Punkin' Festival

One of my best friends and old college roommates came to visit us this weekend. We had such a great time - we had other friends over on Friday night and ate sweet treats till everyone had to be rolled home. We went to the Punkin' Festival in Valle Crucis on Saturday morning and then a friend's awesome Fall Festival on Saturday night. (I'll post more pictures of that later.)


One of the desserts I made was an apple-pear pie that had a tiny bit of fresh ginger in it and a butter crust made from scratch with a turkey egg-yolk (supplied by my bestest-neighbor-ever) baked into it. It had a cinnamon-sugar crumble topping too. It was so incredibly delicious - they were our own apples and our own pears. There is nothing like making food from scratch using fruits from your own yard and fresh eggs from the neighbor's. Wow.

We spent an hour or so picking the last of the pears off our tree today. My daddy's cousin is a horticulturalist and he suggested wrapping them in newspaper and putting them in the basement for two weeks before eating them. It has turned out so well - they are perfectly ripe at the end of the two weeks and so juicy. The reason we picked the last of the pears today is because of this weather forecast:

Monday Hi: 40 Lo: 25
Partly cloudy; Turning much colder; Snow flurries at night; NW wind 15-25
mph with gusts to 40 mph late

Tuesday Hi: 33 Lo: 25
Lots of clouds & unseasonably cold; Flurries and a few snow showers

That is according to our very own local weatherman, Ray, who is surprisingly accurate. Flurries? In October?? We'll see...

While the weather changes over the the next two days, my goal is to make our home toasty with some English muffins. I plan to use the goat's milk our bestest-neighbor-ever gave us. It is supposed to be very nutritious to bake goat's milk into bread. Here's the recipe, especially for Kelly who asked for it a while ago. I hope you enjoy making it as much as I do. You can make them in whatever shape you want too, but we always do boring ol' circles.

English Muffins

Mix and let stand 5 minutes:

1 T yeast

2 T sugar

1/2 cup warm water

Add and mix well:

1 1/2 cups warm milk

1/4 cup oil

1 t salt

3 cups flour

Add and knead in:

3 cups flour (you can use whole wheat flour here to make whole wheat muffins)

Let rise. Roll out dough and cut into 3 inch circles. Place on a cookie sheet sprinkled with a little cornmeal. Let rise 1 inch high. Cook on a heavy ungreased griddle, turning at least three times until both sides are brown. Split open with a fork.