Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie

I found this recipe on Facebook recently. We have sooooo much pumpkin from our garden. I have pumpkin in my freezer from last year and they are growing like crazy again this year. Kaleb won't need to go to the pumpkin patch. He can just come to grandpa house to pick 10 pumpkins. lol

I made this cheesecake a couple weeks ago with a gluten free crust. I bought gluten free graham crackers. As the cheesecake sat over night the crust kind of caramelized. It was so delicious! One taste and I didn't want to share it at all.  I am planning to make this again with a nut crust instead. 

Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie

You Will Need:

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crust

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 pinch ground cloves

1 pinch ground nutmeg

1/2 cup frozen whipped topping, thawed

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).

In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Blend in eggs one at a time. Remove 1 cup of batter and spread into bottom of crust; set aside.

Add pumpkin, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to the remaining batter and stir gently until well blended. Carefully spread over the batter in the crust.

Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until center is almost set. Allow to cool, then refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight. Cover with whipped topping before serving.

Pictures from Saturday

I don't know what is going on with my phone, but all the pictures are grainy. I have never had this issue in the past. It is very frustrating! Hopefully I will be able to fix it. I take a lot of pictures with my phone throughout the week that I use for my blog. 

Here are pictures from Saturday. Kaleb spent the day with us. It is always an adventure when he comes over. 

I sent this picture to Amber and we had a conversation back & forth as to what Kaleb was thinking.

"hey lady it is too early for pictures"

" I haven't even had time to brush my hair or my gums"

lol

Art started to till our garden. I think we might be planting our garden based on North Dakota standards this year. 

I have been wearing a scarf whenever I go outside to make sure the sun does not get on near my scar.

Stay tuned on Tuesday for my strawberry chicken spinach salad post. 

Mr. Sammy pouts when Kaleb comes over because Sammy is not the center of attention. He was outside pouting because I wouldn't let him lay in the bedroom while Kaleb napped. Sammy started barking, so I chased him out of the bedroom. 

Kaleb flying on Grandpa!

Kaleb loved crinkling the M&M package. This picture made me crack up because it looks like hey where are my M&M. 

DINNER! 

Our meal cost about $5 bucks. The chicken was on clearance at Fresh & Easy. I had bought the chicken for $1.75 for 2 chicken breasts and froze them. They had a stuffing on the top along with mushrooms and a gravy to pour over the top. The kale came from our garden and the rice cost about $2.50. It was a fabulous meal.

Canning

Last week I HAD to can before our tomatoes went bad. We have been overrun with tomatoes.  I made 4 quarts, 6 pints and 8 half pints of salsa. This year I made the salsa a little different. Usually I cook the salsa prior to putting it in jars. This year I put everything in the food processor and then put it in jars. I sealed the jars by putting them in a water bath for about 30 minutes. Put the jars in a pot with water at least 1 inch over the jars lids, let boil for about 30 minutes, take out, let cool and check your jars to make sure they are sealed the next day. Your jars are sealed if the jar lids don't pop up and down. 

I also made tomato soup and spaghetti sauce. I will post the links to the recipes I used on a later post. 

Salsa!!!!

I made a ton of salsa from garden.  I love homemade salsa!  I made my own recipe, so I can eat it while dieting.  I also made a yellow salsa. I am interested to see how it turns out.

 

Fill up a large pot with chopped tomatoes, 1 very large onion or 2 medium onions, 3 green peppers, 10 cloves of garlic, 2 packets of Stevia sugar.  Cook for about 20 minutes. Let cool & put in your jars.  Super easy and simple!

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes & MORE tomatoes!

Art & I picked all the ripe tomatoes on Sunday.  The plan was to pick all the tomatoes and make salsa.  I thought there was only going to be enough tomatoes this round to make salsa. A BIG Laugh right here!!! Boy was I wrong.

I made 3 quarts and 9 pints of salsa. I didn't even put a dent in the tomatoes. I should have taken another picture of the tomatoes after I made salsa. I then made 2 pots of tomato sauce. Recipes will be coming up soon. I canned 2 quarts of tomato sauce, 3 pints, sent one large bowl of sauce to the in laws, and froze 2 containers of sauce. 

We still have TONS of tomatoes that are on the vine green. Next round will be more salsa.  We eat a lot of salsa throughout the year.  I am trying to can enough, so we don't have to buy any in 2011/2012.

Above picture is all the tomatoes, pumpkin, jalapenos and a couple cucumbers.

Garden

Here is the garden in progress.  We have about 100 tomato plants in the garden or in the planter boxes.  One of the planter boxes Art put some soil from his worms & the plants are growing like CRAZY!  We bought some worms to put in the ground to help with the terrible soil.  We also dumped numerous bags of top soil in the garden.

Garden

I help some with the garden, but Art does the majority of the work.  I just want to show some pictures of me tilling the garden.  I tilled almost the entire garden.  Art had to do a little more after I was done.  It was hard work with the tough soil.  Watch for pictures of our 100 tomato plants, a couple cucumber and pepper plants.  I need to start buying jars to can with this Fall.  I am going to have tomatoes busting out my front door.

Swiss Chard

Last year we started growing our plants from seeds during the winter.  This way when Spring time came we would have plants to put in our garden.  We decided to try something new swiss chard.  I wasn't even sure what we were going to do with it at the time. 

The next time we went to the farmers market we picked up some swiss chard to try. I made it like creamed spinach. I had bought the red swiss chard & my cream then looked pink. lol It tasted very good, so we kept buying it.

Below is a picture of some swiss chard in our garden (along with some onions & weeds) that has been growing non stop since last Spring.  We have harvested the swiss chard at least 10 times in the past year.  It thrives in the winter months in Northern California.  I still can't believe it kept growing for an entire year.  Looks like we will be having some swiss chard this weekend!

Tomato Plants

Yesterday Art transplanted a large amount of the tomato plants from the starter kit to planters.  Once the weather is nicer they will all be transplanted to the planter boxes he built.  Here are some pictures of about half our tomato plants we have started from seeds.

Below are the plants in the "nursery" aka as the craft room!

Planter Boxes

Art made a planter box for our tomato plants.  We have 50+ tomato plants that are currently growing in my CRAFT ROOM!!!! He has turned the craft room into a nursery for plants.  Art tore apart a couple pallets to make these planter boxes.  He is planning to make 2-3 more. 

I want to be able to can salsa, stewed tomatoes, whole tomatoes, tomato sauce and speghetti sauce.  My goal is to can enough that we don't have to buy any at the store next year.

I will post pictures once we have tomato plants in the box.

Salsa

The salsa cooking

Canning the Salsa

I canned my own salsa this afternoon from the tomatoes we grew in the garden.

3/4 full of tomatoes-dutch oven
3 green peppers chopped
2 large onions
2 cloves garlic
1/4 c. brown sugar
couple teaspoons salt
hot peppers to your taste

Bring to a slow boil simmer about 20 minutes.

I then canned it in pints. I made 14 pints of salsa and one medium bowl for now. The recipe I followed is my moms. I learned though that I like it A LOT spicier than I did as a kid. In the future I will add 8 hot peppers instead of 4. I also used the food processor and chopped everything too small. I haven't canned since I lived on the farm which was about 15+ years ago.

Homemade Pesto

Art grew basil in the garden. I used my friend Krystal's pesto recipe and made 4 cups of pesto this evening.

Here is the recipe. Super easy!!!

Basil Pesto
Adapted from Barefoot Contessa Back to the Basics
Ingredients:
1/2 cup pine nuts
9 garlic cloves
5 cups of basil leaves, packed
1 1/4 cups of olive oil
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preparation:
Preheat the oven for 350 degrees. Add the walnuts and pine nuts to a jelly sheet pan and toast for 10 minutes. Set aside and cool.

In a food processor, mix the pine nuts and garlic to a paste. Add the basil leaves, salt and pepper and mix well.

Slowly add the olive oil with the food processor on. Blend until pesto is almost at a puree. Add the Parmesan cheese and mix for another minute. Make sure the pesto is mixed well and scrape down the sides if needed.

Transfer the pesto into a container and store in fridge or freezer. If storing in freezer, add a small drizzle of olive oil with a plastic wrap placed directly on top of the pesto. Let no air touch the pesto or it will turn brown. Yield: 4 cups

We have a lot more that will be ready in a couple weeks. We will be stocked with pesto for the year! This pesto recipe is SUPER easy and fast. Maybe took me 10 minutes after I roasted the pine nuts.