Yummy Pumpkin Pie

Finally, FINALLY I'm able to figure this picture thing out.  I have to take pictures, transfer them from the camera to the home computer to edit, transfer the edited pictures to a flash drive, upload the pictures from the flash drive to my laptop, upload the pictures to google+, and FINALLY upload the pictures to the blog.  And since my laptop is inordinately slow, it takes about three tries to upload the pictures to google+ and you can only upload a few pictures at a time.  But hey, at least I found something that works!  FINALLY!  Goodness.

So here is the recipe I was trying to share before all this craziness ensued, healthy pumpkin pie.  That's literally what the recipe is called, Healthy Pumpkin Pie.

This recipe is out of the Libby's Pumpkin book.  Remember years and years ago, before the internet, when recipes were written on notecards, found in cookbooks, and found in little recipe books like this one?  Ah the good old days.

Funny thing is that this is the only pumpkin pie we've ever made so I don't know if "unhealthy" pumpkin pie would taste any better.  All I know is that it tastes good, is really easy to put together, and doesn't make that many dishes, which is always important when you're baking all day and getting every bowl in the house dirty.

So here it is:

Ingredients you will need are
1 can of pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling, just pumpkin.  I use Libby's)
12 ounces fat free evaporated milk (less than a regular can)
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp ginger
2/3 cup sugar
and pie dough for a 9" pie pan (I made mine ahead)

Side note, DO NOT forget the sugar!  Last year I forgot the sugar.  I know, I'm hanging my head in shame still.  It was the first year in I think ever that we ever had family over for Thanksgiving (we live too far away) and I messed up the pie.  Thankfully we had two other pies so all was not lost.  Still, bad memories.

Anyway, first separate the egg whites.  They don't look like much of anything do they?  Kind of just a yellowish sheen.  Note to self, egg whites don't photograph well.

Next beat the egg whites.  No need to break out the mixer or a whisk, just use a fork and beat the egg whites till there are bubbles.

Now open the can of pumpkin.

Scoop out the orange yumminess.  You can make your own pureed pumpkin but I didn't.  Libby's pumpkin is pretty good.

Plop.

Now open the fat free evaporated skim milk.  But first do as the can tells you.

Shake well.

NOW you can open the can.

Then DO NOT pour in the whole can, only pour in 12 ounces.  I almost got carried away and poured the whole can in but saved myself from that disaster. Whew.

Add the salt,

And the cinnamon,

And the ginger,

And the cloves.

Now add the sugar!
I took a picture of myself adding the sugar,

And I took a picture of the bowl after I added the sugar.  Just to prove to myself that I had indeed added the sugar this year!

Now just mix all the ingredients together.  Simple as that.  Put all the ingredients in one bowl and mix together.  Easy peasy.  You're welcome.

Before you roll out the pie crust you have to clean off the counter (groan).

Before I poured the filling in the crust I decided to add vanilla.Vanilla makes everything better.  Ssssh don't tell.

Vanilla?  What vanilla?  You didn't see anything .

Now flour the cleared off surface and roll out the dough.

Ta da.

I don't measure the exact diameter, I just roll out a circle and place the pie pan on top of it to see if the circle is big enough.  And it is.  I'm awesome.

I would like to take this time to address the misconception that getting a pie crust from the counter to the pie dish is difficult.  It's not and I'll show you how I do it.

First fold the circle in half.

Then fold it in half again.

Now move the folded crust into the pie pan.  Since it's folded it's easier to pick up and it won't rip.  Also the point creates a perfect way to place the pie crust exactly in the center of the pan.  No guessing and dropping.

Now just unfold.  First one way.

Then the next way.  If the crust does while unfolding just squish is back together.  There is enough butter in the crust to stick together no matter what so no worries.

Now trim the excess dough (try not to eat all the extra dough, trust me the results will leave you hating your jeans) and crimp the edges.  I would also like to ask you to please not make fun of my crimped edges.  They are not spectacular.  It's not like there was a class on crust crimping in college, and if there was I wouldn't have had time to take it.  So there.

Just pour the filling into the crust.  I'm using a pie pan that is too big for the amount of filling I have.  We have another pie pan but it is too small so the way I think of it is if I use the bigger pie pan I get more crust.  When I put it that way there is no debate, too big pie pan it is.

I like my crust to be baked but to still be very pale so I wrap the entire pan in foil making sure to leave the filling uncovered.
Bake at 425 for 15 minutes.  Then reduce the heat to 350 and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick stuck into the center comes out clean.
(see why I wrapped the edges with foil?  The pie bakes for over an hour!)

Finally lift the pie out of the pie pan and place on the awesome cake pedestal you have because you got this adorable little turkey decoration for the cake pedestal and you wanted to serve the pumpkin pie on a festive platter.  Nevermind that pie served on a cake pedestal is a little weird.

Happy Holidays from my turkey to yours!

 

Computer Woes

Here's the deal.  Apparently there is a storage limit on the pictures you can upload to a blog.  Considering a normal post for me contains about 15 pictures (sometimes up to 40!) this has become an issue and I'm right now forbidden to upload any more pictures unless I 1. buy more storage (ha yeah right) or 2. decrease the size of my photos.  Apparently there is a pixel count that you have to be under to make it "free."  I now just have to figure out that pixel count and only upload pics like that from now on.  You can also upload your pics into google+ and then upload them to your blog since google+ automatically changes the format into the correct number of pixels (shameless push for google+ if you ask me).  One fo the problems is that a lot of the pictures I've uploaded I've since deleted (I mean who needs to save numerous pictures of me adding flour to a mixing bowl!).  So now I'm faced with taking all the photos in all my posts, saving them to my computer, changing the pixel count, and re-uploading them.  In summary, this is going to take some work.  And time.  And PATIENCE.  OMG you have no idea the amount of patience this will take because none of you are working on my computer.  This thing is slooooooooow, like epically slow.  Remember the days of the computer modems that went erww erwww eeeeeerw and took a minute or two to switch to a new internet page?  Well my computer is slower.  Poor thing, it's lasted years and years and has traveled as many miles cross country as I have.  It's suffered being stuffed in suitcases and having tons of student edition software downloaded then deleted on it.  It's gotten me through scholarship letters and typing and formatting my Master's Report.  And it's slowly been showing it's age.  I stopped traveling with it unless absolutely necessary.  I even stopped moving it unless absolutely necessary!  The switch that connects to wireless networks is very temperamental (apparently all VIAOs have this problem according to the tech guys) and will switch on and off if so much as breathe on the thing.  It also takes eons to start up and then decades to open the internet and years to allow you to click on something.  So now it sits on a drawing board on the side table next to the couch and there it stays.  Dad has refused to even consider working on it (probably good for his stress level) and I sometimes threaten Becca when she asks for an ipad to do her hw that she is free to use mine!  Her face is priceless.
I fully intended to buy a new computer after graduating and saving up some money but then Windows 8 had to start rearing it's head and all the tech blogs were saying don't buy a new computer, wait till Windows 8 comes out and all the other computers will go on sale.  Buy one then.  Well I waited, and I waited, and my computer was getting slower, and slower.  Finally Windows 8 debuted and I realized that I should have factored in quite a few more months before being able to buy a new computer.  There weren't enough new computers on the market that ran Windows 8 to make the price of the other computers go down.  I'd saved up enough money that I could invest in a computer that ran Windows 8, which I decided I wanted to do anyway (why buy a brand new computer that will be outdated in two years because it doesn't have the correct operating system?!), but Consumer Reports wasn't going to finish testing the new crop of Windows 8 compatible computers and publishing their findings until January and it's becoming very clear that I'm not sure my computer will be functional come January.  So I made a new plan and implemented it over the Thanksgiving break. 
I'd been seeing a lot of lightning deals on Amazon the week of Thanksgiving and decided that I would purchase either a great deal from them or get a computer on sale at Best Buy, keep it for a year or two, then purchase a new Windows 8 computer and sell my year-old computer to my parents (at a discount of course). 
And success!  I found a good deal on Thanksgiving Day (which means I wasn't tempted to shop at all on Black Friday ;) ) and am now anxiously waiting for it to ship!  Until then I will try, try again to upload the pictures for a pumpkin pie post.  Google+ crashed on me last night so maybe it will work today if I stand on my head and hold my breath.  Wish me luck!

Halloween Celebrations

Well I've mentioned how Sandy kinda put a wrench in our Halloween preparedness, but we soldiered on.  I mean we had to have Halloween.  We had to carve pumpkins, we had to hand out candy, we just had to!  It's funny how you cling to normal and routine and traditions after things go wrong or change drastically.  It's like when I moved out to KS my first year of college.  I was halfway across the country away from the family I'd lived with my whole life.  The only places I felt calm and not stressed for the first few weeks were Target and church.  There was comfort in the familiar and the routine.  So anyway we had to carve pumpkins.  I knew I couldn't do it all by myself when I got home though.  People trick-or-treat early nowadays and I get home around 5pm and I had to have the pumpkins out when it got dark around 6pm and one hour is not enough time to hollow out three pumpkins and carve them.  So we hollowed out the pumpkins the night before and carved one so I only had to carve two when I got home (which gave me a bit of a reprieve since I still hadn't thought up my design yet.  Have I ever mentioned that I procrastinate?  No?  Well I do.)

So this was Tuesday night before we all faced the reality of going back to work the next day.  We set up the pumpkins on the table after having spread newspaper down.  I had one bowl for guts and one for seeds.  And lots of random spoons because I can never remember which one worked the best from the year before.

Then we cut the stems out.  We always cut them in diagonals.  I've seen people just cut around the stem in a circle.  This is weird to me.  I'm sure it works fine but ever since I was too young to carve my pumpkin by myself we've always done diagonals so that is what I will do forever more.

Then we pulled the tops off to get to innards.  Gooey, squishing innards.
 

It's a messy job but someone's got to do it!  And it is messy.  You get messy all the way up to your elbows.  You know, it's a good thing I 1. never became a veterinarian and 2. never grew up on a ranch.  Just saying my definition of "messy" might be a bit different considering where veterinarians and ranchers have to stick their hands . . .
 

Look, Innards!  Guts!  Glory!  Me looking absolutely stunning with no make up . . . HA!  Not.

Haha I find this picture amusing.  It reminds me of those cartoons of miners with their gold tooth glinting in the sun.  Then someone would see the glint, realize the miner's tooth was gold, and subsequently punch him to make the tooth pop out.  After which the puncher would walk away one gold tooth richer.

Ah no gold tooth shine, that's better.
The pumpkin on the left is Medium Well's and the one on the right is mine. 
(Yes I'm starting the whole "don't use actual names on the internet" thing.)
Medium Well was struggling with food poisoning at this point so she couldn't send a pumpkin idea, but Dad made one with a cowboy hat because it's what she would have wanted ;)

This is Small Fry's pumpkin.  Her's was carved later because she was being a booty-head (worse than normal) and didn't give me her design until I had already carved mine and put it outside with Medium Well's.  So I only have a picture of her's by itself.  Anyway, that's a mustache in case you couldn't tell.

Here's the pic with the lights off.  I don't know why Small Fry's pumpkin has a weird glow around it.  I took about ten pictures from all different angles and her's was the only one that had a glowing halo.  Oh well, no biggie.

And here is the table right by the door with the candy bowl all ready to give to trick-or-treaters!  Of which we had a grand total of . . . . seven.  Not kidding.  Only seven.  I was bummed.  What good is having a house if you don't get trick-or-treaters?  All the parents nowadays are taking their kids to the mall to go "trick-or-treating" which is a load of bull.  Seriously.  When I have kids I'm dragging them around the neighborhood.  So watch out future neighbors, you'd better have candy ready for when I take my future kids trick-or-treating!  Or you'll have to answer to me!

 

Miss Apple Festival 2012

 

We take our apple picking seriously:

 

A second worker is required at all times to stand and supervise. (Day-glo orange vest optional)

 

 Stealth tactics are encouraged...

 

 and "Be careful!!!"  is hollered repeatedly.  

 

We are this serious because we are all vying to win the Roger Ley Best Apple award.  Not long after we moved to Virginia, Dad came to a conference and brought Mary and Emily along (or the other way around).  On their way out of town, we made them stop for a round of apple picking and, for some unknown reason (perhaps the Ley DNA???),  things got slightly competitive.  At the end of the day, daughters and granddaughters had to admit that Grandpa Ley had picked the best apple.  It was the roundest, shiniest, deepest colored apple in the orchard and Dad was the champion. 

 

We don't make it apple picking every year, but driven by Beth's new obsession with juicing, we made time to go pick a few apples and the hunt was on ...

 

 

and the contestants for this year's Roger Ley Best Apple award are:

 

Contestant from the Great State of Colorado

Contestant from the Great State of Kansas

Contestant from the Great State of New Hampshire

Contestant from the Great State of Louisiana

 

and the winner is ????  Unfortunately, we're still counting the absentee ballots...

Here's our haul:

 

and a few weeks later, those pumpkins were all decked out like this

 

We might need a pumpkin contest next year :)