This morning I dropped off a 13 pound squash at Action Ministries. That brings this season's donations to a little over 110 pounds –ten pounds in excess of our goal! Best yet is that we're not quite done with the gardens.
Also, we're starting a Fall/Winter garden- a new thing for me. I've always thought of Fall- and, especially, Winter- as categorically ungardenable seasons in my present climate zone. But there are cabbages and radishes and kale and lots of other stuff that can be grown in the cold months. I recall that last Fall and Winter, I sowed a cover crop of Austrian Winter Peas in one of my garden beds. They didn't seem to mind one bit the frigid temperatures or heavy coatings of snow inflicted upon it by the Winter. SO: I shouldn't be surprised that a great many other things can survive and indeed thrive in the inter-equinox cold.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Almost there...
As of this morning, we've donated 97.6 pounds of produce! Only 2.4 pounds shy of our seasonal goal of 100 pounds... And although the gardens are mostly worn out, there are a few large squash (and by "large", I mean in the neighborhood of 20-30 pounds) yet on the vine. I found that a smaller squash, weighing in at about 10 pounds, produced enough usable flesh for a dozen pumpkin pies. perhaps I'll be doing a lot of baking in the near future...?
And speaking of squash/pumpkin pies, one of the folks at Action Ministries asked this morning whether the squash I delivered was a "real squash" or a pumpkin. Here's the thing: a pumpkin is a squash, but not every squash is a pumpkin. It's a bit like asking, "Is that an automobile or is it a Volkswagen?" The main upshot of this mini-digression is to make the point that the largish "gourdy" squash that you see in the produce section this time of year are perfectly suitable stand-ins for pumpkins in just about any recipe calling for pumpkins. I have only rarely made actual pumpkin pies-- I've made tons of butternut squash pies, acorn squash pies, banana squash pies, etc.
All this talk of pumpkin pies calls to mind another item to which I would call your attention, namely the needless waste of pumpkin flesh surrounding jack-o-lanterns. No, I don't have anything against those seasonal and often very clever displays. But consider using the cutout pieces of your jack-o-lantern to make a pie -and maybe even consider giving it to a needy someone-or-other. Last year I did this, using the triangular cut out pieces of the eyes and nose to make one pie and the mouth cutouts to make another. It doesn't take all that much pumpkin to make a pie, just about a cup and a half, according to my recipe.
What's that recipe?, you ask? Ok, here it is: First, you've got to cook the pumpkin flesh. Cooking time varies with the amount of flesh you've got to prepare, and I seldom cook up just a cup and a half... But I reckon if you put your jack-o-lantern cut out pieces in a dish half covered in water and microwaved it for about 4 minutes, you'd have it just about ready. You want it to be uniformly soft, such that it squashes easily under the pressure of a fork (maybe this is where the moniker "squash" comes from?). OK: so you've got some pumpkin cooked up; set it aside for a second, then go get 2 eggs, one small can of condensed milk, one of those pre-fab pie crusts and 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg and 1/8-1/4 tsp cardamom. Mix all that together, and be sure to save the condensed milk can. I use this to measure out how much pumpkin flesh to put in the mix. Throw in the can's worth of pumpkin and mix it up really well. Pour the mix into said pie crust, set the oven to 375°F and cook it for 50 minutes. Bam. There ya go, a darned fine punkin pie. And do consider giving it to someone who otherwise might not have some, okay?
And speaking of squash/pumpkin pies, one of the folks at Action Ministries asked this morning whether the squash I delivered was a "real squash" or a pumpkin. Here's the thing: a pumpkin is a squash, but not every squash is a pumpkin. It's a bit like asking, "Is that an automobile or is it a Volkswagen?" The main upshot of this mini-digression is to make the point that the largish "gourdy" squash that you see in the produce section this time of year are perfectly suitable stand-ins for pumpkins in just about any recipe calling for pumpkins. I have only rarely made actual pumpkin pies-- I've made tons of butternut squash pies, acorn squash pies, banana squash pies, etc.
All this talk of pumpkin pies calls to mind another item to which I would call your attention, namely the needless waste of pumpkin flesh surrounding jack-o-lanterns. No, I don't have anything against those seasonal and often very clever displays. But consider using the cutout pieces of your jack-o-lantern to make a pie -and maybe even consider giving it to a needy someone-or-other. Last year I did this, using the triangular cut out pieces of the eyes and nose to make one pie and the mouth cutouts to make another. It doesn't take all that much pumpkin to make a pie, just about a cup and a half, according to my recipe.
What's that recipe?, you ask? Ok, here it is: First, you've got to cook the pumpkin flesh. Cooking time varies with the amount of flesh you've got to prepare, and I seldom cook up just a cup and a half... But I reckon if you put your jack-o-lantern cut out pieces in a dish half covered in water and microwaved it for about 4 minutes, you'd have it just about ready. You want it to be uniformly soft, such that it squashes easily under the pressure of a fork (maybe this is where the moniker "squash" comes from?). OK: so you've got some pumpkin cooked up; set it aside for a second, then go get 2 eggs, one small can of condensed milk, one of those pre-fab pie crusts and 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg and 1/8-1/4 tsp cardamom. Mix all that together, and be sure to save the condensed milk can. I use this to measure out how much pumpkin flesh to put in the mix. Throw in the can's worth of pumpkin and mix it up really well. Pour the mix into said pie crust, set the oven to 375°F and cook it for 50 minutes. Bam. There ya go, a darned fine punkin pie. And do consider giving it to someone who otherwise might not have some, okay?
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