It Slices! It Dices!

Time to make more slow cooker applesauce! I got out of bed at 9 and Derek and I got started. I had the bottom drawer of the fridge full of Gala apples that I'd picked up off the ground out in the orchard. I had a bucketful of them in the garage too.

I'd still be peeling if I hadn't gotten myself a handy dandy apple peeler. I first saw it on Chris's blog where he explained his method for making apple butter. It doesn't have the nostalgic look that my grandma's cast iron model had, but it does a great job of peeling all those apples. Derek was having too much fun with it and soon I was up to my elbows in peeled apples that needed to be cored and cleaned!


OK, so maybe it doesn't slice or dice, but it sure is a handy tool. All the peelings went right into the kitchen sink. Then Derek handed the apples to me and I cored them in one swift motion, pared off any bad parts and put them in the slow cookers. I've got both my 6 quart and my 3.5 quart slow cookers going and there's still another drawer full of apples left. I want to make two pies and freeze them, but I've still got to make Derek's birthday cake. There just aren't enough hours in the day!



All of the peelings and cores went out to the chickens who are on strict lock down today after their raid on my cousin's landscaping yesterday. I don't care how much they protest--they're not getting out today!



Once again, the house smells like apples and cinnamon!

I went to the grocery store after the apples were prepared and simmering. I picked up a jar of yeast and almost fell over at the price of $7.89 for 4 ounces! Good Gawd Y'all! It better last forever!

So now I'm going to go try to bake my first loaf of white bread in my new bread machine. More to follow...

Breadman TR520

I was in Kmart tonight getting Derek a new winter coat when I walked by a display of bread makers that were marked $10 off their original price of $59.95. Now, whenever I want to keep myself from buying more than I intend to get, I don't get a cart. I just make myself hold everything which makes my arms ache after a while. It gives me a good reason to hurry up and get out of the store. I had an armload of items that I planned to purchase when I walked by that display. Damn! I had planned to get a bread maker this fall and here was a large display of them on sale! A beacon of light from heaven shown down on the shiny boxes. I got a cart.

I am perusing the instruction manual and trying to educate myself on the ins and outs of bread maker operation. I am so glad I asked for you all to recommend one to me. Thanks for all of your input! I like to hear advice from others whenever I venture into unknown territory, and bread makers are definitely new to me. Apparently this particular model is easy to use and gives good results. I won't know until I buy some yeast and give it a shot, hopefully tomorrow.

I am going to be very busy tomorrow making even more crock pot applesauce. I have a lot of Gala apples waiting in the fridge and the garage. I've got a brand new handy dandy peeler that should make the job much faster for me. I'll write more about that tomorrow though.

I am beyond frustrated with my chickens right now. They have begun going across the road into my cousin's yard. They were over there today while I was sleeping. When I woke up I looked out the window and there they all were, digging in her manicured flower beds! HORROR! I called them back over to our side of the road and penned them up immediately. I received a call from her while I was at Kmart. MORE HORROR! She is very nice and very understanding about it all. I've promised her that I will do whatever is in my power to prevent it from happening again just as she does whatever she can to keep her dog off my property. This means that the chickens will have to be penned while I'm not around to watch them. DAMN. Didn't I go through all this before when they were digging in my mulch and I had to put bird netting down on all of my flowerbeds? Apparently, twelve acres of land is not enough for my birds. Oh no they've got to invade my cousin's yard as well! I am so verklempt I could spit nails.

Trees

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.


A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;



A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;


A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;



Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.


Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Joyce Kilmer. 1886–1918

Meet Murphy

Murphy is our Blue Swedish drake. He is unfortunate in that he usually is the one to get caught when Derek wants to hug a duck. But he is fortunate in that he has two hens of his own, one of which is the runt of the flock. She is a loud little hen and will announce anything new to the other ducks. We named her Macaroni. So we have a chicken named Cheese Doodle and a duck named Macaroni!

Murphy would make a very nice roast but we'll never eat him. I bought the ducks with the intention of not cooking them but allowing them to live out their lives on the pond. We enjoy seeing them out there dabbling in the water and swimming by in formation. Ducks are naturally happy birds and they seem to enjoy telling each other jokes. They aren't fond of hugs, but around here the birds get hugged whether or not they like it.

First Egg Sale

It's a week full of "firsts":

• My first apple pie
• My first immersion blender
• My first chicken pot pie
• My first egg sale
  
  One of Jim's customers bought a dozen of my girls' brown eggs tonight for the tidy sum of $2.00. He was happy to have brown eggs! Jim's offered them to all of our customers and they usually say they'll get some the next time they come out. It would be so nice if the chooks would pay for their own feed! I am getting 9 eggs on average a day now. They don't seem to be affected by the shorter days and the colder weather...yet. It remains to be seen what they will think of November and December weather.

This year has been full of other "firsts" as well.

• Jim's first gun shop
• My first flock of chickens
• My first eggs
• My first flock of ducks
• Our first orphaned squirrel

It feels good to sell those eggs. We have all the eggs we can use and we also share them with family members. It's not my goal to get rich selling eggs, not by any means. I'd be happy if the egg money would pay for the corn and layer ration. It will be fun to see if we get any regular egg customers. I'm just enjoying the fact that there are others out there who appreciate brown eggs for their goodness and are willing to pay a couple dollars for some.

First Chicken Pot Pie

Now that I've learned how to make a good pie crust, I decided to put my culinary skills to the test and see if I could make a good chicken pot pie. I got the pie crust recipe from Children In The Corn.

My goal was to find a chicken pot pie recipe that used fresh ingredients. I didn't want any condensed soup in it. Not that I have anything against condensed soup but I wanted this pie to be completely from scratch. This recipe fit my requirements.

This was a two day recipe for me. I wanted to have the chicken cooked and ready to go before I put the pie together the next day. I stewed one of my former roosters in the crock pot last night until the meat fell off the bones. After cutting it up I put it in a container in the fridge to save until I was ready to use it in the pot pie today.

When I got started in the kitchen at 11 today I made the crust first then wrapped it in plastic wrap and chilled it in the fridge while I cut up the vegetables. If I had it to do over again I would have either left the salt out of the recipe or used unsalted butter. With a savory dish like chicken pot pie a slightly salty crust is OK, but I wouldn't want to use it with something sweet without eliminating some of the salt.

One of the side dishes was acorn squash puree. I prepared the acorn squash and put it in the crock pot (my crock pot is getting a lot of use lately) with two apples and some crushed pineapple and spices. The squash was ready to puree at 4 and I used my new immersion blender to do the job. I spooned it into some small custard cups and froze what remained for another day. I had pulled a container of my homemade applesauce out of the freezer last night for another side dish. It was thawed and ready to serve.

Without a doubt this was the best chicken pot pie I've ever had. The chicken was tender and flavorful, the blend of vegetables was perfect and the broth from the stewed chicken made it all come together in a wonderfully tasty way. Now that I've had homemade pot pie I'll never be the same.

Cooking from scratch takes a lot of time and effort. It's worth it to have wholesome, nutritious food at a lower cost though. Prepared foods are handy, but for the best flavor nothing beats homemade!

100 Words or Less

Here's the deal: I want a bread machine and you're going to sell me one. There are so many out there on the market today that I don't even know where to begin. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to recommend a bread machine for me in 100 words or less.

Alright, it doesn't have to be 100 words, but I do want to know the pros and cons of the particular machine you chose. It needs to fit into my budget as well--I'd prefer to spend less than $100.

The only feature I'm certain that I want is the ability to make just dough without the machine baking it. If I want to make rolls, for example, I'd want the machine to do the mixing and kneading for me, but allow me to do the baking part in my oven.

Size is also important to me. I don't want one that will take up much more room than my toaster oven or Kitchen Aid stand mixer. (I know, tough criteria!)

Ok, I'm ready. Lay it on me!

Immersion Blender

I'm finding excuses to use my new immersion blender. I originally bought it to make my own homemade mayonnaise. I used a hand mixer the first time I made it and I had to stand at the kitchen counter for eternity to get the consistency I wanted. The immersion blender did it, and did a better job too, in 45 seconds! The day after I got it I made Crock Pot Applesauce. The blender turned it into a silky dessert.

Today I am making chili in the slow cooker. I had a bag of frozen tomatoes from my mother-in-law's garden but I also had a huge tomato on the counter--the last of this year's tomatoes from my own plant. I didn't have any plans to use it and it was just sitting there threatening to rot. So I got the idea I'd use it in the chili. After blanching and peeling it I chopped it into chunks and put it in my 4 cup glass measuring cup.

I put the blades all the way at the bottom of the cup then angled them slightly to allow the chunks to get under them. The whole process took less than a minute!


That huge tomato made just over 2 cups of puree which I promptly poured into the slow cooker.

I'd recommend an immersion blenderto every cook I know. This is one of the most versatile tools I've had in the kitchen in a long time. It's about as useful as a full set of kitchen knives but it's faster!

First Apple Pie

I have a confession to make: I am 39 years old and have never baked an apple pie from scratch...until today. What possessed me? Probably all those free apples just sitting out there in the orchard. I've always been intimidated by the thought of making my own pie crust. Sure I'll make a pie if I have refrigerated pie crust on hand. But I didn't have any today. What I did have was about 10 pounds of those darn apples just sitting there on the counter staring me in the face. I used half of them to make another batch of Crock Pot Applesauce. I couldn't just throw the rest of them to the chooks--after all, these were good quality apples! So I bit the proverbial bullet and got out my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook to find a pie crust recipe.

The directions for deep dish apple pie seemed simple enough. And wouldn't you know it, I had just the right number of apples left after making the applesauce! I enlisted the help of Derek to peel them while I set about making my first pie crust. You know what? It was really easy and it didn't require cooking skills to rival Martha Stewart's! The process was so simple that I won't be intimidated by pie crusts anymore. Here's how the final product looked. I made the cutouts using the apple corer and a paring knife. That lovely yellow pie pan was my grandmother's. It was just the right size for a deep dish pie.



I peeled and cored so many apples today that I had enough scraps for the chickens and the ducks. During dinner I glanced out the glass doors and noticed a very small, cute female wild mallard swimming with our gang of ducks. They seemed to be enjoying each other's company and neither party was hostile toward the other. It was fun to watch them staring at each other as if to say, "Boy, don't you look different!"

After all the work in the kitchen today I am definitely ready to put my feet up and relax. It smells wonderful in the house. The applesauce is cooling and when it's ready I'll put it in the freezer. Jim isn't a big fan of applesauce but after two helpings of mine tonight he ordered me to make more! It feels good to have made so many homemade goodies today, but I am beat!

Crock Pot Applesauce

This weekend promises to be cool and rainy, and by the looks of things the weatherman wasn't lying. Before the rain arrived, I went out into the orchard this morning and filled my 2.5 gallon bucket with dropped apples to make applesauce in the crock pot.Kim over at Achorn Farm gave me the idea. I picked up a mix of Yellow Delicious and Gala apples. After peeling and coring, I cut the apples into chunks and put them in the crock pot along with 1/2 cup of sugar and 2 cinnamon sticks. I let it cook on "High" for 3 hours then used my new immersion blender to puree the applesauce to a fine texture. If you don't have an immersion blender get one. You'll throw your countertop blender away!

While the applesauce simmered I took a nap. The house smelled wonderful when I woke up with apple and cinnamon smells throughout the whole house!

The peels and cores from four pounds of apples filled a large Cool Whip container which went out to the chickens. I think they appreciated it. I keep this plastic container in the small section of the kitchen sink. Egg shells, peels, fat trimmings and any other "waste" generated in the kitchen ends up in the container which gets emptied each afternoon when I call the chickens in.




















They've been eating a lot of apples this month. I go out into the orchard regularly to fill the bucket with bruised fruit left on the ground after the apples were picked. I love the whole "I feed you, you feed me" principle. I feed my chickens all of my kitchen "waste"...

...and in return they feed me the best eggs I've ever had.