Chilly Chickens

 So far, this winter had dumped snow, ice and sub zero temperatures

on us.

The girls have been tucked in 

with plenty of bedding and a run

protected from the wind.

We made it through the last batch of cold temps,

tonight it's a low of -1.

Windchill of -10.

That's cold.

Hoping the girls get through this okay too.

Preserving Pumpkins

It might seem a little early to start talking about pumpkins,

but I had some that were ripe.

Actually, I only had 1 ripe one,

but because the pumpkin vines were decimated

I wanted to preserve what I had.

This is a pretty easy method that doesn't require peeling the pumpkin.

First, Cut off the stem and cut the pumpkin in half.

Oh, and preheat the oven to 350

Scoop out the guts with a spoon.

Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray 

and place the pumpkins flat on the sheet.

Bake at 350 until they're done.  

I don't have a specific time to cook them.

Small pumpkins won't take long, thick pumpkins will.

Basically you want the inside mushy.

Scoop out the pumpkin with a spoon

leaving the shell behind.

Let it cool

then bag it up and freeze.

I was thrilled with how easy this was.

This year, my pumpkin cookies will be made completely from scratch!

And I decided to plant  another hill of pumpkins

(and hope I can keep the squash bugs at bay).

Even though we won't have them for Halloween,

we'll have them for pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread and pumpkin cookies.

Freezing Corn

We managed to pick 46 ears of corn the other day.

Out of the 46 there were about 5 that weren't good either because of bugs,

bad spots or not being developed enough.

So after eating some, 

I had 30 something ears of corn to do something with.

I opted to freeze it, not because of my canning phobia,

but because many recommend freezing as the best method.

First you husk the corn.

Remove as much silk as possible- using a brush if needed.

The Corn then needs to be blanched,

so start a pot of water boiling while you husk.

Place cobs in boiling water for 4 minutes.

Immediately place cobs in a bowl of ice water.

This stops the cooking process.

Leave in the ice water for about the same amount of time you blanched them

(4 minutes).

Next, cut the corn off the cob.

There were suggestions to use a bundt pan to hold the corn.

This would work great if you have fat cobs.

I didn't, so I found that just holding it on a plate was better

(the cob kept sliding further into the hole in the pan.

Your corn will look clumped, but don't worry, 

it will break apart into single kernels when you bag it.

The finished product- 2 quart bags of fresh corn ready for the freezer.