that is what counts.

And the growing season goes on.... and on...... and on......

As October draws to an end, it is hard to believe we have not had a killing frost yet.  Average for this area is the first week of October and some years, we have one in late September.  Many of our farmer friends in counties south of us have had one, two or even three killing frosts.  Of course, only the first one counts.  We have had a couple of close calls, but yet the growing season goes on.  We are not complaining.  Just amused.

Today Ed picked a goodly amount of green bell peppers and hot peppers and Mike took them to the produce auction in Middlefield.  This is the last week of the auction with Friday being the last auction of the season.  We still have lots of cabbage and cauliflower coming on too.  Just amazing.  We even picked some of the last picking of green beans last week.  The sales at the farmer's markets have been way over the comparable weeks from last year because we have so much more produce to sell.

I have actually taken the last 6 days off of work at the clinic just because.  I have had a lot of play time in the woods, but I've done a few barn chores such as getting new plastic up on some of the old broken windows on our old bank barn and cleaning out the culvert drain in the ditch in front of the barns.  Sounds like fun!  I still need to butcher the last 8 laying hens which I should have done this past weekend while the weather was so nice, but that was just not a job I could bring myself to do while on vacation.  In my final vacation evening, I took the beagles out for a spin.  They had fun tracking a rabbit round and round the woods until I had to put an end to their fun and call them in for supper. 

And then there were eight

The final eight laying hens.  The pens look so empty with just eight hens.  Normally I keep about 35-40 hens in this barn.  Last Sunday, I butchered another group consisting of 8 hens and 1 rooster.  Instead of keeping these birds whole, I deboned all the thigh, leg and breast meat and stored it in the refrigerator until I had more time to work on it, which turned out to be today. 

Today's project was to get all the meat run through the grinder and then packaged into either 1 lb. packages of ground chicken or into packages of four 1/4 lb. chicken burgers.  Funny how colorful the ground chicken meat is with both white and dark meat all mixed together.  The leg and thigh meat of those old hens is particularly dark in color especially compared to the 9 week old meat chickens.

I love having these pre-made patties to throw on the grill at a moment's notice.  They only have to thaw enough to separate which isn't very much since I pack them with wax paper in between the patties.  These make such a nice healthy burger and it's a good way to use the meat from those old hens.  I believe I put 7 packages of chicken burger in the freezer today.  I had a pound and a half left over that I made into chicken taco burgers and cooked them on the grill tonight for dinner.  Mike told me tonight he really likes these chicken taco burgers.  Thanks honey!

The other part of dinner was some homemade cream of veggies soup.  Mike had brought some celery root up from the garden a couple days ago.  I have never ever made anything with celery root before and since it is soup season, I thought soup seemed appropriate.  I very loosely followed this Food Network recipe for Cream of Celery Root Soup.  I cut up four approximately 1/2 lb. celery roots although after peeling, I'm sure there was a bit less.  I also had 6 small leftover potatoes from our garden that I wanted to use up. so I cut those up too.  The potatoes are on the left in the picture and the celery root is on the right.

Then some celery, onion and garlic.  I only had one quart of homemade chicken broth in the freezer so that is all I used.  I did use the amount of celery salt called for, but did not have any white wine so I left that out.  I cooked the cut up vegetables in the broth in the crockpot on low all day. 

When cooked, I ran the veggies through the food processor, added them back to the broth, added the cream and turned the crockpot on high for about 30-40 minutes.  It tasted pretty darn good, but both Mike and I decided it needed more salt and we are not big salt users.  The final amount of soup was probably more than in the recipe due to the extra potatoes and extra celery I added so needing a little more salt would make sense.  Perhaps if I had used regular salt rather than celery salt, that would have been enough.

While I was inside cooking and staying warm, Mike continued picking and boxing produce for today's Fresh Fork order.  Yes, we are still picking.  We have just barely avoided two frosts in the last couple weeks.  Lots of other farms that sell at the farmer's markets we go to have got hit by the frost, but not us.  Yet.  Only a matter of time, but we will count our blessings that we are still able to pick produce this late into October.  Today's order was 140 lbs. of Brussels sprouts, 180ish turnips, 280ish celery roots, 20 heads of red cabbage and 20 bunches of golden beets.  The garage served as temporary storage until Trevor showed up with the truck.  Nothing like loading the truck in 45 degrees and rain.  Such is October in northeast Ohio.  Tomorrow the weather should be more of the same.  Mike and Ed get to pick for Saturday's market.  Have fun fellas! 

As a side note, I can hear ice pellets hitting the window as I sit here and type this blog.  Won't be long until the "s" word creeps into the forecast.