We've got pumpkins?

I haven't posted any gardening updates this summer, in part b/c we haven't had much success. Our pumpkin vines kind of took over the entirety of the garden box, to the point of the carrots didn't get enough sun, only two cucumbers made it to the trellis, and even the tomatoes and peppers seemed to struggle in their racks. But it might all be worth it based on what I noticed out grilling last night and checked out this morning...

Everything is out of control in our yard this summer. 

 Yup, I believe that's a pumpkin.

That should be one too.

Woo hoo!

The wife is taking credit for that one at the top, having tried to hand pollinate that vine herself. I didn't really track who was pollinating what, and at this point I don't really care. But there were a bunch of bees out when I took these this morning, so they probably get some of the credit. I'm just hoping these last the next few months and I can make a pie out of them. I think we planted sugar pumpkins, fingers crossed.

This might make more work for me next summer; it's clear that pumpkins are a little much for our single gardening box. There were even some more cucumbers out that we had missed, under all the pumpkin leaves.

Gives "hide the cucumber" a whole new meaning. 

It might be time to make more boxes and space them out a little bit. Good, I'll add it to my list for next year.

Those might not be baking apples!

When did this turn into a baking blog?

With the muffins a success, I put together an entire pie this weekend. I've used the apples off our tree before, but not for something so apple-heavy. Unfortunately I wasn't too thrilled with the results.

Things got off to a great start though. I was able to pick a number of apples that came right off the tree. The kids helped too so we had some not-so-great looking ones to start with. Not everyone made it into the pie.

This is the recipe I've used since the wife and I have been together, so it's going on 18 years at this point. But this pie came out unbelievably sweet. It makes my teeth hurt to eat a big slice.

Looks good, tastes so-so.

Not that I stopped eating it. I've been slowly chipping away at it since Friday night, and it's almost gone. They have good texture within the pie, so at least they held up well to the actual baking. But the flavor profile is WAY too sweet, even with a healthy amount of nutmeg, cinnamon, and clove in there. All its done is put me in the mood for more apple stuff though, so expect some apple cake pictures after we go apple picking in the next few weeks.

baking with our own apples

This week has not been great. Kids waking up too early and then going to bed just in time to be late to school, shitty commute traffic, not hearing back from interviews I thought I did pretty well at, and losses from the Cubs, Bears, and Irish all had me looking for a fall pick me up. Instead of going crazy I decided to bake some comfort food to try and make the back half of this week a little more bearable.

I already had a can of pumpkin open from other baking, so to make sure I got the most out of what was around I grabbed two apples off our tree to whip up some pumpkin apple streudel muffins. Sounds like more work than it actually is.

The apples are starting to drop off the tree so I'm hoping these are in fact, ready to use. I still have no clue what kind of apples they are but the look fine.

So, what we're working with here:

2.5 cups flour
1 cup sugar
pumpkin pie spice
1 cup pumpkin
2 large eggs
3 tbps half & half
1 cup chopped apples

cover with crumb topping
1 tbps butter
1 cup sugar
2 tbps flour

30 minutes later at 375 and you get:

Hopefully these can tide me over until we really go apple picking. Although it sounds like I'm going to get some additional baking time this weekend to use up some more of our apples. Fingers crossed.