Food | Love, Laughter, and Life

December 2, 2024
by Angie Leave a comment

Pumpkin Pucks and Pumpkin Scones

I love that so many people were interested in my pumpkin pucks and the resulting pumpkin scones. I’ve had questions about both, so here are my directions to preserve your own pumpkin pucks and bake up these dreamy pumpkin scones.

PUMPKIN PUCKS

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Ingredients: sugar pie pumpkin, olive oil

Wash your pumpkin. Cut it in half, scoop out the seeds and stringy bits, and cover both inside and outside with olive oil. Place the halves face down on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Use a fork to poke holes all over the two halves. Bake until all areas are tender. My first batch I didn’t quite cook the pumpkin long enough, and some areas were a little hard. This will usually take at least an hour, depending on the size of your pumpkin. Check after an hour and keep going until a fork easily pierces all areas.

Cool. Scoop the pumpkin flesh out and a fill 1/2 cup plastic measuring cup with pumpkin. Slam (to release the pumpkin) the pumpkin on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet. This will form the “puck” shape. Continue with all the cooked pumpkin. If there is any remaining, divide the rest between all the pucks. Freeze until solid. Place the pucks in freezer bags. Store in the freezer until needed. They unthaw pretty quickly, but if you want to use 1/2 cup of pumpkin, pull it out the day before and let it thaw in the fridge. Ta-dah!

PUMPKIN SCONES

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour (we love whole wheat)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. allspice

1 heaping tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. pumpkin spice

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup cold butter

1/3 cup buttermilk (I never have this on hand, so I add about 1 T. vinegar to the milk and let it curdle)

1/2 cup pumpkin (1 PUMPKIN PUCK, thawed)

1 tsp. vanilla

Mix together flour, sugar, spices, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Use a pastry knife to cut the butter in until it is well crumbled.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, milk, and vanilla. Add to the dry mixture. Mix just until the dough comes together.

Lightly flour a surface and put the dough on it. Gently knead the dough a few times and pat it into a circle about 1 1/2 inches thick. Use a knife to cut the dough in half, then in quarters, and then in eighths (final scone count is 8). Place untouching on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet.

Bake about 20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove to a cooling rack to cool.

PUMPKIN SPICE GLAZE

Ingredients: powdered sugar, pumpkin spice, water

(I apologize in advance. I do not measure this, but rather go by “it’s done when it will pour over my scones.”)

Place about 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar in a bowl. Add about 1 tsp. pumpkin spice. Add water by 1 tsp. at a time, using a whisk to mix the glaze. Stop adding water when the glaze stirs easily but is not runny. (I know!! I did apologize in advance!) If you get too much water, add small amounts of powdered sugar to get the consistency you want.

Drizzle the glaze over the scones while they are still on the cooling rack. This is messy since the glaze drips off the bottom, but you can place the cooling rack back on the cookie sheet so it drips onto the cookie sheet instead of your surface.

Enjoy!

Hooray for homegrown sugar pie pumpkins!

November 28, 2024
by Angie Leave a comment

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving!

November 27, 2024
by Angie 13 Comments

From Pumpkin to Puck to Treat

Our garden produced a bumper crop of pumpkins this year. Maybe because I replanted them over and over due to the mysterious disappearances of seeds, sprouts, and evidence of any plant life! You can read our final pumpkin counts here.

Decorating around the RV, Huckleberry Hutch, and sending home numerous glorious orbs with the grands and their parents helped disperse the wealth. But also, I baked two. Only two so far, as there are three more that remain unfrozen I can bake.

Just in case you are wondering, once the outside pumpkins freeze, I do not cook them. But after the season, we give our outdoor fall decor to the turkeys, chickens, geese, and goats who live next door. They LOVE harvest as much as we do.

From the baked pumpkin, I made 1/2 cup pucks. That’s what I’m calling them. Pumpkin pucks. Most recipes seem to call for 1/2 cup pumpkin. So there you have it. The pucks remain nicely frozen in the freezer, and I pull one out whenever I want to use one. They don’t even take that long to unthaw.

Et voila, pumpkin scones! We love these spicy treats. Any pumpkin scone recipe will work. Just double the spices. I’m serious. We love that burst of flavor. I double all the spices. We use whole wheat flour and my husband prefers his without the pumpkin spice glaze.

From pumpkin, to puck, to treat. Delish!

What is your favorite pumpkin treat? I have plenty of 1/2 cup pucks to try it!

November 16, 2024
by Angie Leave a comment

Haiku Moment: bumper crop

abundant marbles

cluster for birdy harvest

feathered bumper crop

bumper crop by Angie Quantrell

photo by Angie Quantrell

Fall in the Yakima Valley

Sunday Thoughts

October 13, 2024 by Angie Leave a comment

October 5, 2024
by Angie 6 Comments

2024 Pumpkin Report

Despite the disappointing beginning of repeated plantings, low number of sprouting seeds, and nibbling of sprouts by bird and pest alike, we had quite a successful pumpkin harvest. And I say bring on fall! I love pumpkins and I love autumn! Decorating with homegrown pumpkins is so rewarding.

Read to the bottom for the final count. The photo above shows the “big” pumpkins from the garden. In the carving world, they really are medium sized to small, but in my garden, they are the big ones. Also notice the random yellow squash. I harvested 2. I replanted zucchini and yellow squash multiple times. The end results were zucchini: 0. Yellow squash: 2.

The table above was one of our distribution points. Pumpkins available for adoption were placed on the lovely garden table made earlier this year by my honey.

Above is yet another adoption table, covered with the big pumpkins. This table was also made by my honey, but a few years back, so it has lovely weathered wood.

Above is the first harvest of the minis. So cute and adorable, and perfect for every nook and cranny. I will definitely plant these again. They are so much fun, and pretty aggressive climbers. We watched them creep up sunflowers, pine trees, and any other item taller than themselves. Note, this is another table made by the honey. This one is fresh and needs weathering.

The hand belongs to my grand, Donavyn. He is the one who arranged the minis by color. I loved that! Donavyn and Autumn were thrilled to help with the pumpkin hunt and retrieval.

This is the final harvest from the new planting box out in the pasture. Whoa! A surprising number of big and small pumpkins. Plus, I had tossed in sprouting potatoes and other compost at the “fill the box with stuff and dirt stage,” not thinking what might happen. Potatoes happened! I pulled out the “weeds,” and potatoes were attached to the bottom! How fun is that! That’s why I like experimenting in the garden.

Drum roll please. The final totals for pumpkins harvested this year are:

Big pumpkins: 42

Mini pumpkins: 87

Thankful for a great harvest! Bring on fall.

October 2, 2024
by Angie 2 Comments

Haiku Moment: possibilities

summer’s seed complete

good food? carved face? fall decor?

possibilities

possibilities by Angie Quantrell

Yakima Valley, from the garden

August 23, 2024
by Angie 8 Comments

Free Yard Sales, Wood Scraps, and Homemade Table (Kevin’s Woodshop)

Welcome to another issue of Kevin’s Woodshop. In today’s story, we will hear how free yard sales, repurposed wood, and a little elbow grease contributed to this lovely weathered outdoor dining area.

FREE YARD SALES

Recently I visited “free yard sales” with my friend and fellow thrifter, Alyson. We love the thrill of the hunt. Free is an awesome word! My prize for the day is pictured above. Four solid metal framed wood outdoor chairs. Friends, that is what we call a SCORE. At this point in the “free yard saling,” I was cut off. No more stuff. Well. We only had her small car. Tetris in the car is the name of the game. And the limit to the thrifting.

I was so excited to haul these babies home. One of my favorite sights when I pull in the driveway after being away is to watch my honey’s face. My car is small, a Mazda four-door. BUT it works big! Like a truck. I call it my truck. I can get huge items in my little white truck. But not a gun safe. That is a hard limit. That’s a different story, but we did try.

I follow my husband’s eyes as I back around so we can unload my haul. Heh-heh. It’s almost more fun than scoring the “treasure” from yard sales or thrift shops.

He shakes his head. In wonder, I’m sure, amazed at how thrifty I am.

And proceeds to help me figure out how to reverse the process of filling my little “truck” with stuff. What. A. Guy.

REPURPOSED WOOD

We’ve been weathering our deck wood for a few years, always considering when it would be done to our satisfaction and what project required the updating of the deck so we could use the old wood.

Ta-dah! A taller patio table was needed to match the lovely free yard sale chairs. Time to rip off the deck wood.

Perfectly aged to that gray beachy tone. Some people work in clay, watercolor, textiles. My honey works in wood scraps. The older the better. The wood imperfections create challenges, sure, but the results are unique and wonderful.

HOMEMADE TABLE

Woodworker Kev got right to it. As I mentioned, aged wood often requires ingenuity and rethinking. That was certainly true with this table project. Some pieces were warped, so the framing had to be redone. He is so good though. Just look at that beautiful table! My style for sure.

Now we can dine al fresco (as long as the weather holds). Though we have to first wipe off the sunflower shells and debris from our guest goldfinches, sparrows, and red-winged blackbirds. After that, it’s sit and chill time. Ahhhh.