sorry i haven't written in so long...here, i baked you a pie.

homemade punkin pie with a gluten-free crust

so i've been experimenting with flour blends. i've been baking wheat free/low gluten for a long time but not necessarily entirely gluten free. i'm trying to see if its practical or necessary for me to eliminate gluten all together. here is the flour mix i used for the crust. feel free to experiment yourself and tweak it as needed. : )

2 1/2 c oat flour (if you need completely gluten free be sure to get certified gluten free oats. oats are naturally gluten free but are often processed on the same machinery as wheat and can pick it up in the processing)
2 1/2 c brown rice flour
2 1/2 c sorghum flour
1 1/2 c buckwheat
1 c potato flour
1/2 c arrowroot starch
1 1/2 T xanthan gum

this makes about 10 1/2 c of flour mix so you'll have a bit for later.

pastry crust recipe:

1 1/4 c flour (high altitude add about 1/4c more)
1/4 t salt
2 t cinnamon
1/3 c butter or coconut oil
4-6 T cold water

stir together the flour and salt, cut in the fat (with a pastry blender, fork, or clean, dry hands) until the pieces are about the size of a pea. sprinkle 1 T of water over the mix and toss with a fork. repeat until moistened.

(I often find that with flours like oat or rice, they seem to like more moist as opposed to less so experiment with this to find what works for your flours and climate. you don't want to add so much water that the dough becomes sticky but you do want it to be able to form into a ball fairly easily. I think this time around i may have added too much butter as the dough was a bit crumbly-i tried to guess instead of measuring- while the crust was still fabulous it wouldn't hold together for me to transfer to the pie plate. i ended up piecing most of it together in the plate. was this from the butter or the flour blend? no matter. still tasty.)

this crust looks a little bit darker than you may be used to because of the buckwheat.

on a floured surface, roll the dough out from the center trying to make it circle-ish. place in pie plate either by wrapping it onto your pin or piecing it together : ) trim edges and flute.

punkin pie filling:

now i used homemade filling made from a pumpkin we had picked from our trip to the farm. making your own filling is slightly more time consuming but it sooo much more delicious than canned words can't describe it. it is totally worth it! to get your filling cut open your li'l punkins and scoop out the innards. (the seeds can be dried for planting next yr or baked with a spritz of olive oil and salt on a cookie sheet 'til golden for a healthy snack) bake your punkin halves or quarters at 350 until they are soft (probably close to an hour) cool a bit then scoop out all the smooshy goodness. this can be run through a processor to make it more pureed or used as is. i processed mine in an old fashioned hand processor then separated the batch into 1c baggies to freeze and use later.

2c (or 16oz) pumpkin
2/3 c turbinado or raw sugar
1 T cinnamon
1 t ginger
1 t nutmeg
1 t cardamom
1 whole egg
2 egg whites (save those yokes for your homemade lemon curd! I'll share that recipe soon :)
1 1/3 c coconut milk

combine pumpkin with sugar and spices, add eggs and milk and mix well. pour this mixture into your unbaked pie crust.

cover the edges of the crust with foil to prevent burning. bake at 375 for about 25 minutes.

remove the foil and add any little decorations (like the hearts or leaves made with extra crust) and cook for about 25 minutes more. the pie is done if a knife inserted in the middle comes out fairly clean.

makes 8-12 servings, store leftovers in the fridge.

we had this fabulous pie for dinner the other night. yes, dinner. punkin pie and a cuppa tea. i was very popular around here that night. : )

let me know how yours turns out. did your crust give you any problems? did you change the blend? i loved how the coconut milk made the punkin so extra creamy and delicious, what do you think?


even after using the extra crust to make little hearts for the top i still had a bit of dough left over. i just hate wasting good crust so i cut out a few more hearts, spritzed them with oil and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. cooked for about 10 minutes or so they made great little "cookies". (very low in sugar compared to normal cookies but the kids loved them just the same)

What's Really Important?

I have been extremely distracted of late with many things of little real importance. Well, I suppose schooling the kids is important, but since they are in a virtual school and the older 2 girls are mostly self-led, I really don't spend a lot of time on school everyday. And we have all been sick. As with any family, it starts with 1 person and slowly cycles through the rest, but it takes a bit longer with a larger family. (Can you imagine those families with 10 kids? They must be sick for months at a time!)

But mostly my distraction has been with the computer. (So, if I'm on the computer, why aren't I finishing my story? I don't know.) I read stuff about homeschooling and homesteading and homemaking. Stuff about crafts and art and recipes for all sorts of cool things. I go to google 1 little thing and I could be stuck there for hours. ( I researched cloth diapers for weeks before the baby was born.)

I so want to find and happy medium. Because the girls school is virtual 3/4 of it is online. Then there's email and Etsy and the mediums to promote it. (Which I'm not very good at by the way. I have officially sold 1 piece, and while I went to great lengths to make her experience in my store pleasurable, a cute handmade box all wrapped in tissues and tags like a special little present just for her, and I even gave her a one of a kind artist trading card as a bonus gift, she never even left me feedback. I know if I listed things more often I would get a little more traffic and I'm sure there are other ways to promote as well. Maybe it'll pick up someday. Maybe not.)

So I do have some reason to be on the computer, but not that much, and some days I feel like its too much. It's like a horrible addiction. You want to stop, you know it s bad for you, and you know you don't feel good afterward, not really, and yet you can't seem to help yourself. You don't even realize you're doing it sometimes, and sometimes you're just plain selfish and you don't care.

"Hi, my name is Melissa and I'm a googlaholic." (This is the part where you say "Hi Melissa.")


I have started to make a new kind of 'to do' list because I'm finding that normal 'to do' lists are too easy to ignore. 'Oh yea, gotta do that thing. Sometime....................................'
Instead, I am starting to write a 'what I really want to do' list. This list consists of the things that are really the most important.

For instance, it's not too difficult to make excuses or ignore my 'to do' list when it says 'exercise'. 'Oh, I got up late' or 'I don't feel good' or 'I'll do it later' (which, of course, I don't).

But when I put on my ' what I really want to do' list 'walk around the lake with my family' it's easier to tell myself, yes, that's really what I want. A nice brisk walk, even if it's just me and the baby because everyone else is asleep. And then I did it.

Now I only just started this experiment so I will have to keep you posted as to how well I actually do with it, but I definitely feel better about things when they are 'what I really want to do'. All the other drivel can be tended to later or just plain dropped because I'm busy doing what I really want, what's really important.

Still Avoiding Typing=Lots of Pictures

What have I been doing (besides not typing out my "adventures in camping post")?

I've been making stuff. I think I'm getting a better feel for my sewing machine, and a better understanding of how it works. (I don't get bobbin thread bound up nearly as much or break needles as often. I guess that's progress.)

I have slowly been adding to my cloth diaper stash, I have enough fabric to make 30 more but so far I've only made 8. And I have been wanting to make a few aprons for various things. I have finally made 2. They are so cute I can't hardly stand it. I'm not sure if I should really be using them to work in.




Last weekend Gabe finally built me my clothesline.




We had all the wood already so he only had to buy some brackets for it. He also finished painting and hung my pantry door which has been sitting for 8 months, and he straightened the garage in preparation of a good cleaning and organized his workbench. He's trying to impress me. Next month is our 14th anniversary and I know he has something up his sleeve for that too. I think it has something to do with him sculpting something but of course he's not telling and I wont know until the 29th so stay tuned!

Gabe just loves his ugly, floppy hat.

I would also like to point out that despite my tiny work conditions, I have made some headway in my studio. Just look at the neat little piles on my fabric shelf! Lovely.