The camera is back (plus more about pumpkins)

For wonderful information, for the whole process from growing to preserving pumpkins, check out the comments on my previous post. Thanks to Kristen, Anonymous, and Stephanie--another case of me finding out about things I didn't know I didn't know from my internet friends!

My husband found a cord that works with our camera, (hurray!!) so without further ado, a look at some of this year's pumpkins--

I would put this gem in the "green suits me so I'm not planning on changing anytime soon" category:

Then there is, as there was last year, a candidate for "most likely to be ripe in time for use as a jack-o-lantern" category:



And finally, there is the "we will keep you guessing" category, as in when will these little buddies be ready for harvest (if ever, in the case of the one on the left)... :



Ah, well. We have a few more, but these are the ones that made it into the photo shoot. Just glad the camera can be used with the computer again, and that it is highly likely that we will end up with more pumpkin puree in the freezer eventually....

The sure thing about this post is that there is valuable information in the comments left on my last post. If you have questions about pumpkins, be sure to check them out--you'll be glad you did.

I guess I got the "non-uniform" variety...

Now that the corn stalks, etc., are out of the garden, we have a much better view of our pumpkin patch. Some of the pumpkins are quite rotund. Some are rather orange and some are rather green. Some look rather like they will not be ready for Halloween. Or ever.

I would venture to say that none of them look remotely like the pumpkins piled up at the local national chainstore or various other locales in the vicinity. I know the pumpkins stacked up and for sale are all individual, and different sizes, and have their own pecularities. Here's the thing, no matter their size or individual personality quirks, they do have something my pumpkins do not: they are all orange and they are all ready for harvest. At the same time.

So, how do the pumpkin merchants do it? I'm not really worried about it-- I figure we'll be able to get plenty of pumpkin in the freezer and have jack-o-lanterns out for Halloween. I'm just wondering if it's a matter of seed variety, the climate, the location of the pumpkin patch relative to other plants, or if there are specialized pumpkin farms where they keep the pumpkins in specially shaped cages from the time the seeds sprout.....

Just kidding on that last one. :) Hope everyone is having a great pumpkin harvest.

Oh, yeah--why I bought that allspice

Remember how after Chris over at Johnson Family Farm was kind enough to explain with clear explanations and pictures how to get the food out of the pumpkins (here), we went at pumpkin harvesting with a vengeance and ended up with a bunch of bags of pumpkin puree? Well, the next step was to do find ways to use that puree, and true to form, sometimes you don't have to look very far to get the information you need, if you think about it. I asked my grandmother if I could put her recipe for pumpkin bread here, so I will share it with you:

1 and 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin
1 and 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp. soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/3 cup water (cold)
1/2 cup nuts
1/2 cup raisins or dates

Mix together and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour in a greased loaf pan.

3 things I would add:

1) I made this before the week of Thanksgiving, and did not realize until after my little baking project was in the oven that I needed to grease the pan. That is a mistake that experienced bakers do not make, but I am only in the process of trying to become experienced in this kind of baking, (hey, cookies I do fine :) so please learn from my mistake. The bread turned out fine anyway, it was just a little hard to get out of the pan. That, and it was not as beautiful as some loaves I have seen. Good thing it wasn't a beauty contest.... :)

2) It took my loaf considerably longer than an hour to finish baking. I wish I had kept better track of the time that it did take, but I don't know at this point. At the hour mark, I checked it and it was not done. I kept checking it periodically, and when a knife came out clean I knew it was done. The timing difference may be because of the difference in altitude between where I am baking the bread, and where my grandmother has mostly made it, so it may differ where you live as well, if you try to make it. Checking it wasn't that big of a deal, and in the end the bread tasted great.

3) A tip from my best source (Mom) about using the raisins that I put into practice here: pour boiling water over them and let them set for a little while to soften them up before you add them. I did this and everything tasted great.

Well, just wanted to share. Thanks to Grandma for sharing the recipe. If I can make pumpkin bread, anyone can--and if you have bags/cans/whatever of pumpkin to use, you might want to give this one a try...

Don't forget those lentils...

You may recall that lentils is one of the basics listed for a year supply of survival food--you can see in this post that the amount listed for one person is 2 lbs. I decided that I needed to find out how to use lentils, so when I saw this recipe over at The Barber Bunch, I decided to give it a try. The night we had the lentil stew I also made the tuna fish sandwich recipe mentioned in an earlier post.

The biggest difference that I made in this recipe is that I used a can of tomatoes that already had garlic and onions in it. I didn't use the optional basil. That made the main ingredients the partial bag of lentils I used and the can of tomatoes, so pretty easy, with very few ingredients. It was received with different levels of enthusiasm--one child really liked it and called for a vote by "thumbs up." We didn't get any "thumbs down," but among the family members who voted there were "sideways thumbs" and only "one thumb up" reactions. I can work with that--the rice and beans took a little getting used to as well. There was a hefty snack of frozen pizza later that evening--we'll see what happens next time we have it. Personally, I liked it. I would maybe add more garlic and onions if I use the same kind of tomatoes the next time, but the fewer things added, the more I like it as a food storage item.

On the pumpkin front, turns out that we ended up with 10 cups total of pumpkin puree from our first pumpkin--the cup we used in the pumpkin soup plus the 9 cups we now have in the freezer. Good times. :) Now to try another recipe with it....

The importance of perpetuation

I don't think there would be much that I would like better in terms of food storage than a year's supply worth of basically ready-to-eat meals in the form of boxes, cans, and mres with far-off expiration dates and directions that included little more than to add water and heat. Don't get me wrong--I do have some canned food, some boxed food, and some mres, but not enough to last for a year. And even if I did have that much, I would see some things wrong with the equation, such as:

1) When/if I have to rely solely on my food storage, if I have decided to store only food with the above description, the only thing that I will be able to do is to watch my food storage supply go down, down, down. That would be fine if the emergency situation that dictated such use was guaranteed to last for only a year, followed by the guarantee that I would then be able to replenish my supplies again. In life there are no such guarantees--so watching my food storage go down without the ability to build it up again would cause me major stress. (Perhaps you have gathered by reading my blog that I can be a bit of a worrier.... :)

2)Eating only processed foods can't be the healthiest thing in the world for you anyway. I'm no nutritionist, but from what I understand, fresh fruit and vegetables and food made from scratch using your staples would most likely lead to better health in the long run. So convenience is nice, but good health trumps convenience by a mile.

So, I've been trying to learn/do things that will allow me to perpetuate my storage, because I would like it to last and last and last.... and one of those things is to grow things in my garden. You can't always rely on the weather, however, and the cold weather in our area this year caused some real damage to our crops. Combine that with my "worry" factor, and you'll see why I was unable to use my pumpkins this year for food. (Oh, I hated to write that--you have noooo idea how much I have not looked forward to writing that.) I've only used them for decoration before, and this year, really only "most likely", pictured in previous posts, got to be a somewhat regular hue of orange, with relatively little other damage. I was afraid to use the pumpkins that had green rinds, so those were out. Then there were some bug marks (I assume) that marred some of the others, and I didn't know what was safe and what was not. So I went to plan B.

On Saturday I went to the local national chainstore and purchased 3 pumpkins at $1.00/apiece, guesstimated by my husband to weigh 10-15 lbs. each. Then last night, I went back to this post on Johnson Family Farm, (I hope they don't mind that I keep linking to them--their step-by-step directions with pictures was what motivated me to go buy the pumpkins in the first place) and followed the directions for pumpkin puree. I was so excited to get started that I didn't reread it before we started, and I forgot to put water in with the pumpkin, so after we started doing that it went much smoother. What I didn't expect was how much time it took --it was easy, just time-consuming. We had the children help clean out the seeds, etc., (except for one, who apparently cannot stand the smell of raw pumpkin) and then started the rounds in the microwave. My husband actually did most of it, as it cut into bedtime and everything else, but in the end we did a quick pumpkin soup with a cup of the puree and have a large bag of pumpkin puree in the refrigerator. We didn't want to freeze it until we figured out a couple of recipes that we could use it with, and then freeze it in appropriate amounts to use later. So, if you have easy recipes that you're willing to share, please do... :) The pumpkin soup we made was ok, but kind of sweet, and we didn't think it would be a winner with the kids, so we probably won't repeat that one.

Ok, so my attempt to perpetuate my food storage by growing my own food was kind of stymied this year. If it had been a real emergency, I would have found out just how much of those pumpkins I really would use. So what is my (somewhat rambling) point? I need to be able to renew and perpetuate my food storage, not just use it up. I have non-hybrid seeds in storage, and I plan to increase the size of my garden next year. Canned food, boxed food, and mres are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, but they are one-time-use products. Emergency situations can be of unforeseen duration, so we all need a plan B when it comes to making sure that our food storage will last. Gardening is one way to supplement/perpetuate our food storage so that it will go on and on and on.... Growing, harvesting, and preparing it is a lot more work than the other types of food storage, but the effort is worth it.

One pumpkin down, two to go. Special thanks to the folks at Johnson Family Farm for directions even I wouldn't worry about.... :)

Getting prepared in more ways than one

When my husband carved the pumpkins, I was not at home to salvage the seeds, so roasting them will have to come when we cut open our next pumpkin. However, I saw this great story entitled, "How to Start a House Fire" , over at Ramblings and Randomness about a little adventure that LJ had when cooking their pumpkin seeds. She has very kindly allowed me to reprint it here:

1. Carve a pumpkin.
2. Wash and drain the pumpkin seeds.
3. Spread the seeds out on a cookie sheet.
4. Salt/pepper the seeds.
5. Stick the cookie sheet in the oven, set the timer for 15 minutes, set the heat on Broil, and walk away.
6. Return after 15 minutes. Smell smoke.
7. Open the oven. Briefly admire the flames licking the stove top. Close the oven.
8. Look for baking powder. (You won't find any handy.)
9. Try to sound nonchalant as you yell, "Honey?" into the other room. "I accidentally started a fire in the oven."
10. Admire how fast your husband runs from the bedroom into the kitchen. When he appears confused as to where the fire is, exactly, remind him that you shut it up in the oven (so it wouldn't get out).
11. Scurry to find your husband some baking powder, but come back 45 seconds later to see that he put another cookie sheet on top of the burning inferno and smothered it.
12. Suddenly recall all your kitchen fire training, at your husband's reminding. Feel sheepish.
13. Watch your husband guffaw until he's wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.
14. Join in the laugh. At least the house got a good airing.

I love this story for a multitude of reasons:

1. It's well-written.
2. These people are making good use of their produce.
3. It reminds everyone about kitchen safety. Personally, I have a fire extinguisher, but a) I don't know how old it is, and b)having never used it, I should really look at it and figure it out before I need to. Panic mode is not my best time for learning new concepts.
4. I think that the ultimate solution to put out the fire was brilliant--wouldn't have thought about it myself, but I would now, if necessary.
5. Finding humor in a situation sure beats crying about it.

So, in terms of being prepared in more ways than one, I guess my conclusion is that you need to prepare to use what you have in the best ways possible, but also be prepared for emergencies that arise when something goes wrong. Do you know how to take care of emergency situations in the kitchen? Just something to think about.

Special thanks to LJ and her husband, Jimmy, for sharing their story. You will notice that they had different options for dealing with an emergency situation, and when one didn't work out, the other did. The more you plan and prepare ahead, the more options you have, and I, for one, love having choices.... :)

Who says you can't have fun with your food storage?

Long before I considered using the pumpkins in our garden as a food source, my husband planted them, like he has for years, to be jack-o-lanterns for our children. Our pumpkins this year turned out to be our most successful crop, and before I start trying to harvest them for food, they are serving their original purpose. Last night the kids drew the pictures they wanted on their pumpkins, and my husband carved them up.


Turns out I was pretty much accurate when I dubbed one of the pumpkins "gargantua" in a previous post. My husband weighed "gargantua", and it weighed 62 lbs! Here is "gargantua" in its "fun" form:



I had a special request from one of my children to specifically include a picture of this pumpkin, called (I hope I get this right, or I'll have to change it later) "Teen":



So, just a couple of our examples of "food storage fun." As you probably noticed in at least one of these photos, some of our pumpkins are still at least a little green. That doesn't bother the children when they are decorating, but I'm going to have to figure out how much you can salvage from the green parts of a carved-up pumpkin. There were also a few hungry somethings underneath the pumpkins that left little marks of their passing, but I have not yet seen how far they got in or how much damage was done beyond the immediate outer skin. I figure I have time to do that after tomorrow night. I hope everything's salvageable--62 lbs is a lot of pumpkin, and besides the multiple pumpkins carved, there are some still in the garden. I figure a garden is an extremely valuable example of continual food storage--having fun with the harvest is just an added benefit... :)

Odds and Ends

Well, I guess I'll start with the odds--down in our basement we have 20-odd 6-gallon buckets (I actually went down there to count them, and there may be more) that my parents brought to us when they were visiting earlier this year. My best source (Mom) found them on sale for $4.00/apiece, if memory serves, and bought a bunch for us. Where we live, these kind of food storage buckets cost $8-8.50 each, last time I was shopping for them, so when I was asked if I wanted any while the sale lasted, I said yes. It's just been awhile, so I have forgotten exactly how many I purchased. I do pass them on the way to do the laundry, however. :) Sooooo.....buckets, buckets, everywhere--now we just have to purchase the food to fill them with. A little odd to put the buckets before the food, but in this case, oh, so much less expensive. I would also add that the more people that you have looking for deals with and/or for you , the more likely you are to be able to get more for your food storage buck. They don't even have the kind of store where my mom bought these where we live, so we were fortunate indeed...that plus my parents were willing to transport them for us... you gotta love the parents... :)

Also odd? We have not yet received our cords of wood that we ordered and that were supposed to be delivered on Tuesday. That day my husband called the gentleman up and asked about arrival time, and was informed that the gentleman was in the middle of a crisis with his truck. My husband talked to him the following day, and there was some sort of family situation, which I sincerely hope had a happy outcome. However, we have yet to hear from said gentleman since that time...odd indeed, considering the price for a cord of wood around here. If we don't hear from/are not able to contact him soon, perhaps we will have to call another gentleman who cuts cords of pine wood.....

As for the ends, since we did not receive aspen wood to use, we decided to use the "ends" of our poor little tree in the backyard, which my husband cut down recently. It was some variety of maple tree, I think, and was quite fun for the children to climb in (and handy for almost giving their mother a heart attack because of various antics) while it was healthy, but some time last year it became quite evident that it was dying. Whatever kind of problem it had, it shared with a tree with one of our over-the-fence neighbors, and when they had their tree treated they called us and the tree doctor gentleman sprayed our tree as well. It helped a little, but not enough, and as it died, my husband pruned it, but there was really nothing to be done. So it had been there awhile looking like a tree but turning into firewood, and even though we waited to cut it down, and it was obvious that it needed to go, it was sad to see it finally gone. Even sadder when you think how long it takes a tree to mature into something that can provide shade and that children can climb and play in...

Let's hope that the same problem doesn't strike Bartholomew's peach tree. As for the other neighbor whose tree was ailing, their tree is still standing, so time will tell. I hope they have happier results.

And the garden is coming to an end--the carrots and some radishes have been left to go to seed, and the pumpkins are still working on obtaining a more orange hue (I hope :). This is probably the end of the pictures of the pumpkins while still in the garden:



Recognize "baby"? Sometimes it's hard to keep track, but to the best of my knowledge, this is the pumpkin I've been documenting for awhile now. I hope that "baby" doesn't turn juvenile delinquent and refuse to turn orange... :)

Then there is "most likely"--as in most likely to turn orange by Halloween, and I think that we were pretty lucky to pick out that this one is probably going to turn entirely orange first ...


And even if we were lucky with "most likely," don't ask me how I overlooked the tremendous growth of the following pumpkin-- I present to you..."gargantua"!



The next pictures of the pumpkins likely to appear on this blog are of pumpkins in the form of jack-o-lanterns, or in the form of pumpkin soup. (Mmmmmm...pumpkin soup!!) The latter is highly dependent on my ability to actually turn pumpkins into a food source, which I have never attempted to do before. (I've eaten pumpkin seeds before, but don't recall (and highly doubt) that I was actually in charge of making them edible, so yet another adventure awaits...) I hope we can use them well, because we have had quite a good crop this year.

I never mentioned the corn--we ended up getting six ears total this year, which is still more than we would have had if we had not planted them because of the cold weather earlier in the season. Ah, well. The corn was kind of chewy, but it was from our own garden... :)

Before I forget, be sure to check out Riverwalker's great post on salt--much more informative than my last post, and very useful to know for storage. I do still like the story-- and the reminder that salt can be valuable indeed.... :)