This Has Me Rethinking My Approach!

well hello friend welcome back to my kitchen it has been about 5 days since we started this project head colds came down upon my house and there was no cooking or food preservation to be done for the last quite some time so today we need to tackle this Pumpkin we're going to actually do some cooking we're going to make some dinner oh let me grab one more thing I've got one more project I want to get to because I'm heading to my parents house next week I bought these Marian berries for my mom as a gift and I want to go ahead and process them the way she likes them so we're going to be doing food preservation projects cooking dinner using this so we're going to use it in a Savory Manner and I think I want to experiment making salad rolls for dinner cuz we're going to make Pumpkin Curry for dinner tonight I was thinking that Curry sounded good for dinner tonight because it' be kind of warm and we can put some bone broth in it and we can use some potatoes and carrots from the garden and so I was thinking it'd be kind of fun to make salad rolls cuz I have the papers and I haven't made salad rolls in years so here I've got Mari and berries this is my mom's all-time favorite fruit and she loves Mari and berries cooked down let's see if I can find sometimes I'm never sure where I put stuff she likes Mar and berries in her yogurt and the Maran berries at the farmers market were quite spendy this year and so the Marian berries at Azure were on sale so when I saw that they were on sale I went ahead and bought a box for her and I thought this would be kind of a fun surprise for her so we've got one project started this is going to be really easy she likes to put marry and berries that are slightly sweez sweez SE sweetened on her oatmeal no on her yogurt and so that is what I'm going to do for her here now I want to show you something that came in the mail I just got my lie for making soap my goal was to make soap for Christmas gifts well that did not come and happen in time because I needed to render the lard which we got that project done and I'm really excited about that but even though I got all the things I need for soap making I feel like today would not be the good day to tackle something that's really going to need mental brain power so we're going to do just fun and easy things that we can check off the list and feel good about and then when I have a little bit more brain capacity we can tackle the soap and we'll do that together so here I've got my two bowls of pumpkin puree that we made I need to blend them up and I figured since we've got so much in a big bowl a hand blender is going to be the way to do it what I have here I could strain off this little bit of liquid but I think I want that in here I do have this pumpkin that's been straining and I want to save that liquid cuz once I puree all of this together I might add a little bit cuz I want the consistency of store H pumpkin oh it's [Applause] splashing some of the pumpkin varieties weren't stringy at all and some were stringy and so I'm just going to blend them all together so between blending I'm going to come and stir these Maran [Applause] berries I think I'm pretty happy with this consistency and I don't think I want it any runnier so I'm just going to go ahead and blend this I think well maybe I should put that into this bowl huh see I did get out a couple pieces of peel that I had missed when I was Des skinning them so you can see there different colors those are just different varieties of pumpkin so here is 2024's pumpkin puree so now we get to package this up for preservation I threw my freezer containers that I'm going to use for the Maran berries in the dishwasher and those have just a few minutes well they have 35 minutes left I put it on just the 1H hour cycle so I'm going to go ahead and taste this cuz we can't quite dish it up yet okay I'm trying to gauge how much sweetness to add I've never seen my mom make this for herself she just talks about it and she definitely doesn't want it as sweet as say a jam so I'm going to start with a half a cup of sugar mix that in and I do want to keep some of the berries whole I don't want them to be completely cooked down I don't want it to have a cooked flavor either just grabbed a new spoon make sure that Sugar dissolves Oles all the way you know what that was 5 lb of fruit I think I think it was a 5 lb bag I think I'm going to add 3/4 of a cup of sugar and then give it a taste test and you know what I think I'm going to add too salt don't tell my mom just two pinches of salt cuz that's going to help bring out the flavor of the berries for sure okay just want to make sure that Sugar's dissolved before I go in with with my spoon give it a taste test it smells incredible in here oh wow okay that was it I don't need to add any more sugar knowing my mom I think that is the level of sweetness she's going to want let me taste that one more time oh yeah that is inred incredible it is amazing how just that sugar with that little bit of salt Divine I want to thank Nano knives for sponsoring today's video Nano is a Japanese knife brand that has been making knives in Seiki Japan since 1918 they have the classic series the MEO series and the 19c 27 Series in today's video when we do our food prep for the Pumpkin Curry we're going to have for tonight's dinner I am going to use the MEO series and I've been using these knives for the past 6 months and I have been really enjoying them chopping and slicing with a sharp knife makes all the difference they will be linked in the description below I wish I had quart size freezer bags I don't so we're just going to go with gallons cuz that's what I have it's not worth me taking a trip into town for so while we're waiting for the dishwasher to f finish up I have got Ziploc bags here and we can get this pumpkin put away for the rest of the year now I was thinking of freeze drying it if I freeze dry it will I use it I'm really trying to be big on two cups I'm going to I know I'm going to freeze a bunch of it so I'm just going to start freezing a bunch of it I know that I'll use frozen and so I probably you know what I need to freeze dry some because how am I supposed to know if I like it freeze dried or don't if I don't give it a try I think it would be actually kind of silly if I don't so let me grab some freeze dryer trays friend thank you for talking me into freeze drying some pumpkin puree I can just hear you telling me freeze dry the pumpkin puree so while we're dealing with freeze dryer things I went ahead and grabbed a box a 5 lb box of frozen strawberries and a 5 lb box of frozen diced mangoes and I'm going to get those on my freeze dryer trays so that when my freeze dryer is available we can go ahead and get this fruit directly into the freeze dryer when I did the pantry tour you didn't see any freeze Dred fruit in my house because it goes so incredibly quickly and so I'm really excited about the idea of buying prefrozen pre-diced fruit that I can just throw on my freeze dryer trays and I don't have to do any prep I freeze-dried a ton of apples from The Orchard and of course I had to do all the prep for that but that was because those were you know homegrown apples but if it's fruit that I'm not growing on the homestead I love the idea of taking a convenient step out of the process and buying prefrozen pre-washed pre stems taken off pre- diced fruit okay so some of my trays have I only have two silicone mates right now my other trays are have the silicone mates in the freeze dryer I think for the pumpkin puree I want the silicone mates so we'll freeze dry I have to decide if I'm going to freeze dry one or two trays of pumpkin and I'm actually going to measure out how much pumpkin is on each tray so that when I go to rehydrate it I have an idea of how much pumpkin I had on each tray if that makes sense so I have four cups of pumpkin puree on this one tray you know what I think I'm going to go ahead and do I'll do eight cups of pumpkin puree freeze dried total I have to say one of my favorite things that I freeze-dried is the tomato skins and I would not have done that if it wasn't for your guys's encouragement I've been using that I'm actually savoring it because it's so delicious as when I make a white sauce I put a couple tablespoons of that pumpkin or not pumpkin tomato powder in the red sauce and it is incredible or in a soup or something if you just want a good tomato flavor but you don't want the liquid that comes with like a can of crushed tomatoes or you don't want that really rich rich flavor that comes with tomato paste the pumpkin P or the pumpkin the Tomato powder is incredible so here I have a total of eight cups a pumpkin puree so I'm just going to pop this in the freezer and then once these are frozen and I've got these ready and my freeze dryer is available we can freeze dry all this and of course I will let you know what I think of this project oh I do have one more silicone mat there [Applause] you know what I think I can buy through Azure I think I can buy sliced strawberries too I might do that next time instead of these whole ones cuz these whole ones are kind of big I only have five of these covers and I have more trays but that's okay I'm going to get these in the freezer and once everything's frozen we can get these freeze drin feels good to get this project done and moved on to the next step for it I can't quite put them into the freeze dryer yet cuz I've got some banana chips in the freeze dryer currently and so I can't put them in there now but I will soon so I've got my two cup measure here you know what I think I'm going to do I think I'm going to open all these bags invert them and we're going to use this for dinner tonight so I'm not going to freeze what we're going to use for dinner tonight just so that I don't get the sides of the bag dirty oh yeah we're going to need more bags than this that's for sure I wonder if I should do some four cup ones would that be too much I don't know two cups is about 1 15 o can I think a 15 o can is like 1.9 something cups now don't quote me on that or it's just a little over two cups I think it's just under two cups though I remember I Googled it not that long ago okay that was about half of this bowl a cookie sheet cuz this will make it easier to carry it out there so if you guys have any recommendations for Savory applications of pumpkin I am all ears because I like making pumpkin pasta I like making Pumpkin Curry I have never made a pumpkin soup before I don't think Josh would like a pumpkin soup two cups obviously I've made pumpkin bread and pumpkin muffins oh yeah that's what I wanted to do today too I was thinking about maybe making some pumpkin muffins after we did all those pumpkin spice recipes I think we made six or something pumpkin spice recipes I got a little pumpkin spiced out and so I'm really looking for Savory applications of pumpkin I just had a thought I wonder if there would be a good kind of like pumpkin lasagna to make a pumpkin sauce and Italian sausage and maybe some kale or a pumpkin manicotti might be really good too H now my my wheels are turning this might be perfect the amount of bags I got out I have this much pumpkin left I I think I'm going to make some pumpkin baked oatmeal I think that would be really good for some breakfast prep and I think I'm going to go ahead and do that now and then we'll use the rest of it to make our Pumpkin Curry I'm not using my vacuum sealer for this because I think the vacuum sealer would seal up a lot of the pumpkin it would have a hard time sealing with this kind of consistency I might be wrong I don't know I've never tried it a Ziploc bag works really well and I've never had an issue with freezer burn or anything like that with pumpkin puree in a freezer bag now this is definitely the most pumpkin I have ever grown this is plenty for Josh and I for a year for sure I'm going to have to get creative when it comes to using this pumpkin and then I still have about six pumpkins for the chickens that I'm I'm going to give them throughout this winter they're not as big well they're that's not true two of them are 50 something lbs I was going to say they're not as big as the ones I roasted but that's not entirely true so we got 2 4 6 8 10 11 plus the eight cups that are going into the freeze dryer plus probably another four cups here of pumpkin plus what we've already made we already made pumpkin pies for two family gatherings and we've made pumpkin pasta this year pretty impressive I feel like we've hardly been in the kitchen for no time at all and we've already tackled some big projects my dishwasher is done and it is torrential downpour so so this is perfect for curry tonight which sounds warm and cozy so let's get the mar and berries taken care of and they've cooled down a little bit which is perfect so that they're not hot going into our little freezer containers I love these freezer containers I do wish I had the smaller ones these I just got off Amazon oh no okay they got turned upside down in the washing process they are dishwasher safe so you can reuse these over and over this these are the containers I used for the pizza sauce and salsa that I froze I only wash these and like two other things in the dishwasher but I'm just going to give them a little rinse here these are pints you can get 8 oz ones I wish I had those for for my mom but these are what I have so these are what I'm going to use probably only need a couple of these I washed a bunch of them CU I was thinking maybe I would do some pumpkin puree in these but then I had the thought the Ziploc bags are going to take up a whole whole lot less freezer space so that's why I did that four of the five of these is probably enough well maybe not yeah it's probably enough maybe six maybe let me get one more rinsed out I just had the thought if I do five that was 5 lbs of berry so that would be one lb of berry per container this is a really good idea my mom has I usually just use Jam to sweeten my yogurt but I really like this idea because it has a whole lot less sugar in it obviously it smells so good mom if you're watching this I may have kept one of these containers for myself cuz I do have some yogurt I think I'm going to I do have some yogurt in the refrigerator I think I'm going to have to keep one of these for myself okay I don't want to fill them completely full because they're going to freeze and they're going to expand all right if you're doing this at home one 5 lb box of berries which I could link those berries actually for you cuz I bought them online one box of those berries does six of these containers perfectly and I may have just dyed my wooden spatula or my wooden stirring spoon and there may be no coming back from this but that's okay and then I'm going to rinse my Dutch oven out and we can get going on tonight's dinner after I get all this goodness in these containers I'm just going to let this cool for a few minutes on the counter too before I put the lid on and before I stick them in the freezer mine I'm just going to put in the fridge I'm going to go ahead and make Josh's baked oatmeal for the week because that way I can just have this done and then we can get going on dinner cuz this is going to take it usually takes you know I don't even follow a recipe anymore but I can tell you what I'm going to put in here it's really just depends on what fruits that I have that I want to use up so in here I have about 4 tblspoon of butter now I'm going to add 3 cups of oats and I try to make it pretty protein heavy so I usually put anywhere from 5 to six eggs in it and Josh can't tell a difference if there's one egg versus five eggs so I try to put more eggs in it now my girls have stopped laying for the winter they are getting up there in age and so this coming spring if we have a new chicken coup set up we will be getting some new chickens but for now my girls basically are just going to be living out their retirement here on the homestead and they probably will start laying eggs again again in the spring but they probably won't lay any legs they molted throughout the fall so they got new feathers which will stop chickens from laying plus they're older and it's colder here than it is at our last Homestead the days are short so they're not really laying so I just put in probably I don't know so these are eggs from the store all that to say um probably about a teaspoon and a half of cinnamon I do have a written recipe on the website for this but really just depends throughout the summer I made this with zucchini so much zucchini almost every single baked oatmeal Josh had throughout the summer was zucchini because that's what I had abundance of and it's just like zucchini bread I seasoned it just like you would zucchini bread I think two four five I'm going to put five eggs in it today cuz these are pretty good siiz eggs and then I usually put I'll measure it out for you I usually just put the milk until it looks looks like it's the correct moisture level so this is 1 and 1/2 cups of milk and usually I use applesauce but since I have pumpkin got about 1 and 1/2 cups of pumpkin we're going to put in there and maybe a little bit more feel like I'm forgetting something I make this all the time got a baking dish here mix this together got the butter I think I have everything in here I don't put baking powder or baking soda or anything like that oh sugar I do put sugar in it and I think I'm going to put brown sugar sometimes I put white sugar sometimes I put white sugar it just depends on what I have I think this would be delicious with that Mar and Berry sauce but I kind of want to use up the pumpkin so I just put 1/4 cup of brown sugar in there and usually I don't put usually I only put between 2 tablespoons and 1/4 cup of sugar because I normally put applesauce in it which the apples have quite a bit of sweetness and that's it right there oh vanilla put vanilla in it [Music] too and usually I mix it directly in the baking dish but today I thought I would mix it in the bowl and sometimes what I like to do is just take a tiny bit of sugar and maybe that was a tablespoon and sprinkle it on the top I did not have the oven preheated not worried about it we're going to get that in the oven and now we're going to get dinner going the first thing I'm going to do is slice up some onions for our Curry now I could use my frozen pre-sliced onions but I have a couple minutes today so I'm going to go ahead and use these I'm trying to use my fresh onions first from the garden see before I use my frozen ones because these ones have the potential to go bad and that one does have a little bit of a spot I'm just going to take off there these are kind of small so I grabed three and I thought that one might be turning so this one looks perfect though we'll get these sliced up and we'll use these first I think I'm going to puree this Curry so I'm not worried about slicing these onions too incredibly small I have my Dutch oven here that I rinsed out that we just cooked the berries in might as well use that again I've got garlic infused oil in there and now I'm going to get my onions I just sliced get these in here now when I looked up a recipe for this I found this really amazing I think pretty authentic recipe but I don't have like half the ingredients so I'm going to link that recipe for you because if you could find all of those really cool Curry spices I think it would be really absolutely phenomenal but I don't have that so I'm going to use it as an inspiration and I'm going to use the spices that I do have and I still think we're going to be able to make this taste really really good so now that I've got my onions cooking I have some garlic here I'm going to go ahead and get probably about I don't know 10 cloves should I do this whole head I don't know I'm the type of person that if a recipe says use five cloves of garlic then I'm probably going to double it I'm out of my garlic pucks if you can believe it that's how much I love garlic I've used them all this is some garlic I purchased from a local farmer the farmer I bought my onions from this is probably more garlic than I need for today's recipe so I'll just go ahead and since I'm chopping garlic I'm going to go ahead and chop the whole head and I'll put half of it in the fridge and next time I cook in the next few days I won't have to chop garlic cuz honestly it's not my favorite kitchen chore to do that's why I like to have a whole bunch of it done in the freezer ready for easy prep the curry recipe that I found that I'm going to link for you it has things like lime leaves and Curry leaves and staranise lemongrass I'm going to try to grow lemongrass this next year I've never grown that I've never cooked it before I have some relatives that just traveled to Thailand and they took a curry making class and they made green curry red curry mumum Curry and a yellow curry and they made it with a mortar and pestl and that those type of trips to me are like my dream vacations is traveling the world and taking cooking classes around the world that just sounds like a dream to me they were showing me all these beautiful pictures of all this incredible Cuisine they were eating and it looked pretty incredible Josh and I have take taken cooking classes together and some of our most fun dates we've ever been on together are taking cooking classes I think I don't know if he thinks they're the most fun but I have the most fun I'm going to rinse my knife off I'm just going to stir these onions all right that does look like a little bit more garlic than we need for today so I'm going to use one of these containers get some of this garlic in there and now next time I need garlic I have it ready to go let's get this into with our onions the makings of oh my goodness the house smells incredible is really gar like an onion sautan on the stove is there anything better than that I don't know probably the silliest silliest way to transfer garlic into a pot we also need to sauté the spices a lot of spices are fat soluble and so the best way to really maximize their flavor when it comes to building some sort of sauce like this is to actually toast them and so I've got my curry paste here I'm trying to think if I actually want to serve this over r I just went ahead and filled up my rice container or if I want to make this more like a soup and serve it with noodles cuz I do have some noodles that I could serve it with I'm going have to think about that we don't have to make a decision quite yet I'm going to get this whole jar this is a 4 oz jar I'm getting all this curry paste into my pot now I'm going to add coriander cumin Korean red pepper flake two things of Frozen Ginger pucks that's fresh ginger I froze some curry powder mostly for the turmeric in that cuz I can't find my turmeric we're going to sauté this until those spices have deepened in color I'm going to add a cinnamon stick too this is Salon cinnamon which has the you know anti-inflammatory properties which is what my family could use right now I'm going to add a few more ingredients and I think I'm going to turn this into a soup I feel like that is probably going to be a little bit more nourishing for us today garlic chili paste that in there I don't want to make this too spicy but the warmth can kind of help with a head cold and I toast that this is ready for the next step I thought I turned the stove off I didn't I just ran downstairs to get some broth so what I'm going to do is add my pumpkin so we're basically making I guess a pumpkin soup it's just Pumpkin Curry soup so we're going to get this in there this is going to be good I can tell that this is about as much energy as I have for what we're doing today it's been kind of slow around here with not feeling the greatest but we're managing and we're upright which is great so I've got four cups or one qu of broth here put that in there and then I have these noodles I got these at Trader Joe's they look really good so this is going to be good they're a wheat flour noodle I have two cans of coconut milk so I went ahead and put my instant pot and rice cooker away because we're going to have noodles instead and I'm not going to make salad rolls that was a little too ambitious I might need to thin that out just a little bit more but for now that's good once the coconut milk melts we're going to let this simmer while that's simmering we can get the lids on our Marian berries get these in the freezer I like these because they stack really well and if you've ever watched any restaurant type shows or anything like that anything about restaurants this is what they use in restaurants a lot for their me and Pla so it makes me feel a little more professional oh my goodness that stuff is so good so this is ours I'm going to put this in the fridge and these are going to go in the freezer for my mom when I was out in the freezer putting those Maran berries away I grabbed a thing of shredded zucchini this is three cups of shredded zucchini I was going to shred carrots in and do some Veggie prep I guess the only veggies I really have in the house that are fresh are carrots and cabbage from the garden but I think you know what we're going to do we're just going to open this bag of frozen zucchini and we're going to pop this whole thing in there and we're going to let this cook and become really tender this is going to be our veggie in our curry soup easy peasy the beauty of when it comes to Winter after food preservation season is you can have meals really quickly I could have used those frozen onions and this would have gone even faster and I could have used garlic powder too I'm getting some things ready for tomorrow and I jumped because I totally forgot I had breakfast in the oven and it is perfect it smells incredible I think my smelling is a little bit off usually that's when I know it's done is cuz I can smell it but it's perfectly done it's not overcooked I don't like to overcook it cuz then it can dry out but that is pumpkin baked oatmeal for breakfast so I'm going to set this and let this cool and then I will slice it up and put it in these little glass containers for breakfast serving sizes so let's try our soup it might need some adjusting with seasonings before we put the the noodles in it it's hot all right ooh good amount of Ginger I think that's the perfect amount of Ginger that's so delicious I do think it needs a little bit of sugar so I'm going to put maybe one 2 tablespoons of sugar in there and then I think I'm going to add I thought I had coconut aminos up here I don't have any coconut aminos I have soy sauce but I don't think it needs any more salt and I don't want to run downstairs and grab coconut aminos and have that ant soy sauce open in my refrigerator so I'm just grabbing another spoon let me show you what this looks like looks great I don't even think I'm going to blend it I was thinking I might need to add a little bit more broth or water but I think the zucchini gave just the right amount of water I do have some chicken in the fridge that was just some plain grilled chicken I think I'm probably going to have mine vegetarian just because that sounds good to me but Josh will probably warm up some of that grilled chicken and put that in there let me show you oh these actually come with seasoning packets I didn't realize that I thought it was just the noodles so my oh no take that out so here's what tonight's dinner is looking like those noodles puffed up quite a bit more than I was anticipating but I think that's going to be just a really hearty yummy warm bowl of soup Josh is just getting ready for dinner so I'm just going to do a little taste test here you know if I had more thought I would probably enjoy some fresh lime squeezed on the top top of this and sprinkle fresh or even fried shallots and cilantro but I don't even feel like running out to the Garden I think this is going to be really good just like this I just really want to try what the texture of these noodles is going to be like and I'm considering this a one pot dinner because I've got pumpkin in here and zucchini in here m m okay they're a little bit still Al Dente so they need to cook for a few more minutes but I really am excited for the texture of these noodles and the flavor of the soup with the noodles it really calms down it's not too spicy I don't think Josh is going to think that's too spicy I can't help it I'm going to turn the stove off let the noodles finish cooking they will with the residual heat and I'm going to go Harvest some cilantro the fresh air and getting in the garden will do me some good we've had snow and this is what the cilantro is still looking like I just washed the cilantro I'm going to use some scissors and just cut it right into the bowl I think this we can save for a different day friend thank you so much for taking time out of your day to spend time with me as we just checked a few things off the list and we're just continuing down the road of preserving last year's Garden Harvest I really think the only two food preservation things we need to do from last or I'm saying last year but 2023 is Garden probably manage the potatoes at some point because there are quite a few potatoes down there and we have not eaten through them and I need to work on eating through them or doing something with them and some of the onions that I grew I know that they weren't cured as well as the onions I purchased from a farm so I'm just going to need to keep keep a close eye on those and make sure we go through them and they don't go bad so thank you so much for being you for being here if you want to watch a few of my other videos I can pop them here you can go enjoy between now and next upload I am going to go rest and it feels good to be able to check things off the list again and know your limits and call it when it's time to be called so Josh and I are going to enjoy this beautiful warm soup thank you for being here thank you for being you and I can't wait to see you next time bye friend

Channel: Acre Homestead

Views: 241,758

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Id: p_ZAslmJoq8

Length: 41min 27sec (2487 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 28 2023