How We Used Our Thanksgiving Turkey

Well our Thanksgiving turkey has now been baked, boiled, canned, and only what was left (bones) was thrown in the trash.  After Thanksgiving I had saved the extra liquid from when we had cooked the turkey and made up a large pot of gravy with it, and into that went a bunch of the leftover turkey.  I also cooked up some plain fushilli pasta and made up some red and pink mashed potatoes.  Mashed potatoes went onto the plate, then the pasta and the turkey and gravy got poured over the top of the potatoes and pasta, yum.

Mashed potatoes and pasta with turkey and gravy

15 jars of canned turkey broth

Today I made turkey broth out of the left over turkey carcass, and I ended up with 15 jars.  Last year I had also made turkey broth, and it was so nice this year to be able to pull out a jar of my homemade turkey broth and use it when I made my stuffing.

I am almost done using up all of my Thanksgiving leftovers, tomorrow I will be using up the last of my pumpkin puree, and baking up some more pumpkin pies to freeze for later use.  I also have some leftover winter squash puree that I will either be making some winter squash waffles (to freeze) or some winter squash pancakes, just depends on what I fell like.

Then I will get to relax for a little while and really start planning out and preparing for next years growing season.

Thanksgiving 2013

Just thought I would share some pictures from our Thanksgiving this year. 

My mom mashing purple potatoes

Beets with kale

Purple mashed potatoes

 

Gravy for the potatoes

Dragon Tongue Beans

Sweet corn

Winter Squash with nuts and scallions

Pumpkin bread stuffing

Macaroni salad (of course with our pasta and turnips)

 

Homemade onion bread

 Our turkey this year (from Brown Brothers Farm in Paris, Ohio)

And here is everything on my plate

 And of course, can not forget about the homemade pumpkin pie for dessert.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is Almost Here!

So today I spent some time getting ready for Thanksgiving.  I made pumpkin bread for my pumpkin bread stuffing, I cooked up some more pumpkin for my pumpkin pie that I will be making tomorrow, and I made some winter squash cookies out of some left over winter squash puree.

Tomorrow I need to make the pumpkin pies and prep the turkey, which I have to pick up tomorrow.  This year our turkey will be coming from Brown Brothers Chicken Farm in Paris, Ohio.  I meet Bill Brown of Brown Brothers up at Akron General Farmers Market, since he was selling right next to me this year.  He has really good chicken so I am excited to be getting a turkey from him this year.

Everything that we cook for Thanksgiving is something that I grow.  It is nice because we do not have any shopping to do before Thanksgiving other than to pick up a lemon for the turkey.  Of course I did have to get some eggs and the turkey, but they both came from someone I know.

Another cool thing is when I cook up my pumpkins I either save the seed for planting or for eating, of coarse I use the puree for whatever I am going to cook with it, and I save the skins to feed to my worms.  Absolutely no waste other than the stem, which does go into the trash.

Fall Spiced Rigatoni with Pumpkin Sauce

I have a new pasta available called Fall Spiced Rigatoni Pasta.  Today I turned some pumpkin puree into a nice sauce for my Fall Spiced Rigatoni.  Here is the recipe:

Fall Spiced Rigatoni with Pumpkin Sauce

Ingredients:
1 (8oz.) package Fall Spiced Rigatoni Pasta (cooked according to package directions)
1 lb. pork sausage
2 tbls. butter (divided)
1 small pie pumpkin
1 1/2 pint container heavy whipping cream
About 8-10 large kale leaves (torn into pieces)
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:
Cut pumpkin in half, scrape out insides and seeds.  Place in a casserole with about 1/2 inch of water on the bottom.  Place a little bit of butter in to each pumpkin half, altogether equaling about 1 tablespoon.  Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 45 minutes or until inside is soft.  Once pumpkin is cooled remove puree and set aside.  In a large deep saucepan over medium heat brown sausage in 1 tablespoon butter.  Once sausage is browned add heavy whipping cream and pumpkin puree.  Over medium heat cook for about 5 minutes, then add kale and cooked rigatoni pasta, cook for approximately 5 minutes longer, remove from heat, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and serve.


There is no sugar in this recipe (I try to stay away from sugar myself), but if you would like it to be sweet, I do not see why you couldn't add some brown sugar to this dish.  Also another thing I plan to try is to add some chopped nuts to the recipe.

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Unknown Winter Squash

So due to the fact that I had thrown some winter squash and pumpkins in my lettuce garden at home, in the spring I had lots of winter squash that came up on its own.  Most of them I pulled out since I did not want pumpkins growing all over in my valuable lettuce planting area.  But I did leave a couple of vines that were out of the way and ended up growing out of the garden area anyhow.  One of them was a regular normal pumpkin, but the other one is the plant in question.  When I first seen it I thought it looked like a delicata winter squash crossed with maybe a pumpkin?

 

I grew a lot of winter squashes and pumpkins last year so I am not exactly sure what it would be a mix of, I do know I did not have anything exactly like it last year.  Can not wait to cut into it and see how it tastes.  If it is good I will have to see if I can work on getting a new variety going and save all the seeds.

Vegetables coming very soon!

I took some pictures the other day, and just thought I would post some pictures of some of the veggies that I am starting to pick or will be picking soon.

These are two new past tomatoes that I was trying out this year.  The one to the left is a very pretty yellow paste tomato called Cream Sausage, and the one on the right is a striped paste tomato, called Striped Roman.  I will be growing both of them again next year.

My personal favorite variety of basil, Blue Spice Basil.

Some of my zucchini and summer squash plants, I have over a dozen different varieties planted right now.

This is something new that I have tried this year and will definitely be growing again next year, yard long beans!  I love these beans, they are great for sauteing and the red beans keep their color.  I have just started picking beans from my first planting of these guys, but due to the weather I only had about a dozen plants that come up, which is why I have not started selling them yet.  But do not worry I have a full second planting right next to these that is coming along very well and should start producing beans very soon.

I also have somewhere around 8 different varieties of beets in the ground and growing well.