Pumpkin puree

I have never preserved pumpkin before because I simply never had enough of my own to do so. This is my first year and I am happy how this turned out. My first project was pumpkin puree that I can use for baking during the whole year. I even saved our carved pumpkins so they don't go to waste. Really, how long after Halloween can you leave jack-o-lanterns in front of your door anyway...

I preheated the oven for 400 degrees and I cut up the pumpkins. If you are starting from scratch with a whole pumpkin, you will have to first cut it in a half and scoop out all the seeds and goo. Click here to see what you can do with those. When you are done cutting them up, just place them this way on a baking sheet.

Leave them in the oven for 40 minutes or until soft - I insert a fork to check.

Then scoop out the pumpkin flash.

Use a hand blender or any other blender to puree the pumpkin. I had to add a bit of water to help it puree nice and smooth. (Honestly, I felt like I was making baby food for my kids - such a flash back ;-))

Some people like to add pumpkin spices in there before preserving but I like it pure. This is the consistency you should end up with, nice and smooth. 

I measure 2 cups and 1 cup of the puree (that is usually what recipes call for) and place it in the freezer safe ziplock bag. It should lasts in your freezer for months now. 

If you didn't see this yet, click here for yesterday's Roasted Pumpkin Seeds post.

Tune in tomorrow for a pumpkin butter tutorial!

Roasted pumpkin seeds

We are all such big fans of pumpkin seeds. Actually this was the first year when my kids remembered them from last year and asked if we could make them out of our own pumpkins that we carved for Halloween. I saved the seeds with all the goo in the fridge and few days after trick-or-treating we finally got to make one of our favorite treats.

For salty seeds we use:

garlic salt 

3 tablespoons of melted butter

Preheat your oven for 300 degrees

Kids helped separating the seeds from the goo. They did a great job!

After you separate the seeds, rinse them under cold water, sprinkle them with garlic salt, and pour the melted butter over that.

I had the kids help me spread the spiced seeds on a cookie sheet.

I left them roast in the oven for 15 minutes, then I pulled them out, mixed them, and put them back for another 10 minutes. I kept checking on them every 5 minutes to make sure they don't burn.

Let it cool and dry and then place in a bowl or cute container. 

And what did I do with all the goo? Well, I put that on a cookie sheet, slid it in the oven, let it bake for 30 minutes on 350 degrees and...

...fed it to the girls for breakfast! 

It's all about pumpkins

This week it's all about preserving pumpkins at our little farm. As you already know, I was growing pumpkins in my backyard this year and they turned out better than ever... not the way I would still want, but best I have ever had. 

This one was climbing all over my asparagus. 

I planted few of them with corn and that really worked. 

It even served as a decoration to my porch because it climbed up and it's vines hugged the porch columns and railings. It was pretty!

Here is just a little peak at my pumpkin changing color. It was a beautiful thing to watch. 

 Tune back tomorrow as I will share my recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds, and later on in the week when I will make pumpkin puree and pumpkin butter!

Happy Fall!

I whipped the whip cream by hand

My kids LOVE whip cream and so do I... except they love the one in a spray can while I L.O.V.E. a homemade whip cream made out of whipping cream. I usually buy the organic one in Costco and I use magic bullet to whip it up in a minute with zero force used from my side. 

But the other day we were nowhere near civilization, vacationing in a deep forest, and all I brought there was a whipping cream... and no magic bullet. And the kids wanted waffles for breakfast. And there is no waffle breakfast without a whip cream. 

That made me think about my grandma and what she used to do when I was a little girl watching her from beneath the kitchen counter... before there was a magic bullet. She used her own magic - her muscles. 

So here I was, starring at the bowl full of whipping cream thinking how possibly long can this take me. And I was not happy :-( But as always i realized that either I can whine here, looking at the bowl, or get to work. It doesn't take a genius to figure out, which way will get me closer to breakfast faster.

So I started whipping, and whipping (thinking about bootcamp workouts), and hoping that this will even work! After 10 minutes I took a well-deserved break, went to check on the kids, and continued to whip for another... 10 minutes. 

Wow, look at that consistency! It was perfect. I took a darker picture so you can see the texture of a whipped whipping cream!

And didn't it look yummy on our blueberry waffles? 

It is tempting to bring the bullet next time... but nah... 

Don't underestimate your garden in November

I FINALLY made my way to the garden this week... It is about time to close it up for the winter - but that is what I thought a month ago and look what I gathered now, at the beginning of November! It is unbelievable how much blessing came from my little backyard garden this year. I am still letting my peppers show what they can do. Well, if the weather gets any better of course.

Now, it's time to wash and store this in the fridge. See you all later :-)

Happy Fall!!!

Happy Fall to all of you! I have been very busy around here with school, Halloween, parties, work, and preserving  my garden. This happens to me every year around this time. But it is still my favorite time of year.
By the way, did you notice I moved? I changed my name to The Little Backyard Farm and I am loving it! It was clear to me for a while that our small place needs a name and this one couldn't have been better! So thank you for stopping by and come back soon. I will have some more tips and maybe a giveaway ready for you! :-)

And how more fall can this get? Turkey hangs out on the porch all the time he is out now...

Preserving sage

This is a time for preserving everything precious from our garden. Now I am tackling sage. I planted this small bush last year into my porch garden and replanted it this year into my new herb garden. Naturally, it hasn't spread much yet, but it had a good amount of leaves for me to harvest. 

After I harvested the sage leaves I rinsed them out and placed them on paper towel. 

I covered them with another layer of paper towel and patted them dry. 

Then I simply placed them loosely into a saved plastic sour cream container, labeled it with name and date, and placed it into the freezer. It is better to preserve your herb in the freezer than it is to preserve to dry. They keep their rich flavor and they are easy to handle - you can cut them or crumble them up into your favorite dish!

Onion syrup for the coughing days

Yes indeed, the season has started. The season, in which we get cold and cough so easily that we sometimes can't keep up! We are trying to strengthen our immune system using only natural remedies and herbal teas!

This one was reintroduce to me by a friend, who makes wonderful home remedies, teas and syrups from her own home grown herbs. You can find her on her Facebook page over here. 

I said "reintroduce" only because this home remedy was used by my grandmother on regular basis when I was a little girl, I only forgot all about it by now. 

You will need:

1 medium size onion

White sugar (I used organic raw)

Glass jar with a top

Cut up the onion into strips and start layering the onion and sugar into the jar. I start with an onion and continue with sugar, following with a layer of onion and sugar agin. I repeat this pattern until I reach the top of the jar. You don't have to fill it up all the way to the top. Simply stop where you need to stop.

Because of the smaller size of the jar I had some onion left over.

Let it sit for 24 hours on your kitchen counter. The onion layered with sugar releases its juices and you will be left with yummy sweet onion syrup. I use tea strainer to pour it out. It will last in your fridge for a week or so. Take it as you need for your cough, every couple of hours. 

In addition to this syrup, we always use raw honey and echinacea to treat cough.

Coffee mug swap

Don't you love all the perks that come from the blog world? I love meeting new friends, reading interesting blogs, and linking up to linky parties. This time it was Heather over at Cook Family Chronicles, who put together a coffee mug swap among us fellow bloggers! I got assigned a partner from this cute blog - "Hi Jade, very nice to meet you here in the blog world!"

I was very giddy when I received this package yesterday! I couldn't wait to open it - yes, I love surprises!

Thank you so much, Jade, for sending me this lovely mug and the fair trade coffee! I can't wait to enjoy my first cup! Also thank you, Heather, for organizing this fun swap!

I hope you enjoy mine as well!

How to make Maximus - the horse from the movie Tangled

Every year our family dresses as a group costume for Halloween. The first year, we were The Royal Family, last year we were dressed up as Star Wars, and this year we LOVE Tangled, so it was only natural to choose that as our Halloween costume. We picked daddy to be Flynn, which was such a great and easy decision, I was Mother Gothel, B was Rapunzel of course, and T was Maximus, the guard horse. All the costumes were easy to figure out, but the horse. I was searching the web for a possible tutorial on Maximus but with no luck. So I decided to take pictures of the steps and leave you all with a little tutorial on how to make this costume. 

First of all find a cardboard box and remove the bottom and the top part. Then spray paint it white. I used white primer first and then one coat of regular white spray paint.

Then make a tale out of thick yarn. I cut long strings of yarn, tied them together in the middle and then pulled them through the hole in the cardboard box.

For the head I ended up printing a mirror side image of Maximus. It printed on 2 papers, I just had to align them and trim them to fit. (This will depend on the size you choose for your horse) They are taped together in the back, you can see the line, where the paper joins.

Then I used exacto knife to cut out the shape of the horse. Leave some extra card board on the bottom of his neck for easy attachment to the body. Tape the print out and the cut out together. This will be what you end up with.

Next comes the mane. I used the same yarn I used for the tail. While you are heating up a glue gun, cut few short and few long strings of yarn. Use the glue gun to attach them to the back side of the head - the short ones in the front and the longer ones along the back. I also cut another piece of cardboard and attached it to the bottom of the neck - see pictures below.

I was so pleasantly surprised how the mane added the right touch to Maximus. I used hot glue gun to attach the two sides together at the mane and stapler to attach the bottom cardboard piece to the body (see detailed picture bellow). I spray painted the staples white. 

I used clear packing tape to fix some minor blemishes, such as the front being too far apart from the neck.

See back shot for reference. 

Next measure the straps and attach them to the box. We used white ribbon.

I dressed T in all white clothes. 

Here is the final product!

I almost forgot important part of the costume - The "Wanted Poster"! Just print out an image from a web and slide it into Maximus' mouth. (I cut out a thin hole on each side).

Planting strawberry field

It is getting pretty cold around here and I am starting to clean up the garden. I still have some tomatoes trying to turn red but soon I will pick them and let them ripen in jars in my window, just like my grandfather used to do. I remember as a kid, seeing all those jars sitting on his window sill and watching them changing their color slowly.

That was a little reminiscence now back to my strawberry "field". I am proudly calling it a field but you know with my yard size, it is more like a garden bed. I decided to transform my backyard into a garden. I am incorporating more and more fruit and veggie plants into my landscape. Last year I started with the corn, this year I added pumpkin, and now strawberries! 

I never had luck with strawberry harvest because of little critters who ate it before I was able to pick it. Just when I saw an almost ripe strawberry in the evening and came to pick it in the morning, it was gone! I hope for better luck next year - I will keep you posted.

These plants came from a fellow freecycler! Have you heard about freecycling? I recommend it. You can get free things that other people don't need anymore and to give back, you offer your own "garbage". You know the saying "One man's garbage is another man's treasure."