Cheap & Cheerful Suppers Plus Another Pumpkin Recipe

This is Tuesday's dinner with the pumpkin soufflé. The soufflé isn't a super fluffy dish, but the egg does hold it all together and makes it lighter than straight pumpkin.

Friday (daughter made dinner)
scratch pepperoni pizza
roasted pumpkin*
frozen peas

Saturday (cook-out around the fire ring -- fun time!)
hot dogs
homemade buns, using part of the dough I'd made for a loaf of French bread this day

Swiss chard* sautéed in bacon fat
steamed carrots
s'mores

Sunday
bean and cheese burritos in homemade flour tortillas, beans cooked from dried
cabbage and nasturtium leaf* slaw
roasted pumpkin cubes*
leftover Halloween cookies

Monday
roasted chicken with gravy
bread, celery*, and sage* dressing, using chicken stock from freezer to moisten
sweet potato oven fries, roasted in beef fat
sautéed beet greens*, using some of the chicken fat from the roast chicken
pecan pie (courtesy of my daughters)

Tuesday
leftover chicken heated in salsa with avocado, tomato*, cilantro* (last red tomato from garden, a couple of yellow tomatoes left now)
brown rice
pumpkin* soufflé
stewed prunes*

Wednesday (daughter made dinner)

chicken and vegetable soup (vegetables -- celery*, onion, purple potatoes*, garlic*, carrots, frozen peas, herbs*)

chocolate chip muffins

Thursday

Shepherd's Pie, using beef,  celery*, carrot, carrot leaves*, beet greens*, onions*, garlic*, nasturtium leaves*, herbs* , and beef stock from freezer, all under a mashed potato topping. (I used the potato peels to make oven-roasted potato peels as a snack this afternoon. Yum!)

fig-applesauce* on the side

*denote garden produce

Pumpkin Soufflé

When I need an orange vegetable side dish, and what I have is pumpkin puree (and I want this to be a "fork-able" dish), I turn it into a soufflé of sorts.

Here's how I make it:

1 pint pumpkin puree
1 large egg
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
about 1/4 teaspoon combined cinnamon and nutmeg
pat of butter to top casserole

Butter a small baking dish (I use a couple of small white Corningware round bakers).

Beat egg well with a fork in a medium bowl. Beat in the pumpkin, sugar, salt, and spices. Pour into the prepared baking dish and top with the butter pat.

Bake at 350 to 375 degrees F, whatever I need for the other foods I'm baking. If not baking anything else, I bake this at 350 degrees F. Total baking time -- about 20-25 minutes. A knife inserted in center will come out clean.

I use 2 of these Corningware bakers
for this recipe.
5 1/2 inches at opening and 2 inches tall

Notes

If what you're accustomed to for chicken soup comes from a can, cooking it at home adds a seriously amazing aroma to the kitchen. On Thursday I simmered the carcass from our most recent roasted whole chicken. The house smelled delicious all day. As we had chicken soup on Wednesday, I chose to freeze the resulting chicken stock with meat for making a chicken and vegetable soup at some future moment.

You may have noticed that there have been fewer garden veggies and more store bought ones in our meals the last couple of weeks. Earlier this week I started a batch of lentil sprouts, our first for this season. Lentil sprouts add bulk to our winter salads and sandwiches for just pennies.

Grocery shopping

I went to Walmart last Friday and picked up a couple of things, a bunch of bananas, a 3 lb bag of sweet potatoes, and a pound of lean grass fed ground beef. I spent $11.06, also my total for the month. (I also picked up cleaning supplies, as we were out of liquid dish detergent.) I'll be going to WinCo in the next couple of days and do a big stock-up then. My spending total will jump from that.

What was the best meal you had this week?

Your Best Hosting the Holidays Tips

Okay, I was freaking out yesterday, thinking I couldn't do all I needed to do for Thanksgiving, then Christmas Eve, then Christmas Day, then New Year's. There's the cooking, cleaning, planning games, and generally being a good host.

Then I remembered that I have done these holidays every year, and I have managed because I plan it all out and do some work in advance.

So I thought I'd share a tip, the ask for your input.

My Tip

For hosting and cooking for a big holiday meal. . .

Cook in advance, in particular make a freezer-stable pie pastry in advance and store in the freezer. I made this recipe this morning and froze it in 5 portions. They thaw overnight in the fridge before I need to bake the pie. For Thanksgiving this year, I'll be making 1 single-crust pie and 1 double-crust pie, using 3 of the 5 portions of this dough. I'll be using the other 2 dough portions in a sweet and savory meat pie for New Year's Eve. (There's a fun name for this meat pie -- Medieval Game Pie.)

Fool-Proof Pie Pastry (enough for 5 single crusts)

4 cups flour (if you want to use some whole grain, you can use 1 cup whole wheat + 3 cups white flour)
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1  3/4 cups shortening
1 large egg
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon vinegar

In a large bowl, stir flour, salt and sugar together.  Cut in shortening.  

In a small bowl or the measuring cup from the shortening, beat the egg with a fork then stir in water and vinegar. Pour over the flour mixture and mix until dough comes together. Chill for 30 minutes. 

Divide into 5 portions and shape each into a flat, round patty. Wrap each in plastic wrap.

This dough can handle extra flour, if needed, for rolling. Extra flour and handling will not toughen the baked product. 

The dough keeps, refrigerated, for 3-5 days, or frozen for several months. Thaw completely before rolling out.

Your turn -- tell us your best tip for hosting and cooking for a big holiday. Do you play any games after Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years dinner? Do you prepare foods in advance? Any that can be frozen? Feel free to provide links to recipes or the recipes, themselves in the comments.