Sorry I Forgot to Post my Pumpkin Recipe

It's been a little nuts around here with all the Christmas stuff and working more hours. I forgot to share my tasty recipes with you. Well I hope you froze some of that pumpkin you made (or at least have a can or two lying around after Thanksgiving and Christmas. Here are a few of my favorites.

Easy Pumpkin Loaf

Preheat Oven to 350.

1 C Sugar
1 C Cooked Pumpkin
1/4 C Salad Oil
3 egg Whites
2 TBS Skim Milk
2 C Sifted Flour
1tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Cardamon
1/4 tsp Nutmeg
1/2 C chopped Walnuts (optional)

Combine sugar, pumpkin, oil, eggs and milk. Mix flour baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices then add to sugar mixture. Blend well and add nuts. Pour into a greased and floured 9x5x3 inch loaf pan and bake for 1 hour.

Pumpkin Casserole

Preheat oven to 350

3 c Cooked Pumpkin
1/3 c Butter
1/4 c Light Cream
2 TBLS Brown Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Nutmeg

Mix ingredients in given order and pour into a buttered casserole dish. Spready with net topping and bake for 30 minutes.

Nut Topping
1/4 C Dark Brown Sugar
2 TBLS light corn syrup
2 TBLS melted butter
1 c Chopped Walnuts

Mix until crumbly.

Pumpkin Soup

3 C Cooked Pumpkin
3 C Chicken Broth
1 Tbls Butter
1 Tbls Flour
2 Tbls Brown Sugar
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/8 tsp Pepper
1/2 tsp Ginger
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 C Julienned Ham
3/4 C. nonfat condensed Milk
Nutmeg

Melt butter in pan and add flour stir until flour is golden brown. add pumpkin and chicken broth. Mix well. Mix in other ingredients in order listed except for Nutmeg. Heat but do not boil! Serve with a sprinkle of nutmeg.

Pumpkin Recipes

Ok I got mixed up and posted this on the wrong blog but now I'm reposting it here and I will post all the other tasty recipes here too so Enjoy

I love this time of year when there are lots of wonderful pumpkins around to be made into tasty treats and I know I promised you plenty of delicious recipes for these bountiful orange squashes. I'm going to start off with the two recipes, the first is to get the pumpkin ready for all the other recipes and the second is for a wonderfully tasty snack..Pumpkin seeds.

Now when I do this I do it before making dinner when I will be using the oven anyway. This way I only have to preheat the oven once. (less energy saves money)

Now if this is what your going to do then plan about an hour to and hour and fifteen minutes for each pumpkin you want to prepare and about 20 to 30 minutes for each cookie sheet full of seeds. (about 1 sheet for each pumpkin)Preheat the oven to 350.

Cut pumpkin in half and scoop out the guts. Place pumpkin guts in a container of cold water (I find it easier to separate the seeds from the strings this way) and set aside.
Place pumpkin halves on a cookie sheet and add 1/2 cup water.
Place in preheated oven for an hour. While this is cooking you can get another pumpkin ready or do the seeds.
Pumpkin is done when the shell is soft. Take out of oven if you have another pumpkin to cook then put it in or put in your seeds.
Turn the pumpkins over and let cool. Now scoop out or trim away the shell and smash or puree and its ready for your recipes.

Pumpkin seeds

Separate the seeds from the strings and compost the strings. Lightly spray a cookie sheet with not stick cooking spray. Dry off the seeds and place them on a single layer on the cookie sheet. Lightly spray the top of the seeds with cooking spray and salt to taste. Place in oven preheated to 350. Set timer for 10 minutes. When timer goes off then stir up the seeds and smooth them flat again and wait another 10 minutes. Stir again.... if nice and lightly browned then take out if not browned to your liking place in the oven for 10 more minutes keeping an eye on them. Let cool and enjoy.

Starting to get cold.

It's starting to get cold here in New York (not that it got very warm this summer) and I'm trying to decide whether I should go ahead and pick the little watermelon. It was suppose to be small but I really did expect it to get a little larger.

It's also time to start cleaning up. I think after I clean out all the dead or dying plants I'll put in a few mums till winter just to make it look nice for the neighbors. I did get enough zucchini to make six loaves of bread and plenty of eggplants. I got some tomatoes though I was hoping for more because we really like tomatoes. It was just too wet this year. I never did get any broccoli. Every time it started to get a little head of broccoli it would jump straight into flowers. A friend of mine said her father use to grow broccoli and would wrap the leaves around the head to keep it from flowering and let it grow bigger. I'll have to try that next year. I never got any pumpkins (since I actually planted more zucchini) so I'll have to hit the farmers market to do my pumpkin baking. When I start I'll share some of our favorite recipes with you so you can enjoy the bountiful fall harvest too. Though I did hear that pumpkin crops were having some problems this year too. So I think I'll go this weekend before scarcity kicks in and the prices go up.

I'm going to be spending the winter doing a little research to help me get a better crop of veggies next year as well.

I Should Have Taken a Picture

Do you remember me telling you this was PUMPKIN??? Well it's not it's Zucchini!! How do I know ...

Well after months of checking for nice pumpkins and getting nothing but big yellow flowers. I noticed the other day the leaves were wilting and needed some water. So I headed out and grabbed the hose. I turned toward the plant and saw the biggest zucchini I have ever seen! It was a good foot and a half long and about 6 inches around. After I finished being flabbergasted
..... I mean how the heck did I miss that monster after all the checking I did??? I grabbed the zucchini and headed into the kitchen. Now if you want to use a zucchini in any recipe where you taste a lot of zucchini any one will tell you to use them before they get more then 5 inches long when they are still young and tender. So I chopped and grated my zucchini and made 4 Yes 4 loaves of zucchini bread. Now I wish I had taken a picture to show you but it's to late it has been eaten... My zucchini bread doesn't stay around for long!

Tomatoes Watermelon and..... Fungus ?!?

No more picture perfect round tastless Tomatoes for me! My tomatoes are ripe and OH So Juicy that they are putting those pretty supermarket tomatoes to shame.

I'm finally getting some watermelon this is the biggest one. There are a couple of tiny ones too. I hope they ripen before the weather gets too cold.

I'm getting a white powery fungus on my zuccini and my pumpkin plants

and the flowers keep falling off with out producing fruit.

According to GardenGuides.com I can use milk to help control the fungus by mixing one part milk to 9 parts water and spraying on the plants once a week. I did it this morning I'll let you know how it goes.

Tomato Blight

It appears here in Long Island we are in the grip of a tomato blight due to the massive amount of rain we have had this year. Its effecting large and small gardeners alike. Lucky for me it hasn't gotten a hold of my tomatoes yet but I'll have to keep an eye on them. Here is some information from the newspaper about Tomato Blight so you can keep an eye on your tomatoes too.

What to look for: White-mold encircled gray spots on leaves and gray or brown lesions on stems. Eventually the fruit exhibits dark, greasy-looking lesions (yuck) and the plants blacken, wilt and die. Since I don't have any (knock on wood) I looked around and found this picture on Illinois Fruit and Vegetable News Website. (click here) Itt

What to do: Affected plants must be tightly sealed in plastic bags and put in the trash. They should never be composted or allowed to linger on the ground.

Preventative: For organic gardens the paper suggests products with fixed copper but states it's the least effective against blight. for non organic it suggests looking for products that contain maneb, mancozeb or chlorothalonil.

Vegetable Container Garden Update

Ok time to post some more pictures of my Vegetable Container Garden. Here are how things are growing.

The tomatoes are growing well you can see plenty of the just waiting to ripen. You might notice I've intertwined the tomato plant into the fence for support. This helped to save money since I didn't have to build or buy a tomato cage.

The best growing plant is the Pumpkins. The funny thing is they aren't in a normal planter I had an empty storage bucket and just filled it with dirt. The only problem is there are plenty of flowers but no pumpkins. I think today after work I'm going to go out and hand pollinate them with a small paint brush.

The Watermelon is growing too slowly I don't think I'll get any good melons before it starts getting cold. I didn't have them in a spot that was getting enough sun. Something to remember for next year.

Remember that pepper plant I started last winter indoors .... Well it finally got a pepper. LOL


My zucchini is doing very well it looks nice and healthy and

look at the size of that zucchini. I think I'm going to have to dig up a good recipe for that one.

My broccoli isn't looking so well but it did start growing a couple more bunches.

Remember my Experiment... Well I'm marking it as a failure though I might try it again next year. The cherry tomato looks scraggly but it is still producing tomatoes. But the tomato plant that is hanging upside down hasn't produced any tomatoes.

Last a little money saving tip. If you don't know what a plant is don't buy it. I bought a "salad mix" six pack I saw when I was checking out the local garden store. I though how cool a mixed salad container garden. Even though I have used some of the lettuce there were three plants that I have no idea what they are. They are growing well but I haven't a clue what to do with them or when to harvest them. The two in the front are starting to get flower buds.

My First Dish From My Vegtable Container Garden

Here it is my first dish. Fried Eggplant

I wanted to do Baba Ghanoush which is an middle eastern dish. Kind of an eggplant dip. I've been having a little problem finding a recipe. You see there are two kinds of eggplants. Now I'm assuming the recipes are calling for the regular type of eggplant that looks like this:

I have Japanese Eggplant growing which looks like this.

You might notice that it is much thinner they the other eggplant. So that leaves me with the question how many of them should I use to equal one of the fatter eggplants. I'm thinking two which means I'll have to wait because only one of them was ready to be picked.

Anyway the Fried Eggplant was delicious. Here is what I did.

Take Eggplant and slice it into no more then 1/2 inch thick slices. Dip in egg and dredge through flour mixed with a little salt pepper and garlic powder. Fry in hot oil until tender.

I have to thank Shawie from A Grateful Heart for the idea. I hadn't considered frying it, but she mentioned it in her comment to me and it sounded tasty.

Broccoli

I had to do some research on broccoli. My plants started sprouting flowers before I could pick them. They were still pretty small so I thought I had more time until harvesting them.

I thought since it had flowered I wasn't going to get any edible broccoli from it. But I am happy to announce that after hitting the library I learned that once I cut off the central bunch more will grow. This will give me plenty of tasty broccoli. I just have to watch out and harvest them before they bloom.

I also learned that I probably have them planted a little too close. I have four plants in my container and the books I looked at said they should be about 18 inches apart. But other then a little insect activity they all appear to be healthy plants. Now I just have to see about keeping the bugs away.

Eggplant

Check out this beauty.
We went away for a couple days and when we got back my eggplant had really grown.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Little problems

Hi all Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. My Hubby is going for his Masters Degree and has the computer most of the time.

My tomato plants in my hanging experiment is getting yellow leave and no longer is nice and bushy. I think its from all the rain we've been getting.

I think I'm going to have to do some more research on growing tomatoes in a hanging basket. The top is cherry tomatoes and when every I see pictures of them growing in a hanging basket they are always bushy looking and hanging over the edge in a nice neat way. Mine have grown out and hang down looking kind of like they want to break off. I'm going to take some pantyhose and tie the to the Shepard's hook to help keep them from breaking.

The larger tomato plants I have growing out the bottom aside from having some yellow leaves, seem to have stopped growing in size and are getting some tomatoes.

The tomato plant I have growing next to the fence looks much better I have been threading the plant through the fence instead of staking it for support. It has several tomatoes growning on it.

I apparently have some bug issues as my lettuce and broccoli leaves have been getting some holes.

And look at my tiny eggplant just starting to grow. The flowers on the eggplant are very cute. The next time I see one I'll have to get a picture for you.

My First Award for my Vegetable Container Garden Blog

Thank you My Bargain Mom for giving me this award. You have a great site to get tips on
how to shop smart, and the best use of coupons to save money With advice to help live frugally.





Here are the RULES of this Award:
(1) Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
(2) Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
(3) Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
(4) Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
(5) Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
(6) Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
(7) Leave a comment on each of the blogs, letting them know they have been nominated.



To follow the rules of this award, I am choosing the following blogs to receive this award...

1. The Art and Science of Parenting

2. My Kids Are My World

3. My Crazy Life With A Toddler

4. Gohn Crazy

5. Comedy Plus

6. Jinxy Knows Best

7. Boogers, Screams, Headaches, Dreams



Seven Facts about Me...

1. I'm Married with 2 wonderful children.

2. There are more pets then people in my home.

3. I'm One of the original Video Gamers. Pong to Pac Man I've played them all.

4. My Favorite Authors are Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child When they write together. Something always seems missing when they write seperately.

5. I hate housework and it probably shows a little too much.

6. Some day I hope to own a small house on a large piece of property In the Mountains. I would rather have more room outside then inside.

7. Right now I'm Very Addicted to CafeMom's Latte Land. Cafe mom is a web site for moms to get together on and Latte Land is their new game where you run your own coffee stand :D

Container Garden.... What I've got so far

As promised (yes I know I was suppose to post these a couple days ago, sorry I got distracted) Here are the photos of my container garden.

The Broccoli is doing well.

This is a salad mix I saw on sale when I was out. I though I would give it a try.

I'm not really sure what they all are so it should be interesting.

On the right is a tomato plant and on the left is a jalapeno plant. I'm going to try making my own salsa this year.

This is an Eggplant on the left and my pepper plant that I started indoors over the winter on the right. It's still growning kind of slow.

As you can see I still haven't dug up the flower bed the landlord said I could mess with.

The sun only seems to come out when I'm working when I'm off it's raining.

I may have to just go out in the rain and do it.

Update on my Tomato Planter Experiment

Well I've got my tomatoes planted in my Experimental planter. As you can see the Cherry Tomatoes on top are growing like crazy. I've snipped the top shoot to try and keep the plant more compact. There are a few flower buds so it shouldn't be long before I see some tomatoes. The tomato plant on the bottom is growing more slowly.

Something I didn't think about but found quite interesting is the upside down plant is trying to grow up. This makes sense of course since that is what plants do. But for some reason I just didn't think that it would do that. Of course once it starts getting tomatoes it will grow down. The weight of the tomatoes will make it which is of course the idea so we don't have to stake it in place.

Tomorrow I'll post some pictures of my container garden. I've gotten 4 of them planted and growing well. I've put them next to our fence so that I can use it to secure any plants that need support as they grow.

A Window Full of Future Vegetables

Several of my seedlings have really taken off.

Some not so well. I put these outside on the patio table and in the evening they were dead. It looked like something had sucked the stems dry.

Got Snails. Try a all natural remedy Straight from Mother Nature herself. Make your back yard a habitat for song birds and they will take care of the snails for you. Want proof? I got this shot while I was at my computer the other day. Sorry it looks so grainy the window needs cleaned.

Male Cardinal eating a snail.

Container Garden Update.

It's been a little bit since my last post. I haven't been able to do much with all the rain.


I have gotten my hanging pot ready for my Tomato Experiment. I pulled the bottom off this hanging pot

and have cut a whole in the bottom for the large tomatoes and I'll put the cherry tomatoes on top and hang it outside.

I haven't been able to dig up the flower bed yet. Some rather lovely daffodils bloomed and I'm waiting for them to die off so I can transfer the bulbs elsewhere. They are almost there. You can see in this picture there is only a couple almost dead flowers left on them.

My little pepper plant is doing well too. I've had to thin it out to just one plant and I'm going to have to transfer it to a new pot soon. It probably should have had pepper already but I think how cool I keep my home has cause it to grow rather slowly.

Container Garden slowly taking shape.

I don't have any pictures to share yet. But I do have several different kinds of containers and seeds. I'm going to use the egg cartons from Easter to start the seedlings in. I wanted cardboard ones but couldn't find any in the store.....Weird HUH.

Tomorrow afternoon when the yard has dried out a little and it warms up the kids and I are going to dig up the flower bed that the landlord let us have. I have some edging that a neighbor gave me to use along the edge. I was hoping to raise it up but can't find anything cheap to do it with. I guess I have to use some type of cheap fence to keep the dog out of there.

There is enough room between several of the bushes that line the on side of the yard to place a couple of the pots. and the others I'm placing in front of the garage they should get plenty of sun in those locations.

I'm also going to try an experiment. Have you seen those hanging bags for tomatoes... the one that grows the plant upside down. Well I was debating on buying one to try it out but they are rather pricey for what they are. While I was considering the purchase I saw a similar product but instead it has a hanging basket with a hole in the bottom. It shows the large tomatoes growing out the bottom hole and cherry tomatos growing on the top of the basket. It was also rather pricey but I figure I already have a hanging basket so why don't I just pop the bottom off it and drill a hole in it just large enough for a tomato plant. So that's what I'm going to do.

Still here

We had a bad case of tummy yuck going around. I will be posting more info on my garden tomorrow but wanted to stop in for a quick hi.

Spring Is In The Air

And the plants are growing well. This is the little pot my son has. This shot is from yesterday.

And this one is from today...... How is that for some fast growing.

My peppers are growing a little slower then my sons plants but they are coming along nicely.

Last bit of news My Landlord gave me the ok to dig up this little flower bed in the back yard and put in something else. I'm going to build it up and make it a raised bed to keep the dog out and I will have to figure out which veggies will grow best in the shade of the house. I also want to do a soil test to make sure there is nothing harmful in the soil.

With this space added to the containers I should have a pretty good bumper crop.

Lets See What Blooms

My son received this cute little pot on Valentines Day...

Well actually about 2 weeks after Valentines Day and we just got around to setting it up.

It's a little pot with seeds and dirt (it's a little kit). We have it all potted and sitting in a nice sunny window. When something starts to bloom I'll post some pics. We will have to transplant them when they start growing though. There is definitely not enough room for those roots to grow in that little pot.

Peppers and Plans

Well it's been a little while since I've posted. It's still cold here ..well it is February. My pepper plants are still alive as you can see I've thinned them out to just three. They are still pretty small. I think its because I keep my house rather chilly. I've got them in a nice sunny window though and that should help.

I've also started going through Seed Catalogs to find plants that are compact. They should grow better in the containers then their counterparts. I'm still looking for some good containers as well. I'm kind of leery of using plastic planters because I don't want the chemicals to leach into the soil and then into my plants but the normal Terracotta pots will require a great deal more water. While wooden ones are very nice to look, I worry about rot and stone ones would be hard to move. It would seem the most obvious choice would be Ceramic but the cost is a little prohibitive.


I've been keeping an eye out on Freecycle and Craigslist and with spring on the way there should be some sales so I'll just have to keep looking.

Look What I Got

Aren't those just the cutest little pepper plants you have ever seen. Of course now I have to decide which to pull to thin it out. Poor little pepper plants.