Another Experiment With a Tiny Casserole Dish

 Recently, I indulged myself in a kitchen experiment utilizing one of those little glass baking dishes I'd bought at Goodwill back in 2024.  For a while, I'd been toying with the idea of trying to make a small deep dish pie.  Because, while DH and I both love pie, we really don't need to eat an entire 9" pie between the two of us in the few days that a pie stays good.  If I could make a little pie in my little casserole dish that would enable us to still enjoy a pie now and then without overeating it (because it would be sacrilege to let a pie go bad). 

Finally I decided what the heck, I might as well go for it.  The great thing about kitchen experiments that involve desserts is that unless you burn them to a crisp, even the flops are usually still edible.

By my calculations if I halved my single pie crust recipe for a 9" pie, that should probably be enough dough to fit my little glass dish.

Pie crust:

2 Tbsp +2 tsp lard (shortening)

1/2 cup flour

pinch of salt

1 1/2 Tbsp cold water

Cut lard into the flour and salt until crumbly.  Stir in water until moistened.

Roll into an 8" circle on a lightly floured surface.

I gently eased the rolled out pie crust dough into the little dish, making sure it went all the way to the bottom, then trimmed it to about 1" more than the dish's opening.  After folding the excess under and fluting the edge, I poked the dough with a fork before baking at 475 degrees for about 10 minutes until lightly browned.

As you can see, the crust shrank during baking.  Next time I won't worry about trimming the excess; I'll try to leave more on the edge if I can get it to not flop down the outside of the dish.  Hopefully that way, even with shrinkage it will stay above the rim.

Once the crust had cooled to room temperature, I took a box of instant chocolate pudding from the pantry, and mixed it with 1 3/4 cup milk for about 2 minutes.  Then I poured roughly a cup (maybe a cup and a quarter?) of the pudding into the cooled pie shell--almost to the top of the crust--and put it in the fridge to set and chill.  

The leftover pudding was a nice snack for the baker during kitchen clean up 😊

At dessert time, I whipped up a little bit of heavy cream with about 1/2 tsp of sugar, cut the pie in half, and served it with a big dollop of whipped cream.

YUM!  Next time, I might try a tiny fruit pie; that will be more challenging to see if I can figure out how to adapt the cooking time so that the fruit filling (probably apples) is neither crunchy and underdone nor cooked to mush.  My current theory is that the cooking time won't be very much different than a regular sized pie, since the casserole dish is just as deep, or maybe a tad deeper than, a pie plate, so even though the diameter is smaller the thickness of the filling is about the same.

Finding Nirvana in a Piece of Buttered Toast

 I have been baking our bread for more years than I can accurately remember.  I'm pretty sure it's been this whole century, but at this point in my nearly 55 years of being on this earth, there's a lot of minor details of life before this little place here that I just don't remember.  (We built this house in 2002/2003).

This summer, after returning from our family vacation to Myrtle Beach in July, I found myself just totally swamped and overwhelmed with trying to run my horse business, catch up on tending the garden, do household chores, make sure the bills got paid on time, and have time for family members as needed (as they needed me).  That, plus the unrelenting heat and the fact that we don't have air conditioning so often my house was 80+ degrees inside--to hit 88 was not uncommon--led me to decide that of the many things that had to give so I could not break down physically or mentally, one of them was going to be baking bread.  

And so, for part of July, and all of August and September, I bought our bread at the store.  Seems like every loaf I was trying a different brand, different style, etc., because none of them were to my liking.  

Some were too 'mushy' as I call the airy fluff that is prevalent on the grocery store shelves.  Some were reasonably dense, until I toasted them.  Then they either shrank (what?!? shrinky dink bread??) or became the texture of an unused brand-new sponge back in the days before sponges came presoftened with antimicrobial whatever-it-is that "they" put on them.  Some breads were too sweet, some were too chunky with grains, some were just not right in a way I couldn't put my finger on.

Instead of giving me a break by not making our bread myself, finding a 'good' loaf of bread at the store became a stressor.

In October, with the weather cooler, I started baking our bread from scratch again.  That first loaf I cut into was so good! Oh, what joy I got from eating a simple piece of buttered toast.  The texture was right.  The flavor was right.  The toast that came out of the toaster was the same size as the bread that had gone into the toaster.  What bliss!

I never really thought about toast as a sacred object, but after nearly three months of unfulfilling bread, the sense of nirvana that simple piece of buttered toast brought me was amazing.

Simple joys are the best kind.

A New Roof For The Chicken Coop

 DH built my chicken coop 22 years ago. For the first few years, its roof consisted of OSB covered in tar paper.  At some point after 2006, he used some scrap steel to cover the tar paper, making it more weather resistant and prolonging the life of the roof.

While the steel roof was better than just the tar paper alone, it had not been intended to be permanent.  The steel used was long, narrow pieces and there weren't enough of them to cover the roof if DH ran them the correct way, which would have been so that water would run off down the slope of the roof.  Instead, he ran them the 'wrong' way, which meant that the ridges in the steel prevented the water from running entirely off.  

That wasn't really a big deal, at first.  But, as the years went by and temporary became sorta-permanent (or whatever you'd call almost two decades), strong winds and storms worked on those horizontal seams of the roof, loosening a few of the pieces of steel and also allowing rain to get driven up under it in spots.

It also meant that the water that did run off didn't exit at the back of the coop, but at the sides, typically at the base of a ridge, including right where I stood to latch and unlatch the door of the coop where I go in and out.  Not a big deal either, except on those shoulder season ice cold rains, where it would pour on my head or down the collar of my jacket--BRRR!

For the last few years, whenever we'd have a big storm from the west (which is where most of our storms come from), water would leak through the roof and into the coop in a couple of spots.  This year, one of those leaks got really bad, and after each storm I'd have a large spot of soaked wood shavings/chicken litter inside the coop.  Which is neither efficient use of the bedding/shavings, nor is it good for the plywood floor.

Finally, DH got to 'replace coop roof' on his To-Do List.  He had scrap steel from building his shop, and thought it probably was enough to cover the coop.  On Saturday morning, he tore off the old steel.

After lunch he started putting the new steel on.  I helped here and there, such as handing up the pieces of steel so he didn't have to climb up and down the ladder for each one, snapping the chalk line for where to cut, holding the overhanging ends of the steel while he cut them, and operating the tractor for our redneck steel brake.

DH had decided to bend the steel overhanging the short sides of the coop, to help weatherproof that so driving rains couldn't get under those exposed ends (he has plans for trimming out/covering the front and back ends).  Since we don't own a steel brake--or even an aluminum brake--he DIY'ed one with a chunk of oak 4"x4" and me manuevering the tractor forks to put pressure in the right spots to bend the steel.

So now the chicken coop has a new roof.  Where the metal runs in the correct direction and the seams run front to back instead of side-to-side. And water won't run off onto my head and down the collar of my jacket when I'm trying to go in or out collecting eggs and feeding and watering the chickens.

Photo-ful Week

 This past week, in pictures.

Saturday, at a small old-fashioned (no agri-tainment, only cider and doughnuts) cider mill with most of the grandkids.

Sunday, Rascal's flag football game, where Faline cheered.

Monday, sugar maple leaves getting bright.

Tuesday, Jedi loving his after-ride itch-relieving roll, and the last of the flowers from the garden.

Wednesday, beautiful weather could it be Indian Summer?

Thursday, sunrise looking like another great weather day.

Friday, cranes in the pasture and the maples are popping!

Saturday again all ready, caught the pre-dawn bruised looking sky.

Make My Horse Life Easier Tip #12

Here's another tip/tool that I use in my horse life: a putty knife.  

Specifically, one with a metal blade, not plastic.  This is another one of those things that you can buy for less than a foo-foo coffee drink, and use it for years to make your horse related life easier.  Especially if you are maintaining a barn.

In the horse barn, it is not used for caulking, or spreading drywall mud (er, joint compound).  But it can be used for several other uses.

Like scraping poop from the stall walls.  To be blunt, shit happens.  And, occassionally, runny shit that ends up on the wall happens.  A putty knife is an excellent tool for scraping it off, especially after it has dried.

A putty knife is also excellent for scraping down sawdust/bedding build up in the seams or under the corners of the mats on the stall floors.  The tighter the seams on your mats, the less problem buildup is.  My floor mats were put in by DH and I, with engineering precision and construction knowledge.  In nearly three years of existence, they have not shifted.  However, I've worked at a lot of barns where the mats weren't put in with a micrometer, as it were, and over a period of months those mats tended to shift in tiny increments allowing sawdust and other small particles of things to get under them and push the mats up over time.  A putty knife is handy for not only getting into narrow spots, but also for scraping those packed lumps of stuff under the edges of the mats down to the actual floor so that the mats can lay flat again.

Similarly, I use mine for scraping out/removing pieces of pine shavings that tend to get worked between the stabilizer board and the bottom wall board of our stall dividers. Especially the ones on either side of the stall of a particular horse who likes to occasionally body slam or otherwise shove on the wall.  Such sudden impacts of force tend to push out the bottom of the stabilizer board just enough, say 1/4" to 1/2", that shavings end up behind it, then get packed together and I can't just tap the wall back into alignment with my rubber mallet. So, out comes my putty knife, and I use it to push or otherwise work the shavings out from behind the stabilizer board.

Before using the putty knife;

note the gap between the vertical board and the lowest 2-3 horizontal boards.

After, shavings removed and boards put back tightly together.

All is right with the world again ;0)

A putty knife is also good for scraping loose (so it can be swept up and removed) the buildup of fine hay chaff that tends to accumulate over time--in stalls-- where the wall meets the floor, especially in corners.  Some people just ignore that crud, leaving it there.  Not me.  Because that, with the addition of moisture (which could be simply from humid air), is the formula for mold to grow.  And we all know mold is not good for horses (or us) to breathe in or otherwise ingest.  So removing that cruddy buildup with my putty knife is a part of regular barn maintainence.

Chaff/dust crud

Inserting putty knife from the underneath.

Lift and loosen.

Repeat other side

Ahh, clean and healthy again.

A Few More Puzzles

 In August, I did several puzzles.  We had a few weather spells--either stormy and wet, or too hot and humid to work outside all day, and that gave me an excuse to do more than one puzzle that month.  All in the name of cleaning and decluttering, lol, as every puzzle I complete will be leaving my house. (See here for explanation)

Quilts

Lighthouses

Baskets of berries/cherries

September was a really busy month, inside the house and outside.  I did manage to squeeze in one puzzle near the end of the month though.

Fresh foods

So that brings my Left My House tally of puzzles to six since June.  Which is great.  Not just because doing puzzles is relaxing yet brain-engaging, not just because six less puzzle boxes frees up storage space, but because I kinda brought home three more puzzles from a thrifting trip last week.  😆

What can I say?  I have a weakness for puzzles.  Especially good quality ones found cheap.

Sewing Stuff September 29 & 30 (and beyond)

 I almost just lumped these two days onto the fourth week of September summary, but my literal mind just couldn't do it; they weren't part of that week, afterall.  A week is just seven days, not nine.  This is not a rule that was meant to be broken.

So, instead, I decided to do a separate post for those two days.  It just made more sense.  Plus, I could do a wrap-up for the entire month along with reporting on what I did in my sewing area the final two days of National Sewing Month.

September 29, I cut fabric for outer borders into strips.  Then I sewed the strips together to make them longer, and cut the correct length for each border.  After that, the instructions said to sew the cornerstones to the top and bottom outer border pieces.  So I did.  Once that was done, I sewed on two of the inner borders; the left and right sides.

September 30, I sewed on the top and bottom inner borders and one of the side outer borders.

October 1, I sewed on just the other side border. It was a rainy day, so I didn't feel too bad about my growing list of outdoor chores needing to be done.

October 3, I sewed on the top and bottom borders, making this a completed flimsy!

I really, really want to get this finished. But we had good weather, the rest of the days so far in October, and I've been slaving working away on my outdoor chore list instead of doing daily sewing .  I will, though.  One day soon, even if the sky is blue and sunny, I'll take another 15 minutes or so to get the binding strips cut and prepped.  After that, if I can get DH to help me keep all the layers lined up for sandwiching and pin-basting, I could probably get it quilted, bound, a hanging sleeve added to the back, and display it on my mudroom wall by the time firearm deer season arrives (November 15th).  

When I decided, in September, to dive into this quilt kit, that was kind of my goal: to see if I could get the top made in September, then take time in October to do the finishing.  Since I'm not planning on any fancy quilting design to finish it with, the sandwiching (without wrinkles) will probably take me almost as long to do as the actual quilting will.

Stay tuned. . . hopefully I'll be showing you pictures of a finished quilt on my wall in November!

All in all, I'm glad I joined in on National Sewing Month and didn't say "oh, I can't do that, I have no time".  Aiming for just 15 minutes a day was a reasonable goal, and it did add up to quite a bit of progress: 

•  I cleaned up a large portion of both my sewing table and my cutting table, getting fabrics from past projects finally put away in the correct bins as well as moving shit stuff out of the sewing area that had been wrongly dumped on the tables.
• I gave away two boxes of stuff that I had no use for (things 'passed on' to me from either my mom or my mother-in-law whether it was something I wanted or not).
• I discovered some real treasures (to me) in a box of DH's grandmother's quilting things that's been in my house for at least six years, unopened, in with other stuff my mother-in-law sent down to me.
• I got some mending done that had been sitting for at least a few weeks (or a few years) waiting for me to 'have time' to get to it.
• I finished a project that DD2 had started years ago, had problems with, and gave to me in frustration.  Not only did I get that project done and out of my sewing area, it went to DD2's house because when I sent her a picture of it finished she asked if I minded if she took it back.  
• I tackled a quilt kit I'd purchased more than a year before but hadn't gotten around to actually opening and making.  This was something I'd bought as a just for me, not to make for someone else, because I loved the way it looked and wanted to add it to my decor (my non-existent decor, LOL).  To work on it was a joy, and I'm really looking forward to finishing and using it yet this year, not some unknown future date that may or may not ever arrive.