Making Cream Style Corn & Shepard's Pie

Last Christmas Maine Man bought me this wooden corn cutter & creamer.

This week he put it to use as we currently have an abundance of corn.

You can do the same work with a knife but I have a slight obsession with kitchen gadgets. Among other things.......magazines, books, bags, to name a few ;)

Cream Style Corn

• 12 ears of corn with kernels and juice removed. (If you do not have a cutter use a knife to cut and run the back part of the knife down the cobs to get some of the juice out)
• melt 1/3 cup of butter in a pan
• add corn & enough water to make a gravy consistency
• add 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper
• bring to boil and cook for 5 minutes
• simmer for 20 minutes = THE BEST CREAM-STYLE CORN YOU HAVE EVER EATEN....no joke!

I even had enough to freeze a couple containers.....we will be loving this in the dead of winter!

The next night I cooked it up and added it to what MM said it truly was the "best Shepard's Pie ever." That meant a lot because he as you know is my biggest critic!

Not sure how you all cook Shepard's Pie but this is how I do it. The bottom layer I usually use a combination of cream style corn & whole kernel but in this case I made my own. For the next layer I sauteed some onions and cooked up some deer hamburg. The final layer is mashed potatoes (fresh red potatoes dug from the garden). On top a dab of butter with a handful of shredded cheese. Bake @ 400 for 30minutes.

Tomatoes, Beans, Corn, Oh My…..

At the beginning of the summer I swore off preserving of any sort.  I think my exact words were  “I’m burnt out” and “we were going to eat seasonally and give the rest away.”

Yeah right…..Maine Man planted green beans at three different times.  You know what that means….beans galore, three different batches.  Ate a TON, froze a bunch, and made some WICKED good dilly beans! 

P.S. Flower Girl & I like green beans best baked with olive oil & sea salt!

Tomatoes….well I have a quick fix for them. LOVE, LOVE my saucer!  That is what tomatoes that are left after the PESKY HORNWORMS had their way with them.  Sweet revenge …the kids had a blast plucking the hornworms off the plants and feeding them out to the chickens and County Boy’s quail like them as well.

Nice thing about a farm….we might not eat you but we will find someone that will!

3 batches of sauce in the freezer thus far.  Will make for some tasty soups & sauces come Winter!

Note to self & others :  NEVER walk away from the blender when your making butter when it is  transitioning from heavy cream to butter! Oops, my bad !

I will end this note with my FAVORITE way to put up corn….. CREAM STYLE CORN .  Click on that link and it will bring you to a how-to I posted last year on it.  Glad I recorded it because I’ll be referring to it this weekend.

Putting Pork on Your Fork

Not too much to report on the farm. The weather in Maine has been wacky... warm, then below zero, snow then rain??

So glad we are down to 2 pigs. A fifty pound bag of grain is lasting well over a week compared to 3 days. The pork chops and sausage are so delicious! My neighbor picked up our ham, bacon, and smoked shoulder today. MM is cooking our first of the bacon as I type.....yum....he just gave me a sample.
Years ago John & I raised a few pigs. I can vividly remember one of our novice pig experiences. We had just moved into our first home and we were wanna be farmers. We went to the auction and bought a 75lb pig. The closest we had to a farm vehicle was John's Toyota 4 runner so we loaded her in the back and off we went.

When we arrived home we put her in a pen that John had built out of pallets. The next morning at 5 a.m. John discovered she had escaped. It was early Spring and John was able to follow her tracks in the soft ground. He discovered her a 1/2 mile back at our NEW neighbors house rooting up their lawn. The chase began! The pig headed straight for their deck and it fell and slid into their sliding glass door. They were awoken by their dog barking and the noise of the pig and MM in hot pursuit. John was young and in his prime I tell you. But, that pig ran faster scared than John could mad. I too attempted to capture but remember dropping to the ground surrendering. The whole family attempted to catch this frisky critter and you know it, after quite some time MM outsmarted her. He hid behind a tree and when it attempted to run the field John was able to get a hold of her. The drama continued, because of the mud season we could not drive up their driveway (as they did not either) so we had to walk her home. Ever try to walk a 75lb pig? We weren't laughing at the time but we often reminisce about that day.

This was our first meeting of our new neighbors and after a bit of landscaping and a 12 pack of beer we became friends for life.

This story was not my planned post for this evening but...there you have it. That damn ADD kicking in again!

A few weeks back I finished reading Omnivores Dilemma. A little deep at times but very informative. It is headed to City Girl's bedside stand next. Now I am reading In Defense of Food along with an awesome magazine MM bought me for Christmas. It is called Countryside & small stock journal. For those of you that are interested in gardening, livestock, homesteading this is a must have . It has few ads and pictures in comparison to other magazines and it is jammed pack with great info.

I have been doing lots of cooking and I will end this with a couple recipes that we have enjoyed.

For all of you that have a freezer full of blueberries. This is the first time I made and ate blueberry pie. MM and my in-laws enjoyed as well.

Blueberry Pie

~3 to 4 cups of Blueberries - fresh or frozen

~7 Tablespoons corn starch
~3 Tablespoons water
~2 Tablespoons lemon juice
~ 1 teaspoon cinnamon

~1/4 teaspoon all spice

One 9 inch pie crust

For the topping:

~1/4 cup sugar (OR 1/8 cup sugar and 1/8 cup Splenda)
~1/2 cup flour
~1/4 cup butter or margarine

Add blueberries to crust, drizzle with remaining incredients and then apply crumb topping.

Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour. Serve warm with cream or ice cream.

This was the bread I made today. It too was a hit, even with the kiddos. Now remember I cheat making bread most days by using my bread machine. I add liquids/butter etc to the bread pan first then I add dry mix after ingredients combined. Make a hole in the middle and add yeast last. I select dough cycle which takes my machine about 1.5 hours to mix and rise. I then shape it into a loaf and put in a glass bread pan and cover with a moist towel to rise (preferably in a warm area) for 1 hour. Then it cooks at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

*EGG BREAD*

2/3 cup milk (warmed to 75-85 degrees)

1 large egg

1 tablespoon of butter

2 1/4 cups of bread flour

1 teaspoon of salt

1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon of bread machine fast rise yeast (or 1 1/2 teaspoon of active dry yeast)

And lastly for the Rabid Outdoorsman and Queenie here is my pickled egg recipe you were asking for. It is at the bottom of that post.
Enjoy!

A First for Everything

Another first. I dried some zucchini with my dehydrator. I would like to try experiment with a few other vegetables such as green peppers, onions, and tomatoes. Anyone have any advice, do you or have you dried vegetables. What was your process and how did you utilize your goods. As you hear lots about sun dried tomatoes I'd have to say that is where most of my interest is.
First year growing garlic. We have about 3 times the above and it is amazing. How do you all store it? And the trick to braiding it? I read up on it a bit but still didn't quite get it.

Farm stand update: We made $61 our first week. Doesn't sound like much but it is a start. What we've observed so far. Best sellers, corn, tomatoes, eggs, and cukes. Zucchini, garlic, and yellow squash we've sold very little of.

I will end this post with a recipe for some kick a@! cake I made John for his birthday. He requested chocolate cake with PB frosting and that is what he got. Homemade at that, in previous years it would have come straight from the box with a jar of frosting. You do what you see. I do not ever remember my Mom making cake from scratch so why would I?
We started eating this at 5:30 am and it was gone by 8 that night. We celebrate John's b-day early before I headed to work. I usually do not over eat but I did with this cake. A must make for anyones upcoming b-day!

The Perfect Present Buttermilk Chocolate Cake Recipe
www.The-Perfect-Present.com

Ingredients	Preparation
2 Cups Flour	Preheat Oven to 300° F (This is not a typo! This is a slow bake chocolate cake recipe.) Use Crisco Shortening to lightly grease and flour the 9 x 13 in. Baking Dish. (It's a one layer chocolate cake!) Place all the ingredients on the left into a mixing bowl. Mix at medium or medium high speed until all ingredients are blended and smooth. Pour into greased and floured baking dish Bake for 1 hr. Test by sticking with knife. If it comes out clean, it's done! Allow to cool. Scroll down this page for the simple Recommended White Vanilla Icing...
2 Cups Sugar
¾ Cup Hershey's Cocoa
2 Teaspoons Baking Soda
2 Eggs (I use large eggs)
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Buttermilk Remember that you can freeze buttermilk so you have to make another buttermilk chocolate cake recipe.
1 Cup Mazola Oil
1 ½ Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 Cup Boiling Water

borrowed from:
http://www.bestmoistchocolatecakerecipe.com/


(I cooked it for 50minutes and it came out perfect, my stove seems to over cook a bit)

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter (softened to room temperature)
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

1. Cream butter and peanut butter together.
2. Add half the powdered sugar and blend.
3. Blend in milk and vanilla.
4. Add remaining powdered sugar.
5. Stir until smooth and well blended.

frosting recipe borrowed from
http://www.recipezaar.com/111131

Random Tid Bits of Our Life

No real agenda for this posts just some random photos from the last time I downloaded my camera.

Ate the first spaghetti squash of the season.


Split it, remove seeds, cut in half lengthwise, cook until tender (approx 350 degrees for 45 min)
Remove from oven, stir up with fork, add butter, s & p, and shredded cheese
Heat a little longer then serve.....DELISH!

Would LOVE to hear how others cook theirs up!!


Canning is a whole lot of work but well worth the effort!

Kids have been working on a cabin... gotta love their paint job

Damn tomato hornworms! I joked about hatching one on facebook and my gardening
friends were less then impressed....lol

BEST tomato harvest yet! I have made a couple different batches of spaghetti sauce, cream of tomato soup and Maine Man made some tasty salsa.

BEST pepper season as well.

Confessions: I did not know until about 1 years ago that red peppers are just green peppers that are on the plant longer.

I didn't know you could grow Bay leaves in Maine either....until I saw a plant at the farmer's market last summer. I bought the last one. I kept it inside throughout the winter and this summer it has been thriving in the hoop house.

We've been eating lots of corn on the cob.

Hubbard squash