Consider the garden huckleberry

Thanks for stopping by!  I've moved the full post over to my current blog, A Housewife Writes.

The problem with growing your own fruit is that you have to wait years after planting to get a decent-sized harvest.  Enter the garden huckleberry.  This isn't the sweet wild berry that resembles a blueberry that you are most likely thinking of.  Garden huckleberries are firm, shiny, black and grow in clusters on bushes approximately the size of a tomato plant.  (For my "way up north" readers, think of big crowberries.)  Planted in the spring, it will begin producing mid-summer and yield an abundance of berries until frost.

You may read (as I did) that this berry is a great substitute for blueberries and can be used the same way.  Not even close.  Make sure that the recipes are specifically meant for garden huckleberries.  Tossing a handful of these into a batch of pancakes would result in mutiny at the breakfast table and you'd find yourself leading the charge. 

It is absolutely essential that they be cooked--boiled, actually--and they need some added acidity, like lemon juice.  When properly prepared, however, it is great as an ice cream topping, layered into a coffee cake, and makes a beautiful purple-filled pie.  Continued on the Housewife Writes blog....

Late blast of winter



First round of shoveling



"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."

Anne Bradstreet

The eggshell hoarder

When you get ready to leave the house, do you ever hope that you don't die while you're out running errands?  Not because you love your husband and family or just because you have a wonderful life.  No, it's because you don't want anyone cleaning out your belongings and find the oddball things you haven't taken care of. 

And lo!  My bowl overfloweth!

Here's my reason for hoping that I don't shuffle off to Glory in the very near future.  For the past month or so, I've been hoarding eggshells on a shelf in an out-of-the-way corner of my basement.  (And I do have a reason for this collection.)  I've read recently several recommendations to add crushed eggshells into the hole when planting tomatoes.  The extra dose of calcium can help prevent a tomato condition called blossom end rot.  If it were mid-summer, I could show you numerous pictures of my own tomatoes, but here are some examples of what it looks like.  As its name suggests, the bottom of the tomato is brown, shrunken, and rotted, even when young and green.  Someone recommended a commercial product to me late last summer, but I'm really hoping that this will take care of my garden soil's apparent calcium deficiency this year.  And nothing could be cheaper or more natural!

Well, at least now that there is a post out there in blog land, could someone please explain this to my husband....just in case...

Shared on Simple Lives Thursday.

Ham Potato Quiche

The gooshy, spongy, eggy texture of a quiche just doesn't thrill me, but I tried this after my sister promised that it didn't taste like a quiche.  (And a quiche that doesn't taste like one is the best kind....)  I like this dish for any meal of the day.

 
This recipe is adapted from the More with Less Cookbook (1976).  That's new compared to the rest of my cookbook collection and since I was copywritten in the '70s myself, I'd consider it hot off the presses.  But it's the kind of cookbook I like, basic ingredients and good food.  If you are looking for recipes that don't involve a lot of money, this is the perfect cookbook for you.

Ham Potato Quiche

2 T. fat
3 c. shredded raw potatoes
1 c. grated Swiss or cheddar cheese
3/4 c. ham (or sausage or chicken)
1/4 c. chopped onion
2 eggs
1 c. rich milk (I used a mixture of whole milk and heavy cream)
1/2 t. salt
1/8 t. pepper
1 T. parsley

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees and melt the fat (I used tallow) in a 9" pie tin.

I don't peel my potatoes before shredding them. Mix the potatoes with the melted fat and pat it into the sides.

Remove from the oven after 15 minutes and layer on the cheese, meat, and onions.

Mix the eggs with the milk, salt, and pepper and pour over the pan.

As an aside....can you guess which egg came from a real farm and which one came from an egg mill? It's a little reminder of why farm eggs are worth their weight in gold. 

 Instead of parsley, I used dried, crumbled kale. (Sometimes you have to be sneaky with the vegetables.)

Leftovers are great! The best way to enjoy them is to pop the tin into the oven at 250 degrees or so. Go outside while it's still dark and shovel snow from the latest blizzard until every little body part aches. By the time you drag yourself into the house, it will be hot and just as nice as it was the first time around. And it will hit the spot like no other breakfast you've ever had.

Shared on Simple Lives Thursday.

Saturday Bath- challenging myself

In every job there must be done
There is an element of fun.
You find the fun and snap!
The job's a game!

So says Mary Poppins, one smart cookie.  My sisters and I invented a game while we were growing up that is still called bet-you-can't-run-out-of-dishes-'til-they're-done.  (Snappy title, eh?  Just rolls off the tongue.)  The basic idea was that the dish washer had to make sure that the dish dryer never ran out of wet dishes in the rack until all the dishes were washed.  It made the mundane daily chore a time of frenzied focus and even strategy. (3 silverware equaled one dish, so 4 spoons put into the drain rack at one time bought you a little time to finish scrubbing that skillet.)

I still follow the philosophy that the more game-like scenarios you can fit into your day, the better. 

Now to get to my point.  I've noticed that while I still love to make soap and that Christmas morning feeling the next morning when I get to cut it, I've clearly been in a rut.  Sometimes I just decide on the colors and wing it, changing my design at frequent whims throughout the batch.  I've relied too heavily on a few favorite techniques, ol' pal ITP swirl and my bestie, faux funnel.  But this is the ideal time of the year for experimenting and I need a challenge.  I have to make a lot of soap for market this spring anyway and in the hub-bub of summer, I'll likely not want to risk any flops.  So this is what I'm doing to mix things up a bit...

I've scoured the internet for soap techniques I've never tried or haven't done in a long while.  I've also jotted down a list of ideas that I've had rolling about my head for a long time.  I wrote each of my 18 ideas on slips of paper and put them all in a jar so whenever I'm in the mood, I can draw out an idea.  And at the end of the week I'll show you what I've done--the awesome, the adequate and the atrocious. 

I just drew my first technique--a hanger swirl.  I'm super excited--I'm always more creative with a little kick to the backside!

Making a Pie, part 2

Thanks for stopping by!  For the most recent content, you can find me at A Housewife Writes.

Now that I've told you how I was able to overcome extraordinary odds and make an actual pie crust (and in less than three hours, no less!) I thought I'd share the recipe that I use.  My mother uses a recipe called No Fail Pie Crust (an absurd name for a recipe that failed so unfailingly for me). Hers calls for egg and vinegar, but I like the fact that this one is so simple.  Both the pie crust and pie recipe are from the Searchlight cookbook, first published in 1931 and still easy to find at a reasonable price (See Amazon link on the sidebar.)

Plain Pastry
1 1/2 c. flour (I use whole wheat--Prairie Gold--with beautiful results)
1/2 c. lard or butter
1/4 c. cold water
1/2 t. salt

Sift flour, measure, and sift with salt.  Cut in lard or butter until mixture is coarse and granular.  Work water in lightly with a spatula until little balls of dough just hang together in one large ball.  [Then chill the dough, of course.] This makes one two-crust pie.

With my new-found pie-making knowledge, I've been having fun trying new recipes.  Old cookbooks are just packed with pie recipes!  I'll be working my way through them for the rest of my life.

It just so happened that I had some homemade slightly overdone (extra thick) blackberry jam in my pantry but it would be great with other kinds of jams, too.  It's the sour cream that makes this pie so rich and creamy.

Blackberry Jam Pie

3 eggs

1 c. sour cream

1 T. melted butter

1 c. blackberry jam

1/2 c. sugar

1 T. cornstarch

3 T. sugar (I used white sugar to keep the meringue pretty)

few grains salt

Beat egg yolks until thick.  Add cream, butter, and jam.  Combine 1/2 c. sugar, salt and cornstarch.  Add to first mixture.  Mix thoroughly.  Pour into pastry-lined pie pan.  Bake in hot oven (425 degrees) about 25 minutes.  Cover with meringue made of egg whites and 3 T. sugar.  Brown in slow oven (325 degrees) 20 minutes.

Gorgeous color, huh?

This post has been linked to Old Fashioned Friday.

Making a Pie, part 1

Pie-making is not one of my natural talents.  For many years, a wedding cake with three tiers and fountains was less daunting than a pie.

My first foray into pie making occurred when I was about 14 and wanted to try something new.  It was so easy I couldn't understand why people spent years mastering them.  It was only after trying to eat my rhubarb-filled wonder that I discovered that the recipe had I doubled for the two pies was already for two pies.  Talk about your sturdy crust.

Later I found pie making truly a tricky matter.  It was further disheartening to watch my grandma casually toss some flour and lard in a bowl and effortlessly make perfect pies.  And she did it without whining about the sticky dough that wouldn't roll without tearing, threatening the household that it better appreciate this pie or blaming the humidity for another crust disaster.

I eventually married someone who loves pie--in other words, a typical man.  (Why do they all like pie so much?)  I earned double good-wife points a few times a year when I set aside all my work and projects for a day to make something resembling a pie.

My standard procedure included using lots and lots of flour to keep the dough from sticking to the parchment paper where I rolled the dough.  (The tough crust that resulted was the least of my problems.)  I would then freeze the rolled-out dough so that I could easily peel it off the paper and lay it frozen across the top of the pie pan.  After it thawed, I would pat it down into the pan.  All that freezing and thawing took so long that I scoured my cookbooks for one-crust pies.  Captain Awesome eventually noticed that he rarely got an apple, peach, or rhubarb or other two-crust pie.

One day I shared my woes with my mother-in-law (a pie whiz) and she suggested that I chill my dough overnight.  About the same time, I found a piece of canvas meant for rolling pie dough, along with a "sock" to put over the rolling pin.  Chilling the dough has made all the difference in the world and if you can locate the baker's canvas, I highly recommend it.  It makes it easy to manuever the dough into the pan and is washable (reusable!).

See?!  A pie crust that's not a leaky, patchwork, pressed-into-the-pan, sad excuse of a crust.

Next post, my crust recipe and a finished pie....