Taylor's Table -Pumpkins! Part 2

We've had a plethora of pumpkin dishes around here! Below, I've typed out a couple of more pumpkin filled recipes. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

(Makes 6-7 dozen, cut recipe in half for more manageable amount.)

* 2 cups butter, softened

* 2/3 cup sucanat (or brown sugar)

* 16 oz. can pumpkin puree or 2 cups

* 2 eggs

* 2 tsp vanilla

* 4 cups flour (2 cups whole wheat pastry flour, 2 cups whole wheat)

* 3 tsp cinnamon

* 2 tsp baking powder

* 1 tsp baking soda

* 1/2 tsp nutmeg

* 1/2 tsp allspice

* 1 tsp salt

* 2 cups chocolate chips

* 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F. Cream fat and sweetener. Add pumpkin, eggs, vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour and next six dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add to batter; mix well. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

Drop rounded teaspoonfuls two inches apart on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350F for 18-20 minutes (check at 15 minutes! The original recipe said 12-15 minutes but they needed to cook much longer in my oven).

These don't spread out much and loose their crunch easily but are very tasty! Any suggestions for keeping whole wheat cookies crunchy?

* Adapted from a recipe at kitchenstewardship.com

Creamy Southwestern Pumpkin Soup

(These flavors are not the norm for pumpkin recipes but very delicious! Give it a try!)

* 2 Tbs butter

* 1 large onion, chopped

* 1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped

* 2 cloves garlic, minced

* 5 cups chicken broth

* 1 large baking potato, peeled and chopped

* 1 1/4 tsp salt

* 1/2 tsp chili powder

* 1/2 tsp chili powder

* 15 oz can pumpkin puree

* 1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro

* 2 cups milk

* sour cream (optional)

Melt butter in Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion, jalapeno pepper and garlic; saute 15 minutes. Add chicken broth and next 4 ingredients; cook, stirring often 30 minutes or until potato is tender. Remove from heat and let cool slightly (about 5-10 minutes). Use an immersion blender to puree all the ingredients of the soup. (If you don't have an immersion blender, you should get one! It saves so much time and cleanup!!!!! But if you don't heres' what to do - Process potato mixture, pumpkin and cilantro, in batches in a food processor or blender until smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides. Return to Dutch oven); stir in milk and simmer 10 minutes or until thoroughly heated, if needed. Garnish with sour cream if desired.

* Makes 10 cups (enough for lots of leftovers!)

Elisabeth Elliott Article

God has been teaching me more and more about dying to myself, especially since I have a little one around. (I'll write a blog about that someday soon!) I was looking for something else by Elisabeth Elliott, one of my heroes, and stumbled upon this article about how we think we are owed something and are so prideful and wrapped up in ourselves. I thought I would share it with you. Just click on the link to read it.

http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/devotions/authors/elisabeth_elliot.html

Bathroom Remodeling

We decided a few months ago to redo our guest bathroom. It had been painted a purply mauve over top of old wallpaper. After many attempts at trying to remove the wallpaper without tearing up the wall board, we decided to just gut the bathroom. So that we did. We started the project at the end of August and are still working on it. It has taken much longer than we anticipated. There are so many details!!!!! Here are a few things that had to be done:

* redo plumbing

* install a fan in place of the can light that no longer had insulation on the wires - YIKES!

* Add a third switch

* remove all the old caulk off the tub

* replace rotted wood under toilet - perhaps the only thing holding up the toilet was the pipe under it!

* fill in holes in concrete - for some reason the floor of the bathroom was concrete under the tiles.

* put up new dry wall, mud the walls, let it dry, sand, remud, dry, remud, sand - over and over!

* prime dry wall

* mark out tile layout for floor and walls

* cut tiles, lay tile, let it dry

* grout tile, let it dry

* paint walls (finally! This is what started the whole project in the first place!!!)

* paint walls a different color - we hated the first color we picked

* sand, prime and paint beadboard

* cut and hang beadboard.

That is about where we are right now. There are a thousand other details all mingled in these larger steps. I am so glad that Eric is an engineer and thrives on these details. They've been driving me crazy. But I know it will look better since we have paid attention to these details. We still have to finish cutting and hanging the beadboard and there are a ton of finishing details still.

Here are some pics starting with the before picture, then the demo, then each step up to now.

A Bountiful Harvest?

This little amount of butternut and acorn squash, one ripe and one unripe pumpkin plus a handful of cherry tomatoes and tiny bell peppers, about 8 cucumbers and maybe 5 yellow squash and perhaps one meal's worth of bush beans and broccoli and a lot of lettuce (not pictured) were all that grew from the many seeds I planted in my garden this year. (Actually, I had tons of beans and broccoli but I didn't get out there and pick it when I should have).

However, I am amazed! I did virtually nothing to these plants! (I was throwing my attentions elsewhere - also pictured protecting the bounty! He is certainly thriving!) I occasionally watered them even though it was a dry summer compared to last year. Almost everyday I peered out the window to see their large leaves wilted under the heat. Poor things. I didn't give these plants any fertilizer except when I planted them - I threw an unmeasured amount of compost in the hole. All the squash and pumpkin vines were being eaten alive by a squash borer but they continued to grow, even up into a tree-like weed that grew 15 feet overnight! In fact the largest butternut squash I found at eye level hanging on a branch of that weed-monster. The butternut squash vines, despite their boring intruder, grew to at least 15-20 feet! The leaves were mottled and unhealthy looking but they still managed to produce about 10 butternut squash. I had completely given up on the acorn squash. In fact I thought they were dead. Then suddenly, there were four little squashes! They grew to a healthy size and the plant even looked healthy.

Here is my herb "garden." It was actually quite productive even though I didn't do anything to it either, literally, even less than with the vegetables. It is hard to tell here but I grew basil, oregano, marjoram, mint, chives, and parsley all around one of my knockout roses that I also did nothing with except to cut some flowers every now and then. I also have a pot of rosemary and sage but they aren't pictured. I found that the more I picked my herbs, the better they grew. They got fuller and greener. So the more I picked, the more there was to pick!

Even though I didn't get nearly as much produce out of my garden as I could have I certainly got enough herbs and winter squash to last a long while. Not bad for doing so little. I don't write all this to show how much you can get away with by doing very little. Not in the sense that I want to share that as a life lesson. And this is nothing to boast in or be proud of because I did nothing. And I certainly don't take pride in doing nothing.

I simply want to encourage you that growing vegetables isn't too hard. Granted, it can be extremely time consuming and you will hopefully have a huge harvest to show for it. But on the other hand, if you are just wanting to try it out and don't have a whole lot of time, you might actually get something for a minimal amount of labor and lots of enjoyment. It is so fun to go out and see a pumpkin on your vine!

I think winter squash, cucumbers, herbs and lettuce are about the easiest things to grow with little effort. However, I have never been able to grow herbs from seeds! I just buy the tiny plants early in the spring. If you bring them inside during the winter, they will stay alive and then you won't have to buy again the next year. Also, don't plant too many things. That seems to be my problem each year so that it is all too much to handle and none of it gets the attention it needs. Pick a few things, become an expert in them and then add something else after a couple of seasons. (I need to take my own advice in this!)

So go for it and be delighted in the fruits of your labor, whether it be a lot of fruit with a lot of labor or a little fruit with a little labor!

Taylor's Table - Pumpkins!!! Part 1

Note: I am changing the title of this series to Taylor's Table and will try to post once a week, but not necessarily on a certain day each week.

I love autumn! There's something about the crispness in the air and the brightness of the sky that makes me feel energetic and nostalgic. For some reason, fall makes me think of decades and centuries ago when people were harvesting roots and squash to keep for the winter in order to survive. Today I started reading Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (I read this series every few years to remind myself of the simplicity of life and how happy we can be with very little - here's a good link that talks about this). By coincidence, Laura shares in the beginning of the book some of her family's fall activities:

Now the potatoes and carrots, the beets and turnips

and cabbages were gathered and stored in the cellar,

for freezing nights had come.

Onions were made into long ropes, braided together

by their tops, and then hung in the attic beside wreaths

of red peppers strung on threads. The pumpkins and the

squashes were piled in orange and yellow and green

heaps in the attic's corners.

The barrels of salted fish were in the pantry, and

yellow cheeses were stacked on the pantry shelves.

She goes on to explain how Pa had killed a pig and deer and how they cut them up and smoked them over hickory chips in his log smoke house.

Don't worry, I am not going to teach you the intricacies of killing a pig and preparing the hams for the smoker. This is about pumpkins. I LOVE PUMPKINS! I even tried growing a pumpkin vine this year. One small pumpkin grew from it (pictured above). It is amazing how excited one can get over a small pumpkin growing in the backyard! I was so proud of it though I have no reason to be because the pumpkins were supposed to be profuse and large. I did absolutely nothing to the vine except water it occasionally. It a miracle that anything grew at all! Strangely enough, another one is now growing but I don't think it will be ripe before the frost.

So anyway, I have a few delicious pumpkin recipes that I want to share with you this week and next. I've tried many versions of these and at last have found ones I really love with a bit of my tweaking. (I can never leave a recipe alone!) Enjoy!

Pumpkin Waffles

2 cups flour (I used a mixture of buckwheat, white and whole wheat flour)

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

2 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp nutmeg (or to taste - I don't like too much of this)

4 eggs

1 cup buttermilk (I used 1/2 cup yogurt and 1/2 cup milk mixed together)

1 cup pumpkin puree

2 TBS honey or molasses

1 tsp vanilla

In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients and spices. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, buttermilk, pumpkin, and honey. Gently stir liquid mixture into dry mixture. Cook on waffle iron until deep golden brown (5 minutes worked well for us), and serve immediately.

* Serves 6-8 depending on appetites.

* Adapted from this recipe at Frugal Granola.

Pumpkin Bread

1 1/2 cups flour (I used 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour)

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup rapadura sugar or sucanat

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup pumpkin puree

1/2 cup olive oil

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs beaten

1/4 cup water

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 cup chopped walnuts, optional

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Sift flour, salt sugar and baking soda.

2. Mix together pumpkin, eggs, oil, water, and spices. Then combine with dry ingredients, but not too thoroughly. Stir in nuts, if using.

3. Pour into well-buttered 9x5x3 in. loaf pan. Bake 50-60 minutes until skewer comes out clean. Turn out of pan & let cool on rack.

* Makes 1 loaf, can easily be doubled, or be made into muffins, just cook for less time.

* Adapted from a recipe at Simple Recipes from elise.com.

Pumpkin Scones -

Not super sweet but super Delicious!!! Scones aren't supposed to be sweet anyway! The other day I picked up a scone at a coffee shop thinking it would be the least sugar-fied item but it tasted like a donut!!!! They are supposed to be more like biscuits. Oh what we Americans do to good food!

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 cup rapadura or sucanat or light brown sugar

1/4 tsp ginger

3/4 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup cold, unsalted butter cut into small pieces

1/3 cup or more raisins, or chopped dried apples

1/4 cup toasted pecans or walnuts, optional

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup pureed pumpkin

1 tsp vanilla extract

Pumpkin Scones: Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) and place rack in the center of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, spices, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Cut the butter into small pieces and blend into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives. The mixture should look like coarse crumbs. Stir in the raisins and pecans, if using. In a separate bowl mix together the buttermilk, pumpkin puree and vanilla and then add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture. Mix just until the dough comes together. Do not over mix. Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead dough gently four or five times and then pat the dough into a circle that is about 7 inches (18 cm) round and about 1 1/2 inches (4 cm) thick. Cut this circle in half, then cut each half into 4 pie-shaped wedges (triangles). Place the scones on the baking sheet. Brush the tops of the scones with the egg wash. Place the baking sheet inside another baking sheet to prevent the bottoms of the scones from over browning. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpickinserted in the middle comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Makes 8 scones.

* Adapted from this recipe at joyofbaking.com

Tuesday's Table - Homemade Apple Sauce

I started making applesauce last year when I realized how easy it could be and found some great looking apples at our local outdoor market. This stuff is GOOD and EASY! Here's how to make it.

*** Gather 10-12 (or however many will fit in your crockpot) apples of different varieties. The last version I made had a few granny smith's, a few cortlands, a couple of honey crisps, a few golden delicious, and a few galas. Peel these, if you like. You don't have to! Then, chop into one inch or smaller pieces.

***Dump the apples into your crock pot. Pour in about 1/2 cup of water or pure apple juice. Turn the dial to low and cook until apples are tender, 5-8 hours.

*** Use a potato masher to turn the apples into chunky sauce. Serve up in bowls and enjoy. This makes about two quarts.

***You'll notice this has no sugar or spice. I think you'll find you won't need it. Give it a try first before adding anything.

Taylor Tot Blog Not Moving!

I've decided not consolidate Wes's blog and mine. So click on over to his blog to see the updates!

www.wjtaylor.blogpsot.com