WELCOME to my BLOG

Hi there!

I’m slowly working towards some simplicity within the home, but hey! It’s a lot of hard work!

I love having a go at growing my own veges and always use herbs fresh from my garden. I try to plant from seed whenever I can and have learnt to save and share my own seed for the following year. I make Award Winning preserves and pickles; and my husband brews Award Winning boutique beers as well. I love to stockpile and try to limit quick trips to the shops. I dabble in bread making and enjoy making my own stocks too.

I enjoy feeding my family good hearty meals, nothing like those tiny restaurant stacks you have to look for on the plate. My husband maintains our vehicles and machinery and we both enjoy fabricating on a small scale mostly relying on metal & timber recyclers for any materials needed.


While I don’t always have time to reply to comments, I love reading them. I hope you enjoy your stay and I hope you learn something new because I love sharing what I learn, and I'm always looking for another new skill myself.

Cheers!

Saturday, February 12, 2011

My first Pumpkin

Harvested 23 Feb 2011!!!

I have never tried growing pumpkins, I only had one pumpkin plant ..I had lots of trouble with the vine, overcoming non pollinating and then mouldy leaves....got one mini pumpkin which I am very pleased with lol....


Hasn't put me off growing them again though, because I know the taste will be worth it.

I have found two recipes
I was given another type of mini pumpkin today, so I might combine the two so I can get a few recipes made, want to stretch that pumpkin as far as I can.....
I am looking at these recipes so far.....

SUGAR CRUNCH MINI PUMPKIN MUFFINS
Makes 72 mini muffins
Ingredients

1 cup vegetable oil
3 cups sugar
2/3 cups water
2 cups pumpkin purée
4 eggs
3 ½ cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
Chopped walnuts (optional)
2/3 c Cinnamon sugar mix

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
2. Mix all of the ingredients together except for the cinnamon sugar and walnuts. Spoon the batter into greased mini muffin tins. If you're a nutty kind of person, sprinkle the chopped walnuts on the top of each muffin, along with the cinnamon sugar. Or just use cinnamon sugar! I used about 2/3 tsp of cinnamon sugar per muffin.
3. Bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes, or until the top springs back to the touch and a toothpick comes out clean. If you make regular-sized muffins, they will need to bake longer. And lastly, if you choose to go the loaf pans route, you'll need to bake it for about 1 hour and 10 minutes.
4. Let the muffins cool for 5 minutes in the pan. They should pop out easily, but if not, you can always run a knife around the edges to loosen them. Let them cool completely on a wire rack.

These were absolutely lovely. I froze half so we could enjoy them again later.



I also made pumpkin scones but nearly missed out on a photo for you, they were so good we have had to make more.

PUMPKIN SCONES
3 1/2 cups Self Raising Flour
1 cup mashed cooked pumpkin
55 grams butter or margerine
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk

Beat butter and sugar, add pumpkin and egg. Combine well. Add milk and combine. Add flour slowly. Knead gently combining all flour. If dough is still too sticky add extra flour. Flour your bench well, and press out to about 3/4 inch thick. Cut scones using the lip of a drinking glass, dipping glass into extra flour so to prevent sticking. Place scones on floured tray in a honeycomb pattern. This gives each scone something to lean on, so they can rise evenly....Using a pastry brush, brush the top of each scone with milk before baking in hot oven of 200 degrees celcius for about 15 minutes or until golden.
remove from the oven and cut in half, buttering both sides. Share with family and friends.



I nearly missed out on taking a photo of these, as they went down so well.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...