Homemade pumpkin bread recipe

After having an abundance of cooked pumpkin after over purchasing on a couple of organic pie pumpkins I decided to make some pumpkin bread, here is the recipe I have had great success with.

Homemade pumpkin pie from scratch (no cans)

While out picking out pumpkins for my daughters I saw some nice organic heirloom pumpkins (Winter Luxury Pie) and decided to try my hand in using a couple of these to make a pumpkin pie instead of using canned pumpkin.  One note make sure you are using a pumpkin labeled as a sugar or pie pumpkin, using your standard jack-o-lantern variety will lead to very watery and less velvety pie.  So in the end, not only does this give you a better tasting pie, but given a organic pumpkin cost $6 a can you also save quite a bit of money with just a little additional work.

First pork shoulder on the BBQ

I picked up a Brinkmann Smoke’N Grill Charcoal Smoker (El Cheapo Brinkmann aka ECB) to make some chipotle peppers but after seeing a Labor Day sale on pork shoulders (aka pork butt) I decided it was time to get this baby worked in.

Whether it is gardening or cooking I am never one to jump right into something new without thorough research so after some data gathering this is what I found:

• Have to cook low and slow.  Unlike better quality of meats shoulder/briskets are loaded with connective tissue given these are the main working muscles of the beast.  As a result cooking these fast will result in some very tough meat.  Alternatively cooking at a lower temperature over a longer period of time will result in delicious tender meat.
• 200-225 is the ideal range to cook your meat for optimum tenderness.
• After an internal temperature 145F your meat can no longer build a thicker smoke ring.
• Meat is done when the internal temperature is at least 185F

Homemade White Chicken Soup Recipe

When you think about “homemade” it is hard to not to think about some good ole homemade chicken soup.  I have made chicken soup from scratch but normally cut some corners by using some precooked chicken and skipping the whole chicken stock process.  This time I decided to do things closer to “how my grandma would make it”.

Homemade Chicken Stock Recipe

Ingredients

• 4-5 lbs of chicken breasts (skin on)
• 6 cups of water
• 1 large onion (peeled and cut in half)
• 3 bay leaves
• 12 whole black peppercorns
• 1 celery stock broken in half (3 stalks set aside)
• 1/2 lb of baby carrots
• 3 cloves of garlic (chopped)
• chicken bouillon powder or concentrate to make 6 cups of chicken broth (about 1/4 cup chicken bouillon powder)

Directions

• Add chicken to pot and fill with water to just cover chicken
• Cook over high heat to bring water to boil, reduce heat and cover then simmer for 30 minutes
• Skim off and fat floating on top (with chicken breasts there shouldn’t be too much here)
• Place remaining ingredients into pot and simmer for 1 hour

• Strain solids and dispose everything but chicken which when cool enough to handle cut into bite size pieces

 

Homemade White Chicken Soup Recipe

Ingredients

• Homemade chicken stock (see above)
• 1/2 pound baby carrots (sliced)
• 3 stalks celery (halved and sliced)
• 1 tsp chopped parsley
• Cooked chicken (chopped in bite size pieces)
• Wide egg noodles

Directions

• Return stock back to pot and add carrots and celery to pot.   Bring to boil then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

• Add the chicken and parsley to the pot and serve over cooked egg noodles.

Note: You can also add the uncooked at the same time as chicken/parsley and boil for 10 minutes (or until noodles are soft) though this is way to much for our family to eat in 1-2 sittings so we normally freeze about 2/3 of this for a few easy meals later.