October 20, 2015
Whew…summer is over. I say
this with a mixture of sadness and relief.
Although highly productive, this summer’s garden was a challenge to say
the least. Charming has been busy most
of the summer with another important project, so I was basically on my own in
taking care of the garden. It feels like
I spent most of my summer tying up tomato plants. They grew to almost six feet high and it
seemed that the branches were constantly growing and escaping from their
confines. Some were in cages, some were
tied to stakes. It didn’t seem to matter
which way we had set them up, they found ways to escape.
Also, it was a dry summer here in the Valley, so I had to carry
water from the collection barrels and water the garden. Granted, the collection barrels are close to
the garden, but I still had to fill my watering can many, many times to get the
job done properly.
All of this aside, I am still in love with my garden. I canned 163 quarts of food that will keep
our visits to the grocery store at a minimum.
This doesn’t count the gazillion bags of beans, peppers, snow peas, and
rhubarb that I’ve frozen this year. Most
of our regular diet comes from the things that I’ve canned. When we do make trips to the grocery store,
it’s almost always to purchase staples like milk, eggs, cheese, paper towels,
toilet paper and other staples of that nature.
We also have to purchase our meats, but I do can meats like tenderloin,
chicken for casseroles, sausage, and roast beef. I usually buy these meats when they’re on
sale and then can them for use later.
The tenderloin, chicken, and roast beef is great. The sausage is good as well, if you use it
within a year.
Since we’re now into the fall and the winter garden has been put
in, I’m switching gears to inside activities.
This includes baking, knitting and crocheting, and re-arranging the
furniture in our house to make it more “family friendly”. (Seems I’m always fighting clutter, while
trying to actually live in the house.)
Anyhow, I’ve tried a couple of recipes recently at the suggestion
of my sister-in-law, Kim. The first one
was Baked Apple Cider Donuts. These were
so good and went so fast that I didn’t even get a chance to take a picture of
them. I’ve also been wanting a pumpkin
roll, but gluten-free baking is not really conducive to “rolling”. So Kim suggested I try turning the pumpkin
roll into a Pumpkin Torte. No why hadn’t
I thought of that?!?!? I tried it
yesterday and it turned out great! I
couldn’t find the original recipe that Kim had given me years ago, so I found
one online that sounded close. I did
have to re-vamp the recipe to make it gluten-free, but I’m used to that and did
that without much difficulty. On a whim
(and since the Baked Apple Cider Donuts turned out so well), I decided to add a
bit of cider to the recipe for the pumpkin torte so now I’m calling that my “secret”
ingredient as it seems to make the batter rise more as it bakes. I also decided to try to use my cake
decorating skills and dress it up a bit.
With a bit more effort, and changing out the candy decorations, I think
I could turn this into a stunning dessert for both fall and Christmas
gatherings. Look out family and friends…Pumpkin Torte is
what’s on the menu at my house for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and any
birthdays that fall in between these holidays!
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| A small slathering of the cream cheese filling, a quick piping of green cream cheese filling, and several pieces of candy corn and you've got a "Harvest" them. (I could've done a little better on centering the decorations, but not too bad for a first attempt.) |
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| To make it look a bit more finished, I cooled it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes, then used an electric knife to trim up the sides. (Charming and Jax were happy to get the scraps.) This makes the torte look a bit more presentable. |
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| Puppy Jax couldn't wait to get a taste! |
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| Jax did get a small sampling. My Harvest Torte was definitely a winner for both Jax and Charming. |
