Supposed To Be Butter

This butter was supposed to be whipped cream for my Perfect Pumpkin Waffles, but I turned away for 1 min (!) and it was butter.

Good thing I was making waffles and not cake or something.

Waffles and butter - good.

Cake and butter - not so good.

I threw in a little liquid cinnamon flavor and made cinnamon butter.

It would be easy to make lots of types of butter - lemon, rum, almond, ect.

Pumpkin Waffles - Vote For Me!

This month's challenge, on The Leftover Queen's Royal Foodie Joust, is to use orange, black and sugar.

So, Orange: pumpkin or squash - Black: Dark ale or cola - Sugar

I have to be honest, before this recipe I'd never bought beer.

I know nothing about beer.

At first it was a struggle to think of a recipe that used pumpkin, beer and sugar.

But then I thought of pumpkin waffles.

After that, the only thing left to do was to buy the beer.

Whew! Who knew that there were soooo many types of beer?

I stood in front of the cooler for a long time.

Finally, the clerk asked me if I needed help.

"Yes! Do you have any dark beer? Besides Guinness?"

"Ummmm, noooo. Just Guinness."

Ok then. Out of a million types of beer I went home with the only dark beer - Guinness.

Now to the recipe!

Perfect Pumpkin Waffles

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup oatmeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1 1/2 cups pumpkin (canned or cooked)
1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
6 Tbs. butter, melted
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cup buttermilk (or milk with 1 Tbs lemon juice added)
1/2 cup dark beer

Mix together in a large bowl dry ingredients. Stir in Pumpkin, butter, brown sugar and eggs.
Add milk and beer, mix until thoroughly blended.
Scoop batter into a preheated waffle iron.
Bake until waffles are golden brown.
Serve with butter and warm maple syrup.

I made oat flour by grinding whole oats in my mini food processor.

All of the ingredients.
Look at those bright orange yolks!
Thanks for the eggs Ladies.




I made the buttermilk by adding 1 Tbs. bottle lime juice to 2% milk.
Then let it stand for a few mins. and add the beer.
Why do you even need to use buttermilk?
The acidic buttermilk reacts with the baking soda/baking powder and results in lighter waffles with a higher rise. Have you ever made a baking soda/vinegar volcano? Same idea - poof!



I threw a few chocolate chips into the batter.




Nice and golden.

What do they taste like?

Well, do you like pumpkin bread or cake?

They taste just like that.

However, because there isn't as much flour they don't taste starchy, the spicy pumpkin flavor can really shine through.
Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

And they re-heat well too.

Just follow the same refrig or freezing directions

as I used for the In a Hurry Pancakes.

I served mine with home-made cinnamon butter.

Now, how can you vote for me?

Well, on Nov. 1st The Leftover Queen Forum will start voting on every one's recipes.

Please vote for me!

Everyday Pizza

I love, love, love pizza!

Homemade pizza is the best, but when I'm working I want something easy to grab and heat.

So, I buy frozen pizza, but I'm on a spending diet.

-I haven't bought groceries (excluding milk) in over 2 months!-

This is my recipe for Everyday Pizza.

Make up a bunch and freeze them or have a party and eat them all.

~

Everyday Pizza

Ingredients:

1 egg

1 cup water

2 1/2 cup flour (plus 1/2 to 1 cup more - see recipe)

3/4 cup white or yellow corn meal

2 Tbs olive oil

2 tsp yeast

1 1/2 tsp salt

Add all ingredients to your mixer.

Mix together.

If you are making this in the winter you will not need to add the extra flour, because the air in your home is dry.

However, if you are making this in the summer or in humid conditions you will

need to add the extra flour.

Slowly add 1 Tbs of the extra flour until you have a moist, but cohesive ball that pulls away from the wall of the mixer bowel.

Your dough should look like this.

It will be quite sticky.

Scrape the dough from your mixer and with wet hands make the dough into a ball.

Place the dough ball into a greased bowl.

Cover the bowl and place it in a warm place.

Let it rise for 30 mins.

After it rises it will look like this.

Pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees.


With wet hands pull the dough apart into 6 separate balls.
Place the dough balls on your greased or silpat covered baking pan.
Let the dough rest for 10 mins.




With wet hands shape/flatten the dough into pizza shape.

Spread 1/4 cup pizza sauce/tomato paste into the center of each pizza.

Bake pizza crusts for 15 mins.

Remove from oven.

Now 2 choices:

A. Let cool, wrap in foil and freeze.

B. Add cheese, spices and toppings.

Return to the oven and cook an additional 15 mins.

To cook frozen Everyday Pizzas -

Add toppings and cheese (you can also add these before freezing).

Bake at 400-425 degrees for 10 -15 mins

until cheese is bubbly.

Yum!

Lunch With Grandma

I visited my Grandma last week.

She gave me a cute brown sweater that she had knitted

and cooked a wonderful lunch.

The main meal was Tater Crust Tuna Pie, mashed potatoes and green beans.

It was so yummy!

Tater Crust Tuna Pie

Crust: 1 cup flour

1/2 cup potato flakes

1/2 cup butter

4 Tbs. ice water

1 can 2.8 oz french-fried onions - divided

Filling: 3/4 cup potato flakes

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese - divided

2 Tbs. chopped green olives

1 can 6.5 oz tuna - drained and flaked

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 egg

Combine flour and potato flakes, cut in butter until crumbly.

Add water, 1 Tbs at a time, until dough is moist enough to hold together.

Press pastry over bottom and up sides of ungreased 9 in or 10 in pie plate.

Set aside 1/2 cup of french fried onions.

Sprinkle remaining onions into pastry shell.

In a bowl, combine all fill ingredients except 1/2 cup of cheese.

Spoon filling over onions.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 mins.

or until crust is golden.

Sprinkle with reserved cheese and onions.

Bake additional 5-10 mins or until cheese is melted.

Let stand 5 mins before cutting.

6-8 servings.

Then we had a delicious squash pie.

It's just like pumpkin pie, but fluffier and lighter and made from my Grandma's homegrown squash.

And then we had blackberry/apple pie.

Hee hee!

We like pie.

My Grandma's blackberry crop was really good this year.

My Grandma with one of her giant squash.

She's 86 years young.

The squash is 4 months old.

My Grandma's food closet.

Look at that beautie!




Potatoes, onions and garlic too!

How To Make Charcoal

This is one of those recipes where you should not follow my directions!

In fact, don't even bother making this.

It was gross, even before I burnt it up in the oven for 9 1/2 hours.

Yes, 9.5 hours.

~

The recipe is from Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates - Vegetable Pot Pie page 218

There are a lot of ingredients and a ton of steps and to make matters worse it messes up the whole kitchen.

So, if you still want to make this.

Foolish, foolish (shaking head ruefully).

Ingredients:

1 Tbs. veg. oil

1 1/2 cups chopped onions

2 bay leaves

2 1/2 cups cubed potatoes

1 cup veg. stock

2 cups cut green beans

3 cups peeled cubed butternut squash

2 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms

3 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley

1 1/2 Tbs chopped fresh dill (BAD! BAD! - This tastes horrible! Dill ruined the whole dish!)

Saute the veg. and then discard the bay leaves. Cover the veg. and set aside.

Next, make a roux or cheese sauce.

1/4 cup butter

1/3 cup white flour

2 cups veg. stock

1 1/2 cups grated cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter - whisk in flour - add veg. stock - whisk until thickened - add cheese



Pour into a 9x 13 x 2 inch greased dish
Bake at 375 degree
for 30 mins until bubbly.




Now if you are following MY recipe (please don't!)
bake for 9 and 1/2 hours.
Just pop it in, go to work and forget about it.
When you come home you will have
perfectly toasted ........

CHARCOAL!







Yum!
*sigh*

More Snow

The garden this morning.

Ouch!

More snow.

Heavy and wet.

White Chocolate Macaroons

I made up these macaroons after I had someone die on me at work.

I was too upset to sleep, so I stayed up and baked.

These are really, really easy and

really, really good.

When I took them to work they disappeared in less than 5 mins.

I love macaroons and these are the first homemade ones I have found that are soft, chewy and full of coconut flavor.

White Chocolate Macaroons

~

2 large/jumbo eggs OR 4 small/banty eggs

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk

12 oz bag of white chocolate chips

14 oz bag of shredded coconut

Whip eggs in an electric mixer for 5 minutes, then add 1/4 tsp cream of tartar. Whip for another 5 mins. until the eggs are frothy.

Then mix in 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk.

Next mix in the coconut and chocolate chips.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

~

Now this is the fun part!

To get the eggs to bind to the coconut you need to press the batter together...

So take walnut sized portions of batter and with wet hands press the mixture to form a ball.

Place ball onto a greased/parchment/silpat covered baking sheet.

Repeat with the rest of the batter.

Bake for 10-15 mins until the macaroons are toasted golden brown.

If you cook them for too long - don't worry - they are still soft and delicious.

Garden Update: October

The garden this morning.

Whaaa! My tomatoes are dead!

I was just getting to know them.

Poor squashies.

Some more sad garden.
The pond was even frozen over,
but the stream kept a piece open for the fish.



The flower garden.

Pure Gold Marmalade

This is my own secret recipe, so shhhhhh.
Keep the secret and make it for yourself.
One taste of this and you will know why it's called pure gold.
If you sold it, you would make pure gold!

~

Pure Gold Marmalade

You will need oranges, lemons, mangoes, peaches and passion fruit.

Now, you can do this however you want, but this is what I do: take 4 whole oranges and 1 whole lemon.

Grind up 2 of the oranges and the lemon in a food processor until finely minced.

Next take the 2 remaining oranges and peel them, discarding peel. Add the peeled oranges to the finely minced orange/lemon.

Next finely mince 4 cups of peaches in the food processor. I used frozen peaches from this summer's bounty.

Then the secret ingredients: Goya frozen fruit puree. This time I used 1 thawed bag of mango and 1 thawed bag of passion fruit.

You can use any amount of the above fruit you want. Mix it up!

I ended up with 12 cups of fruit pulp. With a traditional marmalade recipe you would add 12 cups of sugar to this amount of fruit pulp!

12 cups?!? No way I'm doing that!

I added half the sugar.

So 12 cups fruit pulp = 6 cups sugar

Stir pulp and sugar over med. heat in a large pot until the sugar dissolves.

Then bring to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly.

Cook rapidly almost to the gelling point.

As mixture thickens, stir frequently to prevent sticking.

This is going to take a while.

Like an hour.

Now if you what it to thicken quicker - add more sugar.

When it is thickened-

Remove from heat.

Skim foam, if necessary.

Ladle hot marmalade into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.

Adjust 2 piece caps.

Process 10 mins. in a boiling water canner.

It's A Blizzard

This was taken from my back porch. The garden. Snow garden.

I just drove home from work

and it is not just snowing - it is blowing and really, really snowing.

There is already a 1 1/2 inch accumulation on the ground.

The roads are still fairly warm, so the snow isn't accumulating on them as much, but it was really hard to see the road with all the snow blowing around.

*sigh*

I guess our 3 weeks of Fall are over.

Snowing Tonight

It is snowing outside.

That is all I have to say.

Long, long winter ahead.

And I haven't even raked my leaves!

Dried Onions

This is right up there with dried lemon peel - a must do for any food preserver.

Slice the onions and place them on your dehydrator sheets.

Dry for 8-10 hours, until crisp and transfer to a Ziploc or jar for storage.

4 huge 1lb. onions made a scant 2 cups dried.

I use them in everything.

Sprinkled into the pan before adding eggs for scrambled eggs,

added before re-heating canned soup,

to casseroles,

to brownies (Ok, not brownies! I was just checking to see if you were reading!).

Add them to ALMOST everything!

~

Note: I tried dicing some and they turned pink.

Yes! Pink!

Some chemical reaction?