Baking Day Tuesday: pumpkin

It's baking day Tuesday again.  Last Tuesday was pretty boring, so I didn't write about it.  Today turned out a bit different.  I discovered that I am out of wheat flour.  I do have wheat and a grinder, but I'm still working up the courage to actually figure the darn thing out. 

It's an old magic mill.  I remember my mom using it when I was a little girl.  I find it funny that all these new skills I'm learning are really old skills that she had, but some of them kind of got lost in the middle somewhere.  She would make a huge batch of bread.  I remember getting to help punch down the dough with her.  I thought it was so fun.  Then, financial troubles made it necessary for my mom to go to work and she was no longer able to make bread.  The wheat grinder was moved to the basement, where it stayed until my sister took it to her house.  She eventually bought her own mill and the magic mill was back in my mom's basement for a bit before I carried it off.  The instructions are long gone, but the mill is still in great shape.  I'm just too scared to use it.  Yet.  Next week maybe.

I did have a bag of bread flour with a few cups left in there.  It has been sitting on top of my flour bins for several months now, annoying the heck out of me.  I move it to the wheat flour bin when I need white flour, then back again when I need wheat flour.  Every once in a while it makes it to the sugar bin, but no more.  I used it in some pretty plain loaves of white bread. 

We needed a break from the same old recipe anyway, and this was one I had never tried.  Then, as I was throwing the empty flour bag away, I noticed a recipe for hearth bread on the back.  It looks fun.  Wish I had seen that before I started these.  Oh, well.  They taste just fine with some nutella slapped on there.

But, baking day is not over!  My husband is threatening to throw out the pumpkin that has been on our entryway stairs since Halloween.  I've been meaning to get to it for months now, so no time like the present.  It's baking right now, after which, I will scrape out the "meat", puree it, and freeze it.  My daughter saw me working on the pumpkin and was instantly jumping up and down begging me to roast the seeds, so those will go in next.  They sound kind of good on this cold January day.

Snowbound baking day Tuesday

I was hoping to get on the road before this big storm hit so I could enjoy being snowed in at the ranch.  I love watching the snow fall, knowing that I have enough wood to keep me warm and enough food to keep me fed.  I kind of like the feeling of nobody being able to get in and out.  It kind of forces you to slow down and look around you, especially if the power goes out. 

Unfortunately, we will have to stay put in our basement until the storm passes, then we can go.  Things seemed to be coming together to get us out of here, but then some work came up for my husband, and we were delayed in getting our car window fixed.  -I didn't tell you about that did I? 

On Saturday, we were driving up a canyon when a crazy little hail storm hit, and hit hard.  We thought the car in front of us was kicking up gravel at first, but it was little, jagged, dirty hail stones.  I've never seen it like that.  I thought the windshield was going to come in on us, they were coming so fast and hard.  Instead, the back driver side window shattered.  And then the storm was gone.  Maybe 5 seconds was all.  So, we've been driving around with a duct tape window back there.  Definitely makes me the cool mom in the kindergarten carpool.

Anyway, looks like we're stuck here for the night and most of tomorrow.  I hope the power doesn't go out.  It's dark enough in this basement, and I don't know how the heat works exactly.  Pretty sure it's electric.  I am going to miss just sitting and watching the snow fall.  I love that.  Here, I have to stand next to the wall and look up to see out. 

On to the baking!  Since I didn't know exactly what our plans were, I didn't do bread.  We're still working our way through the failure from last week.  Instead, I'm working on my part of Thanksgiving dinner.  I offered to make rolls, even though I've never had any turn out pretty, and pumpkin pie. 

My daughter was given a pumpkin that she fell in love with after Halloween, so rather than let it slump into a pile on her dresser, (yes it was in her room) I decided to try some pumpkin pie with it.  I didn't think she would notice since I moved it into the kitchen and she didn't say anything, but as I was hacking it into quarters, she walked into the kitchen and screeched, "MY PUMPKIN!"  Oops.  She's a good sport about it and told me later that making a pie out of it was her plan all along.  She has helped me with every part of the pies, and after I forced her to try some of the puree, she snuck a bunch of it and asked for more for dinner.  It was good for a mystery pumpkin, my 9 month old thought so too.  I wish I had saved a few seeds before roasting them.

I used these directions from pickyourown.org.   I had more puree than the recipe calls for, so I upped the other ingredients accordingly.  Four cups of pumpkin yielded three small pies, and they were as full as they could be.  The pies just came out of the oven, so I don't know about taste yet, but they look good, not quite as orange as I'm used to.  I doubt my husband will try it, but maybe... if a certain four year old in a purple fairy dress and red apron asks him... we'll see.  She is so proud of her pumpkin.

The rolls are not what I at first envisioned.  There was a lady near my home that had an amazing roll recipe.  She was famous for them and she would bring them to every church function, every funeral, special occasion, you name it.  She would NOT share the recipe.  I don't know if she handed it down to any of her children.  I hope so.  Because of her, when I picture rolls, I picture hers.  Mine never measure up, or even come close.  I'm always disappointed in my end product.  They are perfectly edible, but they are just little chunks of bread, not the light, fluffy, buttery, who cares what else is in the pot-luck mounds of heaven that I want. 

So I didn't try.  I opted to try a recipe I found on allrecipes.com for butterhorn rolls.  They already look funny, so that's no big deal, and they are covered in butter, so they have to be good.  How can I fail?  I tried to.  I kept forgetting to spread the butter before cutting into pie shapes, and the butter should have been a bit more spreadable, but, I think they turned out pretty good.  They surprised me by raising a lot in the oven, and then smooshing down after I got them out.  Maybe should have baked a bit longer?  They are done and they are pretty good.  So let's hear it for a successful baking day!

And, if anyone has a world famous, fool-proof recipe for rolls, I'm all ears!

Roasting pumpkin seeds

Friday night, we had the great idea to carve pumpkins with the kids, which actually means that the kids pick out crazy designs and then the parents stay up late working on them because I'm not giving my kids any sharp objects to cut with.  The kids got the pumpkins that we grew in the garden, but we bought a bigger one for us big kids.  Hubby decided to use the dremel tool.  He finished the princess and the ghost so we could finally get the kids to bed and then worked on mine.  He kept saying it was mine, but I never got to touch it.  Here's the finished product:

 As I waited for him, and since I had already washed all the seeds, I was perusing all the tabs here on blogger, and I discovered the stats tab.  Somehow, someone got here from a Russian website.  I can't understand the website, but judging from the pictures, it's a building design site.  I can't figure that one out.  It was interesting and fun to see all the different countries that have visited my little blog.

After I picked out some seeds to save, we roasted the rest to eat.  It actually took three days to get the finished product.  I washed them that first night, then Saturday, I mixed in some olive oil and seasoned salt, but we had a full day of activities, so I didn't get the chance to actually roast them.  Finally, yesterday, I roasted them in the oven.  325 for 25 minutes, stirring them up sometime in the middle.  The kids loved them.

They are already gone.