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)

Continued..a short history through cards

I find that it takes so much time to create nowadays. I don't get down to my desk very often and when I do its a mad rush to make something in the few moments I have before the kids find out where I am. Then when I'm done, my desk looks like this..

That reminds me, I have a wedding card to make.

I decided to share some of the cards I have created in the past. You will see how my skills have improved though the amount of time I have to do it in has reduced.

This is the first major card project I did, the birth announcement for my oldest daughter. I made about 40 of these, mostly at 2am.

As you can see, I was fairly new to the whole stamping thing and the stamps I had were pretty cheesy little foam backed things. The little blue flap on the front opens up to reveal the (handwritten) baby stats. This was 11 years ago.

The second time around, I wanted something simple (so it would be easy to repeat). A short time before this I had discovered Stampin' Up! stamps and became a demonstrator. I used their paper, ink, and stamp image for this card 8 years ago.

Just one stamp and a pretty ribbon.

Daughter #3's card was only slightly more complicated. I was no longer a Stampin' Up! demonstrator (5 years ago) due to lack of sales and mostly time, but I still like their products and used some for this card as well.

I used their papers and a cute baby feet stamp in Versamark ink to give a watermark look on each color block.

Now comes our 10 year anniversary. Gabe and I got married in a court house with just a few close friends and family. There was 12 of us crammed into a tiny office as the justice of the peace preformed our ceremony. We had a get together with more family a couple weeks later but it was not planned by us and not what we would have done.

We weren't really expecting anyone to do anything for us for the big 1-0 so we decided to throw it ourselves. We had a very small gathering with just about 20 people and we threw ourselves a fancy tea party. Gabe even rented a tux. We made most of the food ourselves, with a little help from friends, and bought 12 teapots for the tea. (Gabe got them on sale here, along with some wonderful tea blends). I made these invitations for the party.

This card had two Stampin' Up! images, one in Versamark and one stamped into paperclay.

The image was stamped in paperclay and dried. Then I painted it with acrylics and "aged" it with antiquing gel.

It was an accordion style card with collage images stamped on the pages and it included a quote, "We can do no great things, only small things with great love." by Mother Teresa.

At the tea we included cards at each table with instructions to help make it run more smoothly.

This image was a variation of the cupid picture we had on the windows during our wedding reception. Our only contribution to it, we felt it fit perfectly. I'm not sure where the image is from, but we made copies for these simple cards, backed with rust colored card stock and tied off with pretty ribbon.

And last but not least, the "announcements" for my son. We decide to call them "introductions" since he was announced 7 months ago and we still have about half of the cards to send out. (Sorry guys, at least I got them made before he could talk!) I had to make about 40. (By the way, I did start it before he was born, but we also moved 3 times, never mind your normal pregnant 30something tired.)

For these cards I didn't want the usual cutesy baby blue, or little cars, or footballs, or any other traditional boy thing. (If he's anything like his papa, he'll be more into juggling and hat tricks than sports and cars.)

I found a nice paisley that wasn't girly and had some blue in it (I'm not completely against it) and paired it with a nice brown with a subtle argyle pattern on it, then mounted them on cream card stock. Copper colored eyelets add a nice accent as opposed to the ribbon used for the girls.

I got my husband, who is a artist in his own right though he wont admit it (he did these when he was about 17 or 18), to sculpt the D for me. The background is paperclay stamped with a lace image and antiqued. Then Gabe sculpted a master D and made a mold out of it. All the D's were then "cast" in paperclay, painted in a blue to match the paper, and antiqued before mounting them to the lace. Then the whole thing was mounted to the card itself.

I think Gabe did a great job and I wish we could work together on projects more often. (I have lots of ideas that incorporate sculpted pieces but its by far not my best area, where he is great at it). I may be able to talk him into more, I just have to be patient as he is a last minute kinda guy.

I think my skills have improved, and I really enjoy making cards, maybe I should do it more often. What do you think?

Meliss

P.S. The site for Faces Past was also designed by Gabe (when he was still learning web design). It happens to be my mother-in-law, Michelle Mastel's, site. She is an accomplished porcelain doll sculptor. Her civil war bride is a beautiful piece of art and an all around favorite.

Snow in Spring

Yesterday was a spring snow day. All the more reason to enjoy a hot cuppa this morning.

It doesn't snow much in CO. but when it does, it's either gone in 2 hours or it snows for 2 days. This was the 2 day variety. I don't know what it is about snow days that make me want to laze around and do nothing, but that's what happened.

I had intended to finish up my policies page for my Etsy store (which is still under construction but due to open in a few days) but the snow seemed to have swallowed all good intentions.

I have to say that spring is not my favorite season. It promises to be rich with flower buds and honey bees, but it's a sneaky season with freak snowstorms and cold snaps and it's impossible to know when the last frost is so I can plant a garden. On the plus side though, spring snow is quite pretty when it's finished. Have a look.

The morning after



My garden tea table. This is a love/hate picture.
So pretty, but it means I can't take my tea outside.

Poor little beat up fence

Today will be more productive. Maybe I'll even get my pieces listed by this evening. (one can dream) I will be understanding of the kids not wanting to finish their schoolwork as the snowy hills call to them, and I will definitely be having more hot tea.

Meliss