Recipe - Slow Cooker Creamed Corn

This recipe is the perfect Thanksgiving recipe because it is so easy, all you have to do is throw it all together in a slow cooker and mix it every now and then.  It can pretty much stay in the crock pot on low until you are ready to serve.  So easy, and so much better than plain sweet corn.

Slow Cooker Creamed Corn
1 quart and 1 pint of canned corn (or an equivalent amount of frozen corn or store bought canned corn)
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a slow cooker.  Cook on high for the first hour, then lower temperature to low for 2 to 4 more hours.

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Recipe- Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake

This is one of the pumpkin pies that I make for Thanksgiving this year, and I know pumpkin time is pretty much over now, but it was so good that I just have to share the recipe.  I was not sure how I would like the idea of a pumpkin cheesecake, it just did not sound to great to me, but boy was I wrong.  It is very good, and so easy to make.

Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 (9 inch) deep dish prepared graham cracker crust
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground cloves
1 pinch ground nutmeg

In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla.  Beat until smooth. Blend in eggs one at a time.  Remove 1/2 of the batter and spread into the bottom of crust, and set aside.  To the remaining batter in the bowl add pumpkin, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, an stir gently until well blended, and spread over the batter in the crust.  Bake in a preheated oven at 325 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes, or until center is set.  Allow to cool, then refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.  Enjoy!


Graham Cracker Crust
(use for Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake)
1 1/2 cups finely ground graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup white sugar
6 tablespoons butter, melted

Mix graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and melted butter until well blended.  Press mixture into a 9 inch (for above recipe deep dish) pie plate.  Bake at 375 degrees for 7 minutes.  Cool.  If recipe calls of unbaked pie shell, just chill for about 1 hour.  (For above recipe I did not chill.) 

Recipe - Toasted Garlic Bread

Someone has brought it to my attention that I need to post some of my recipes from Thanksgiving.  I use to post recipes, but have not done so for a long time, so now that I have been inspired, here we go.  I have decided to try and post a recipe every week (at least for the next couple months, since I do not have any shows or markets to attend), so here is my first recipe of the week:  Toasted Garlic Bread

I made this the first time for Thanksgiving this year.  It is sooo easy and sooooo good!  After Thanksgiving I made this again to use up some french bread I had sitting around.  I cooked up about a half a loaf of french bread and me and my parents ate the hole thing  right away.

Toasted Garlic Bread
 about 1/2 a loaf of my French Bread (sliced)
5 tablespoons butter, softened
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic (minced)
2 teaspoons fresh oregano
salt and pepper to taste
shredded mozzarella cheese for to of bread

In a small bowl mix butter, olive oil, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper.  Spread the mixture on the bread slices.  Low broil for about 5 minutes, or until bread just starts to brown.  Watch carefully to make sure they do not burn.  Remove from oven and top with cheese, return to broiler for 2 to 3 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bread is desired brownness.  Enjoy! 

Thanksgiving Pics!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!  It took me a while but I am finally getting around to posting my pictures from Thanksgiving!  Like always we made way too much food, but it all tasted so good!

Our Thanksgiving Turkey!

From Fair View Meadow Farm in Wellington.

Creamy Cheesy Turnips

Steamed Cabbage

Homemade Gravy

Mashed Potatoes with Chives

 Creamed Corn

 

Sweet and Sour Green Beans

 

Spaghetti Squash

 

Steamed Purple Cauliflower and more Steamed Cabbage

 

Macaroni Salad

Roasted Chinese Cabbage with a Chive-Mustard Vinaigrette

Garlic Bread Stuffing

 

Roasted Delicata Squash

 

Garlic Bread (Made out of my French Bread)

 

My plate at Thanksgiving, full of a little bit of everything!

 

 

My dad carving our turkey.

 

 

And my mom, having fun and toasting the camera, and waiting to eat.

 

This years pies.  

For some reason when I got up on Thanksgiving Eve and started to think about what kind of pies I was going to make that day for Thanksgiving, I must have lost my mind.  I was planning on making three regular pumpkin pies, but for some crazy reason, I decided that was not enough pies, for four people.

So I made 3 pumpkin pies, 1 honey pumpkin pie, and 1 cheesecake pumpkin pie. 

 

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I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving!

From everyone at Real Veggies Farm!

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Upcoming Events - Saturday, November 4, 2017 & Sunday, November 5, 2017

Come see us this weekend at:

We will have:  pasta, bread, garlic, and some vegetables!
Hope to see everyone there!

We have been really busy lately canning and freezing all our leftover vegetables that we bring home from the market.  The last 4 or 5 weeks we have been canning every week.

 This weeks canned foods:  Pasta Sauce, Tomatillo Salsa, and Canned Chicken

 

Here is most, but not all, of our canned foods.

Okra, zucchini relish, garlic scapes, tomato juice, corn, collard rolls, tomato soup, pickled beans, zucchini pickles, perch, pears, beans, pasta sauce, turkey stock, vegetable stock, chicken stock, yard long beans, summer squash pickles, zucchini bread and butter pickles, pickle relish, jellies, and more!

We still have to can some apples, more collard rolls, more pasta sauce, more perch, turkey stock after Thanksgiving, salsa, garlic, and I might try to can some radishes and turnips this year. 

Bruswick Farmers Market Pictures

This past Sunday I took some pictures at the market.  Here some of the pictures of our table at Brunswick Farmers Market.

 

You can get fresh cut herbs at the market!  Pineapple Mint, Chocolate Mint, Strawberry Mint, Chewing Gum Mint, Stevia, Oregano, Thyme, and more, are available to be fresh cut for you at the market.  You can not get any fresher than that!  Available only at Brunswick Farmers Market.

We also have available at both Valley City Farmers Market and Brunswick Farmers Market:

Golden Delicious Apples

Red Delicious Apples

Sweet Peppers (green, purple, and yellow)

Zucchini and Summers Squash (many different varieties)

Cherry Tomatoes (over 12 different varieties available, red, purple, green, yellow, pink, orange, and more!)

Slicing Tomatoes (Many different varieties)

Beans (Dragon Tongue Beans- yellow with purple stripes, Rattlesnake Beans- green with purple stripes, and Green Beans)

Purple, White, and Yellow Scallions

Potatoes (German Butterball, fingerlings)

Green and Purple Kohlarabi

Mixed Kale (around 6 different varieties)

Parsley Bunches

 Bagged Mixed Basil

Dill

Garlic (over 10 different varieties)

Garlic Braids

Garlic Grab Bags

Homemade Dried Pasta

Onion Bread

Garlic Herb Braided Bread

Cinnamon Swirl Raisin Bread

Zucchini Bread

and More!

Lots of Canning and Freezing

I have been busy lately canning and freezing.  I think I am starting to run out of jars, and I still have to can some pears, collard rolls (just like cabbage rolls but with collards), and have not even canned any tomatoes yet.  I will also have to can some more turkey stock after Thanksgiving.

Last week I canned some beans, made zucchini pickles, summer squash pickles, zucchini relish, and also froze some zucchini pancakes.  Can you guess what I have had a lot of lately?

Beans during the process of being canned.

 Zucchini Relish

Summer Squash Pickles & Canned Beans

Today was more zucchini pickles, froze 7 bags of shredded zucchini for zucchini bread, made two pear pies, made zucchini fries, and prepped some zucchini for bread and butter pickles which will be canned tomorrow (they have to soak overnight in salt).

 Zucchini Pickles

Shredded Zucchini, Some Zucchini Fries (the rest are in the oven), Pear Pies, and the Zucchini Pickles

Tomorrow I will be canning the zucchini bread and butter pickles, freezing beans, freezing peppers, and can some pears.  I am so tired of dealing with zucchini, but my plants are slowing down so I should not have much more zucchini to deal with, it should be time to move on to tomatoes.

This was the first year that I have tried canning zucchini, and I am very happy with how everything has turned out.  The zucchini pickles look just like cucumber pickles, and actually taste very similar to cucumbers too.  I ate my first jar of zucchini pickles in just a couple days, when it does not last long then it has to be good.

Garlic, Farmers Market, Truck, and Farm Pictures

I have been really busy lately, once I finished working on my truck, I started planting, once I finished planting I started digging garlic.  I finished digging garlic last week, boy am I glad that is done, I had garlic everywhere!  Here are some pictures from the last couple weeks.

 

Lots of garlic brought home from the farm, just waiting to be strung and hung to dry.

Sweet Corn

More garlic, just brought home from the farm.

Brunswick Farmers Market, last week, Sunday July 23rd.

Lots of garlic at Brunswick Farmers Market.

Summer Squash, Winter Squash, Kale, and Kohlrabi at the Farm.

It's me!  

Picked up a load of straw for my garlic (in the fall) and some for around my tomato plants.

Here are some more pictures from my truck project:

A picture taken during the process of replacing my cab corners on my truck.

 Putting the truck bed back on my truck.


Here is a picture of my truck now that i am finished working on it. I still have to put the strip back on the cab corner/extended cab area.  Such a simple thing and apparently it is going to take me forever to do.  It was a lot of work, but soooo worth it.

Fixing Up My Chevy Truck

I try to keep up with repairs on my old 1995 Chevrolet K1500 truck, usually do work on my truck in the spring and/or the fall.  This year I had quite a bit of work to get done on my truck, most of which I have been putting off for a while, because it was going to be a lot of work.  I have had new leaf springs for my truck sitting around for about a year and a half now.  I have been smelling gas coming from my truck for at least a year, and I have had replacement cab corners sitting around for about 4 or 5 years now, that I bought to replace my extended cab panels, which have been rusting for a while now. 

I decided that I was going to get everything that I need to do done at one time.  I also decided that it would be easier to get everything done if I removed my truck bed, and boy was I glad I did.  Then once the truck bed was off I figured I could paint my badly rusting frame and pain the bottom of my truck bed. 

Removing the Truck Bed
So off came the truck bed, which took about a day and a half to accomplish.  The front four bolts were easy to get off, but the back four bolts were another story.  The hitch bolts were blocking the holes to access the bed bolts, so to avoid having to take the hitch off, we took the back four bed bolts off by hand with a wrench, which took forever.  Then once the bed was off I realized that in order to change the leaf springs the hitch had to come off anyhow.

 The beginning of all my truck work, the bed is off and all the work is about to begin.

First the gas tank came out, then the hitch was taken off.  I then began chiseling, sanding, and scraping away at my truck frame.  That was not a fun job, rust was everywhere, rust dust, pieces, and large chunks, flying everywhere.  Then the fuel lines came out, and more chiseling, sanding, and scraping rust was done. 

Installing Front Fuel Lines

 I then took a break from removing the rust and installed the front fuel lines.  That was suppose to be an easy job, but did not turn out that way.  The front fuel lines are connected toward the back of the engine, which is not an easy thing to reach, plus a clip holding the fuel lines needed to be removed which was almost impossible to reach or even see.  

Painting the Frame

I then did a little more chiseling, sanding, and scraping of the frame.  Once I got a couple nice warmer days, I finally began painting the frame.  I used a red oxide primer brush on paint from Tractor Supply for the first coat, then the next day I painted over the red oxide with a flat black oil based paint, from Tractor Supply also.  I have used the red oxide over 6 years ago, when I bought the truck, to paint some of the frame, and I was very happy with it.  I still have a lot of the red oxide that I painted before, still left on my truck, and I did not even paint over it, which I should have done since it is only a primer.  

Leaf Springs

Then it was time to change the leaf springs.  Once again I thought this would also be an easy job, wrong again, you think I would learn.  Everything about it was pretty easy, except for getting the bolts out of the rubber bushings.  The best way that we found to get them out was to use our ball joint press to press them out, we pressed the bolt till it was even with the leaf spring bracket, then we used bolts to press it the rest of the way out.  Heating it also made it easier to press out.  We would have cut the bolts to get them out, but there was not much room between the springs and the bracket to get to the bolts, so pressing worked better. 

Installing Rear Fuel Lines, Fuel Filter, and Gas Tank

Next it was time to install the new rear fuel lines, fuel filter, and the new gas tank.  All the lines were positioned back in there original locations, fuel tank was put into place, and then came the fun part, attaching the new gas tank straps.  The new straps were not bent when I got them, and they are just long enough to fit around the gas tank, and they are a heavy metal, which is not easy to bend.  They have to be prebent, and have to be bent just right otherwise they will not reach the bolts to hold them on.

I also painted the hitch, since it was off the truck, the inside of my bumper, and my rear differential.  My truck is starting to look pretty good and is almost done now.  I still have to replace the cab corners, paint the bottom of my truck bed, reinstall my hitch, fix the wires that caught on fire while we were heating up the truck bed bolts, and put everything else back together.  Seems like a lot, but not really, the only difficult thing left will be the cab corners.  I can not wait till it is all done, I need to get planting, and stop spending all my time working on my truck.  Almost done though.

Gas Tank Before

 Gas Tank After

Truck Before

Truck After