Our view from the front door looking NE at our neighbor's maple which is in a fine Fall livery of gold, the predominate hue of Autumn here in the West. We're just poised...rakes, brooms and leaf blowers in hand awaiting the big wind of a Pacific storm to blow the leaves into our yard!
Meanwhile, Chase is barking 'em down in the backyard...he has quite a nice pile started!
Yeah, these crisp nights are turning the maple leaves and turning me to thoughts of pumpkin....yumm! Here's a quick way to do a pumpkin pie...
1 small can of sweetened condensed milk, 2 eggs, a pinch of salt, pumpkin from the can and some pumpkin pie spice makes a fast, scrumptious classic pie... or in my case, a not so classic rectangle. I always add a little real maple syrup or molasses to zip it up a notch. Bon, bon, bon appetit!
Experts and chefs ( including Julia) warn us about the handling of raw poultry products. But I wondered about "fresh frozen" chicken and turkey..."Does the Salmonella 'die' when it's frozen?" I asked hopefully. The USDA say, "Nope, sorry, studies shows it might be a bit degraded but still present." Evidently the only way around this is to do what is recommended by the experts, handle carefully and cook thoroughly.
I like Julia Child's idea of laying down newspapers on the counter, using a plastic or non porous cutting surface and rolling up all the paper towels and packaging into the newspaper when you are done and chucking it all in the garbage. Then it's just a matter of washing everything thoroughly in soapy hot water (sometimes I add bleach but I don't know if that really makes a difference). When you think of all the chicken and turkey we've eaten in our lives...
We used to have Fircrest brand chicken in Oregon...it was the main brand and it was a small Oregon company and I don't recall any "scares". It's only with the big chain stores that we've gone to Foster Farms. Even Costco uses Foster Farms. I heard they just threw out 40,000 pounds of rotisserie chicken!
So I guess the "Looks done to me!" test for chicken and turkey doesn't cut it...back to using my instant read thermometer on stove top or baked chicken and not trusting the pop up on the turkey breast...I'll stick in my meat thermometer from now on.
Since it seems to be "KITCHEN IMPROVEMENT MONTH" here at Angel Crest Manor, Ty from "The Cutting Edge" paid me a visit today. He has his sharpening shop set up in his van. I hadn't had my knives sharpened since 2007, I think, so it was time!
I got all these sharpened, including my left-handed serrated ones for a very reasonable $32.50!
Here you see a 6' Jack posing with 9' tall plant....one that I bought at the Grange this spring, thinking it was a dill. You can never have too much dill, I thought, so I quickly threw another pot into my shopping cart. Love that stuff!
It wasn't until about 2 months later that I realized that the licorice odor coming from the garden was from the "dill" plant...er, a fennel in disguise! That's what I get for not wearing my glasses when picking out starter plants!
Sunday morn and time for some yummy pumpkin pancakes, I thought. Okay, no big deal... just follow the directions for my first use of my new griddle on my new range.
I knew that this ceramic top cooks much hotter than my old, scaggy electric but good grief! I used my "bridge element" which is stove speak for cooking with both the front and back burner along with a center "bridge" so you get a continuous area of heat. Oh yeah, did I ever! It didn't help that I was using a pumpkin pancake mix from Trader's with more sugar in it than plain old Bisquick. The first batch burned quickly, even though I had turned down the burners from a "7" to a "5" (as recommended in the manual) as soon as I put the batter on the griddle. Seems like I can't use the Frigidaire manual for this...way too hot! So I tossed the gooey, burnt cakes into the trash and started over...using a "5" for heating and turning it down to a "3." Better result but still darker than I wanted and maybe not quite all the way cooked in the middle. "Good but not great," as Julia Child would say.
So we ate 'em anyway, along with some homemade applesauce and some Taylor's sausage. Gee, at least the plate warming drawer worked very well!
One of our favorite things is Taylor's Sausage Liverwurst. So yummy for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Not like that icky, squishy stuff you find at the supermarket deli section. This is the real deal, mild but full flavored. You get nice, firm slices that you can sauté.
I buy a 24" long log of it and cut it into sections. It freezes well.
