Cooking and Baking

First try with the Crespo squash!

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It has taken us four years to get to this point!

Four years of trying to grow Crespo squash before finally getting a real harvest out of it.

There were four harvestable squash out of the three vines, though the first one to develop sort of stagnated early on, stayed dark green and never got very big. In the photo above, you can see it in the front row, third from the left.

The largest squash with the damage visible is the big Crespo squash we wanted to make sure to cook first. However, with losing our hot water and having to constantly heat water for washing anything, we didn’t get to it until now.

It was remarkably easy to cut into! I expected to have a harder time of it.

The colour is not only quite a deep orangey-yellow, it actually stained my hands a bit, by the time I finished scooping out the insides and removing the seeds. Which suggests to me that this squash has quite a bit of beta carotene in it.

I cut it into quarters, then cut out the stem, which you can see in the next image, before putting it in the oven. Aside from adding a bit of water to the bottom of the pan, nothing else was done to it. I want to be able to give it a taste without any seasonings, first.

In the last image, you can see the seeds, washed and draining. There were very few seeds that got rejected. I supposed we could roast some for eating, but I don’t actually have any interest in doing that. Later, these seeds will be laid out on a parchment paper lined tray to dry out.

I set the oven for 350F for about an hour before stabbing the pieces with a fork, then adding another 45 minutes. As I write this, they are soft and appear to be cooked through. I’ve shut off the oven and left them in there, just in case there were some undercooked parts I couldn’t reach.

Today, I was actually planning to get some stuff done outside but, while it is warmer than yesterday, it has turned out to be a rainy day.

Sort of.

It’s been raining off and on since last night. It’s supposed to start raining for real at about 7pm and continue raining through to about 10am tomorrow morning. Since some of what I hoped to get done today involved power tools, I decided to postpone it!

There is a bit of concern about the winter sown garden beds. When the seeds were sown, the beds were completely dry and did not get any watering. It’s cool enough that it’s unlikely they will germinate, but if they get wet and don’t germinate, the seeds may rot. If they get wet and do germinate, they may freeze. The heavy leaf mulch, however, should protect them from both possibilities.

I hope.

So today I’m focusing on indoor stuff, but still garden related. We had a box of San Marzano tomatoes in the living room that were fully ripe. Those are now soaking in vinegar water. Later on, I’ll remove the tops and tails, and get them in the crock pot for the night to make tomato sauce. There might be room enough to use some of the whole tomatoes we have in the freezer right now.

Once the oven is free, we have lots of peppers that have ripened and are starting to dehydrate in the living room. Those will get set onto trays to dehydrate fully and faster in the oven. Except, maybe, the hot peppers. There are so many of them. We might instead string them up and hang them above a heat vent, instead.

There was also a large colander in the old kitchen, full of tomatoes that were further along in ripening. Every now and then, I go through the bins and pull out the ones that are blushing and set them in the colander until it’s full. I went through those, setting more San Marzano, and a few mystery compost tomatoes, into a bin for the living room to continue ripening. The cherry tomatoes went into a small colander for general use and snacking in the kitchen. These are the Chocolate and Black Cherry tomatoes in there, a lot of which still need more time to ripen, plus a couple of little red tomatoes from the mystery plant that self seeded among the Red Thumb potatoes. When we harvested the tomatoes before our first frost, that plant had many small tomatoes on it, all still very green. I’m glad to see that they are actually ripening now. Judging from the colour and the size, I am guessing it is from the Mosaic Medley mix we grew in that bed a few years ago. That was a mix of cherry and grape tomatoes. These are so small, though, and with how the clusters were formed, I’m tempted to think they might be Spoon tomatoes. They’re big for Spoon tomatoes, but as something that has self seeded, it’s possible they reached a size they might not reach when grown as transplants.

Well, whatever they are, they are a tomato, and my family likes tomatoes, whatever the variety!

Aside from all of this, I hope to take advantage of today being an indoor day and start editing a couple of videos, including the October garden tour video using footage I recorded on Nov. 1. 😄

But first, lunch – and maybe a taste of that Crespo squash!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: Thanksgiving dinner harvest, plus, this is what $230 looks like

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Tomorrow is Canadian Thanksgiving, but our turkey needs to be cooked, so we will be having our dinner today.

But first, I had to make a trip to the nearer city for a few things. Only about half of today’s shopping came out of our regular budget, though, as my daughter sent me funds for the other half.

Not pictured was my first stop at Canadian Tire. There, I was able to sanitize two of our 18.9L/5 gallon water jugs and refill them – the price at Canadian Tire is much lower than locally, so if I’m making the trip anyhow, it’s worth getting our refills done at the same time.

The main thing we needed to get at Canadian Tire was some mold and mildew resistant primer. We will use that on the exposed bathroom walls, before putting on the tub surround.

I was also able to get a few other things as well. One was a tube of transparent Kwik Seal, which is both an adhesive and a caulk that is waterproof. We’ll be using it on the overlap of the catio and isolation shelter roof panels. I also picked up some 6×3/4 inch wood screws, as we ran out, and a latch that I think should work on the ramp-door on the isolation shelter.

Before doing to the till, I checked out the display of vehicle organizers and accessories for the truck. What I found, though, was an emergency hand crank flashlight and FM radio that was on sale, so I grabbed that for our emergency kit. I think it has a port for charging a cell phone, too, but the packaging didn’t have a detailed list on it. We’ll need to test it out, later, anyhow, and will be able to see, then. Eventually, I want to get a version that can also be charged with a solar panel. I’ve got a couple on my wish list that have different charging ports, different lighting options, etc. that I want for the house.

The Canadian Tire purchase totaled $81.91 after taxes, with the most expensive item being the quart of primer.

After that, it was across the street to the Walmart. This is what $232.58 looks like.

The kibble is for the inside cats, with an extra for the outside cats – I put our last 40 pound bag into the bin today, and that will last about a week. The shelf is the other thing I needed to make the trip for. With the wardrobe out of my husband’s room, he still needs a shelf. I’d have preferred to get a better shelf, but when it came to the smaller higher quality shelves, I was looking at twice the price for half the shelf! So this will do for now.

There are also some supplements; some Vitamin D and some Magnesium. On my daughter’s list was the coffee, creamer and energy drinks, plus some sort of heat and eat. Until we can get the hot water tank fixed, we’re trying to avoid dirtying dishes as much as possible!

Then, because it’s cheap turkey season, I got a frozen turkey; the medium turkeys are $22. I also got a couple of packages of bacon, one of which is for the turkey.

Oh! I almost forgot. I also got a collar with breakaway buckle for the cats. Syndol still has his collar, but I want to get collars on the other cats that got neutered, so it’s easy to tell them apart. Unfortunately, the first collars I got for them have disappeared. They were likely on too loose. I’ll start with getting one on Stinky, since he is one of the crowd of white cats with grey that can be so hard to tell apart at times.

Once I was home and everything was put away, I headed outside to do a bit of harvesting for our Thanksgiving dinner.

I started off with getting some German Butterball potatoes, and the last Uzbek Golden carrots (not counting the ones that went to seed).

I also harvested a few sunchokes, and the last Purple Caribe potatoes. There were two plants I’d left to grow longer, and between the two of them, I found a whole 6 potatoes, and one of them was really small.

If you click through to the next picture, you’ll see the squash I selected for Thanksgiving. Being part of the Wild Bunch Mix, I don’t know what kind it is. We only had the one survive to be harvested. It looks like it could be an immature Long Island Cheese.

We shall see how it tastes!

Since we’re trying to use as few dishes, pots and pans as possible, I was shooting to make our Thanksgiving dinner a one roaster meal.

I almost made it.

I started by oiling the bottom of our big roaster, then lined the bottom with slices of onions and shallots. Then all the carrots, potatoes and most of the sunchokes were laid out over the onions as flat and even as I could make them.

I say “most of the sunchokes” because, as I was cleaning and preparing them, I found several of the largest ones had some sort of worm in them!

Ugh.

The turkey itself was kept plain. After getting a thorough washing and the wings tucked under, it went on top of the vegetables. Then I took a package of bacon and wove the strips over the top of the turkey.

With all that in the roaster, there really wasn’t room for the squash. My husband doesn’t like winter squash, anyhow. So that got cut into chunks and peeled, and put into its own smaller roasting pan.

The good thing about winter squash getting harvested too early, because of frost, is that the shell is soft enough to use a vegetable peeler on!

I kept the squash simple, too. The chunks got pieces of butter spread out over them, then they all got sprinkled with brown sugar.

The turkey went into the over at 450° for 15 minutes, uncovered. Then the heat was reduced to 350°, and the roaster covered with foil (the turkey is too high to use the lid). The squash was put into the oven at this time, too.

As I was writing this, the oven timer went off. The squash is now ready and out of the oven, but it will be a while before the turkey and vegetables are ready.

Along with all this, I also picked up a pumpkin pie at the local grocery store/post office. We’ll just need to whip some cream to go with it.

When the time comes, we’ll be eating off of paper plates, so there’s less to wash.

It’s not going to be fancy, but it doesn’t need to be. We have much to be thankful for!

Speaking of which…

I got a voice mail on my phone from home care, letting me know that no one was available to do my mother’s evening medication assist. So I called my mother to let her know – not something I was looking forward to, after her mind games, yesterday. I made the call just before I started on cleaning the vegetables, so I told her I was going to be quick, because I needed to go to the kitchen, and passed on the message.

Before she let me go, though, she said she had something she needed to tell me. She said she didn’t want me to worry. She would pay for the septic repairs.

She then said she forgot that she had promised to pay it, earlier.

I did tell her, I never asked her to pay for it. She offered, and I was very grateful, because we would have have been able to cover it ourselves. She kind of waffled a bit, and just repeated that she would take care of it, and stopped just short of actually apologizing for her behaviour. Which is fine by me. I don’t expect her to.

Then she mentioned that she spoke to my brother last night. I asked how that was and again, she waffled. She finally just said, it was a short call, and that they talked about him coming out to put away her air conditioner, and that it would be good to do it before winter arrives.

I reminded her that my brother had been saying he needs to come out and take care of that for her; he just has no idea when he’ll be able to. I also reassured her that, even if we got snow (it’s not unusual to get a blizzard in October where we are), he did such a good job sealing the window around the AC vent, it wouldn’t matter. No weather is getting in through there! She agreed that he did an excellent job.

Ah, my timer is going off again. Time to check on the turkey!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

The Re-Farmer

Morning friend, our biggest harvest yet, and what I did with it!

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We’re expecting heat but no rain for the next while, so it looks like I’m going to be back at watering the garden every morning again. I worked on that while the girls took care of eyes baby, cleaning and treating her eyes, then feeding her cat soup with the modified kitten baby bottle. That made a mess, of course, so she was looking really bedrabbled when I finally saw her outside!

While I was watering, I saw a little green friend on the grape leaves.

I just love tree frogs! They are just the cutest. 💚

Once the watering was done, I went back and collected what turned out to be our largest harvest of the year!

While watering the G Star pattypan squash, I found a squash I’d somehow managed to miss seeing before. It’s a bit bigger than I would normally let it get, but it’s still in the tender stage. I got a pretty good handful of Carminat beans and a few Dalvay shelling peas.

There was one Yukon Chief corn stalk that didn’t survive being broken by the wind, and it had a tiny little cob on it. I went ahead and shucked it and, small as it was, it was ripe. I ate it raw, and it was quite tasty. So I took a chance and harvested the ripest looking cobs I could find. Only one probably could have used a few more days on the stalk. I decided to harvest some of the Uzbek Golden carrots, and even found a few Seychelles beans in the bed with the Crespo squash. I’m happy with the carrots I picked this morning. There isn’t much left in the bed, including the two that have gone to seed. I really hope we’ll have the space to plant more carrots next year.

I was happy to see that we FINALLY have ripening chocolate cherry tomato. Just two, really, and one looked almost ready to pick, but I left it for now.

With having such small harvests for the past while, most have not had enough to make it worth including in a meal, so we’ve been setting some things aside. We had enough that, with this morning’s harvest, I decided to use it all up. I was inspired by A Jeanne in the Kitchen’s Low Country Boil. We had no seafood, and I just used what we had. Except the peppers, since I can’t eat those without gagging for some reason, but we did have a couple of little San Marzano peppers I could use. I can’t eat fresh tomatoes, either, but I can eat them when they are cooked or processed.

I ended up using half a package of bacon, half a package of fresh sausages, frozen onions from our garden last year, carrots, beans, shelled and sugar snap peas, the patty pan squash, the corn chopped into chunks (not a way I would normally cook corn on the cob), some Russet potatoes we bought that need to be used up, and several cloves of fresh garlic that couldn’t be hung for curing with the others. I think that’s everything. Some of this was browned before adding water.

For seasoning, I used some of the truffle salt we still have left, freshly ground pepper, ground thyme, dried parsley, a couple of vegetable bouillon cubes and a touch of turmeric. I was digging through the fridge and spotted some jars of seafood sauce and oyster sauce, so I went ahead and added some of that to the liquid, too.

I’m quite happy with out it turned out, and it made an excellent brunch.

It will now make an excellent… supper, I guess. I got busy working in the garage and am now realizing I haven’t eaten in way too long.

I’ll post about the progress on the isolation shelter next, but first, I need to eat!

The Re-Farmer

Baking Day

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Today has been a productive day – finally!

While my daughter continued her deep cleaning into the kitchen, I got the truck loaded up for a much delayed trip to the dump. Each day the dump was open, I found myself at my mother’s place with the truck, so it had to wait.

After that lovely rain we had, the gravel roads were a mess and so were the grounds near the pit. I don’t like driving up to the pit. Not only am I always paranoid about backing up too close to the edge, on days like today, the edge is full of garbage people didn’t make the effort to throw further in, which means there’s all sorts of stuff where tires would go. Like the big shard of glass I found as I went around to open the tailgate!

Garbage and recycling properly disposed off, it was too to town and the pharmacy. My husband’s new painkillers at his new dose were already waiting, and I got my own prescription refilled, since I was there.

Then it was a quick trip to the grocery store for a couple of things – plus I was able to take advantage of a couple of good sales – then home. I pulled the truck into the yard and got a daughter to grab the stuff and put them away, while I took a hose to the truck to take off the caked on clay and mud! The main road to our place is really bad in patches, after all that rain. This road is designed for heavier and more traffic than a lot of the other gravel roads, many of which are in even worse condition. I know of at least one person in our municipality’s FB group that is hesitant to take her car through, for fear of getting stuck – and she’s got an infant! Unfortunately, no one in the group could give her any idea of when her road will be worked on. We’ve had a new council since the last election (I forgot it was election day, so we missed the chance to vote), and things have been crazy. Several municipal staff quit, the By Law Officer quit, then just a little while ago, most of the council members also quit. There are no longer enough council members for quorum, so no decisions can be made. The province has had to step in and take over until another election can be arranged, but they haven’t sent anyone over, yet.

As bad as the road we use has gotten, we’ve actually got it pretty good. I don’t even try to take the roads in other directions, knowing they’d be much worse. I’d rather go the long way around – and am thankful I have that option! Having to hose off the truck is a small problem, in comparison.

My daughter, sweetheart that she is, was just finishing cleaning the oven when I was done. Just in time for me to do some baking!

I wanted to do baking, but hadn’t decided what I wanted to bake, so I went through some of my old cookbooks for really basic recipes. I was going through the one we all got given to us in Home Ec class – still one of my favourites – and spotted a recipe for cream puffs, which I haven’t made since I was a teenager, so I decided to go for it.

The cooked part of the cream puff batter, which whips up incredibly quickly, has to cool before the eggs can be added, so while it was cooling, I tried an oatmeal cookie recipe from the same cookbook that I hadn’t baked in years. I couldn’t remember liking them or not, but I’d highlighted there title at some point, so I figured that meant they were good! 😄

The recipe said it would yield 5 dozen cookies. !! I think that was a typo. I got 2 dozen, plus one giant cooking I baked in a small cast iron pan. They spread out really flat. Not the best oatmeal cookies I’ve ever had, but certainly tasty. They were probably meant to be made with quick oats, not the thicksome ones I was using. 😉

Once they were done, I increased the heat for the cream puffs while I beat the eggs into the batter. They bake at 450F for 15 minutes, then at 325F for another 25 minutes.

I had made them smaller before, but the recipe said it yielded 8 large puffs, so today, I made 8 large puffs! Later on, we’ll make some whipped cream to go in them.

Once those were out of the oven, my daughter and I took a late lunch break. Later, I plan to make some basic cupcakes. Last of all, I plan to mix up an overnight no-knead bread dough and set that to rise in the safety of the oven, where the cats can’t get at it. I might make another batch in the bread machine at the same time and leave that to rise overnight, too.

Things outside will probably need another day for the mud to become less of an issue, and I’ll be getting back at working on the garden beds. It’s been a long time since I’ve done baking – my younger daughter is usually the one that does the baking – so I’m taking advantage of the break from outside stuff.

The Re-Farmer

Stroganoff on a smoker?? (video)

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Just watching a few videos with breakfast this morning and found a new cooking video from Quick Dick McDick.

Oh, my. He doesn’t go half way, that’s for sure!

Having to pause near the end to help deliver another calf was a nice touch. 😄😄

I seriously want a smoker.

The Re-Farmer

17th Century onion soup – not a recipe

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Recently, I saw this video from Townsends.

We have quite a lot of fresh onions, on top of the ones we dehydrated (half of which I powdered) and froze. Mostly the Red of Florence onions.

Which have started to grow! Not all of them, but enough that we had to do something about it.

So I made a version of this historical onion soup using all red onions, to use up the ones that were sprouting.

I made a few other changes, too, of course.

This is how it turned out.

I sliced all the onions that were starting to sprout, saving the greens to use fresh, some of which I used to garnish my bowl. We’d done a pork roast yesterday, and there was just a bit left, along with the pot juices and rendered fat from the roast. I used the fat from the roast, as well as bacon drippings, to caramelize the onions, instead of butter. Part way through the caramelization process, I added the leftover bits of pork, finely chopped – there is no meat in the version in the video.

For the liquid, I use the juices from the pork roast, which had jelled quite nicely overnight, plus water. They used just water in the video. A vinegar I had on hand I chose to add to the beaten egg yolks was a fancy, barrel aged apple cider vinegar.

My daughters had made a loaf in the bread machine yesterday, and that was used for the bread portion. The video specifically stated to use the outside of a crusty loaf, not the soft insides (which would just turn to mush in the soup!), so I sliced off the crust on the bread machine bread. The bread machine makes a relatively dense bread, particularly around the edges, so I was able to cut quite thick slices off all sides for this, and cut them into fairly even cubes. They stood up well to being cooked in all that liquid!

The only other thing I did a differently was to add a splash of vinegar to the soup stock, even though there was vinegar in the beaten egg yolks. After tasting it, I just felt it needed that extra bit of bite.

The only down side to making this soup was the length of time it took to slice the onions, then caramelize them. By the time the soup was simmering and the cubed bread added, my back was giving out and I had to sit down in between doing the other stuff. Not an issue for people who aren’t broken, like me! 😁

As for the soup, it was quite tasty. Even my husband went for seconds, and he’s not a soup person! I think it would have tasted even better with yellow onions, but that’s just me. If all goes well, we’ll have a lot more of those in our garden next year!

This is definitely a soup I’d make again, with any type of onion.

I might be getting my daughters to do the chopping or caramelizing next time, though! 😄

The Re-Farmer

Kitties, Cornbread, and 6 years ago today

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First, the kitties!

I’m happy to say, they are recovering nicely. You’d never know they’d all just undergone surgery!

In this photo, you’re being looked at by Shadow in the Dark. The boys definitely seemed to get more energetic faster, which makes sense, since they didn’t have open surgery like the ladies.

The other kitten is Pom Pom, who is just getting big enough to be done. He’s quite a bit bigger than his siblings, The Beast and Soot Sprite! Hard to believe they’re from the same litter.

Also, he is getting some very distinctive white fur on his sides. I’ve noticed that in some of the outside kittens, too. Pointy Baby was the first cat we’d see to develop that pattern, which suggests there’s some paternal genetic connection between them.

Anyhow. All is good with the post-op kitties, and they are so very happy to be allowed out of the room again!

Today, I had a chance to experiment with cornbread again. Last time, I did a strawberry version. This time, I did the exact same thing, except with bananas.

It’s still cooling as I write this and oh, my, does it look good! I can’t wait to try it! This time, we have enough extra that if it goes over well, we can make another one.

Next time I experiment, I think I’ll try apple.

On a completely different note, as we come up to our 6 year anniversary of all 4 of us finally together again, here at the farm, I went looking at some of my posts from back then.

Oh, my.

My husband and younger daughter were already here, and today was the last day my older daughter and I had to get things done, before the movers arrived in the morning.

We had no idea just how bad that would turn out.

Reading over those old posts again makes me shudder.

I know at some point, my husband and I will likely have to move somewhere that is more accessible for limited mobility, but at this point, I’m still thinking, I never want to move again!!!!

Thank God my brother now owns the property. If my mother were still our “landlord”, we probably would have thrown in the towel and found a way to move out, years ago.

The Re-Farmer

Dehydrated Onions

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When the last of our Red of Florence onions got processed, I set up three 9×13 baking sheets in the oven to dehydrate some. When those were done, I took the one bag of onions I kept out of the freezer, because it had a pinhole in it somewhere, and filled another baking sheet to dehydrate.

This is what those 4 trays of onions got us.

When level on the counter, the top is almost exactly between the 350ml and 450ml marks on the containers. This is after I crunched them up quite a bit, too.

This represents about 7 or 8 of the largest onions.

I’m considering processing them into a powder to use as is, or make onion salt. I figure I might get about a quarter cup if I put it through our spice grinder. I haven’t decided, yet.

What do you think?

The Re-Farmer

Upside Down Strawberry Cast Iron Skillet Cornbread

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It’s been a long time since I posted anything recipe and cooking related!

Not long ago, I took advantage of an excellent sale, and picked up a whole bunch of fresh strawberries. A couple of clamshells needed to be used up quickly, as they were starting to get past their prime, so I decided to experiment.

I took our basic cast iron skillet corn bread recipe and modified it to make an upside down strawberry cornbread.

It turned out rather well!

First, I’ll give our basic recipe, then explain the modifications. We rarely make it without some sort of modification, so I’ll include those as well.

Basic Cast Iron Skillet Corn Bread

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup cornmeal
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1Tbsp baking powder
  • 1 1/4 cup milk
  • 4 Tbsp butter, melted, plus extra for the pan

Optional:

  • add seasonings to the dry ingredients, such as paprika, garlic granules or whatever herbs you feel like, to taste.
  • there is no salt in this recipe, but I sometimes like to add a small amount of course or rock salt that would normally go into our salt grinder, which leaves some nice little crunchy chunks to discover while eating it!
  • add savoury ingredients like a semi-soft or semi-hard cheese (mozza, cheddar, gouda, havarti, feta, etc.) cut into small cubes (shredded cheese will just disappear), or leftover ham cut into cubes, to the dry ingredients.
  • instead of butter, you can use oil or melted ghee. We like using ghee quite a bit!
  • substitute part of the milk for an equal amount of cream, sour cream or yoghurt. You could also try using buttermilk instead of milk, or even use reconstituted powdered milk.

Instructions:

  • preheat oven to 425F
  • place cast iron pan with some butter in it into the oven until the butter is melted. Spread the melted butter evenly around the pan, including the sides.
  • combine dry ingredients into a medium bowl, including any optional ingredients
  • add the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
  • pour the batter into the pan
  • bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown and pulling away from the sides, or a toothpick stuck into the middle comes out clean
  • flip onto a rack to cool. Can be served warm with melted butter.

Modification: We start the oven preheating, prepare the cast iron pan, mix the batter, pour it into the pan, place it into the still preheating oven, then set the timer for 25-30 minutes. Basically, it’s because it takes a long time for our oven to preheat to 425F and we’re impatient. It has always worked just fine.

Upside Down Strawberry Corn Bread modifications

Extra Ingredients:

  • fresh strawberries, cleaned and hulled
  • butter
  • brown sugar
  • Place the clean cast iron pan on the stove and melt a generous amount of butter into it. I used a couple of tablespoons, maybe a bit more, for our 10 inch pan.
  • After the butter is melted, use some to oil the sides of the pan
  • Add enough brown sugar to cover the bottom of the pan evenly
  • Cut the strawberries into enough slices to cover the bottom of the pan; lay them on top of the brown sugar
  • Chop more strawberries into small cubes and add them to the dry ingredients of the corn bread batter.
  • Once the batter is ready, gently pour it over the strawberry slices, so as not to disturb them. If there is a chance that the butter and brown sugar might bubble up the sides of your pan, place it on a baking sheet in the oven, or have a baking sheet on the rack below.
  • Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the cornbread is golden brown and starting to pull away from the sides
  • When done, turn off the oven and let it rest in the oven for a few minutes, then remove and cool, still in the pan, outside the oven for a few minutes more. The heat from the cast iron pan will continue to crisp up the edges and caramelize the brown sugar base.
  • slide a knife around the edges of the pan to make sure it’s not sticking. Take a plate larger than the top of your pan and put it upside down over the cornbread. Carefully flip the pan upside down and remove the pan.
  • can be served served warm with a touch of cream poured over the top, or completely cooled – if you’re willing to wait that long!

As I wrote this post, my daughters made another batch. It’s out of the oven now, and I can’t wait to have some!

The Re-Farmer

It feels good!

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Well, I’m quite happy with how our Thanksgiving dinner turned out yesterday. The main reason is, just about everything on our plate was from our garden!

Starting from the top, going clockwise:

Uzbek Golden and Naval carrots, steamed, then tossed with butter, salt and pepper, and a touch of brown sugar.

Red Thumb fingerling potatoes – these are most definitely a mashing potato! – with butter, cream cheese, mayo mashed in, seasons with dill, salt and pepper.

North Georgia Candy Roaster squash. The squash was quartered and the cavity was coated with a mixture of ghee, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves and a touch of salt, and roasted with the spatchcocked turkey. If we’d done the turkey without spatchcocking it, we wouldn’t have had room for both! 😄

Finally, at the top left, is the quick pickle of both types of carrots, turnip, radish and garlic, spiced with whole cloves and whole cardamom seeds.

I look forward to a time when the meat is also from our own animals.

Unfortunately, I completely forgot to cover the peppers and eggplant yesterday evening. By the time I remembered, it was past midnight and we already reached freezing temperatures, though of course, none of my weather apps agreed. When my daughter and I went out with the covers, there was already frost just starting to glitter on the ground. It was chilly, but the stars were incredible! So many, and so very bright!

Heading out this morning, the frost was still heavy on the ground. At the last minute, I decided to take video for another garden tour. It will probably be the last one for the year. I’ll start putting that together in a bit, as I wait for things to warm up a bit more before going back outside. The forecasts for a milder October have all changed, though we’re still expected to get a few days at 10C/50F and above – though again, that depends on which app I’m looking at. It’s still nothing to complain about. After all, we could be having snow right now!

The Re-Farmer