Tag: Holiday

Freezing Pumpkin Pies Before the Holiday

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Pumpkin pie is delicious and a classic dessert for this time of year. If you plan to have pumpkin pie at your holiday meals this year, look no further than this recipe; it makes 2 pies, and you can freeze one or both. These pies take some time to make, so save some during the holiday by making these pies early. This recipe also makes lots of pie filling. You could probably even make 3 pies with the amount of filling this makes! With my extra filling, I made some mini custards that I can enjoy in the meantime.

This recipe is straight forward. The only important thing to note with this recipe is that these pies shouldn’t stay frozen for longer the 1 month. Their quality will begin to get worse after that time, so if you make these pies the week of thanksgiving, the second pie will only just make it until Christmas before the quality starts to get worse. Or, you could choose to do what I am doing, and gift the second pie to a family member if you can’t see them for the holiday. If you choose not to freeze these pies, they last one week in the fridge. If you freeze your pies, you should thaw them for at least 12 hours in the fridge before serving!

Freezing Pumpkin Pies Recipe CardDownload

What You Will Need

  • 4 eggs
  • 4 cups Pumpkin puree
  • 4 tsp Ground Cinnamon
  • 1 tsp Ground Nutmeg
  • 1 tsp Ground Ginger
  • 1/2 tsp Ground Cloves
  • 1 Can Evaporated Milk
  • 1 Can Milk
  • 2 cups Brown Sugar
  • 2 Tbsp Flour
  • Pinch of salt
  • 2 Pie Crusts (Homemade recipe here)
  • 2 9in Pie Pans (disposable is best)
  • Aluminum Foil

Directions

1. Heat oven to 450 F. In a mixing bowl, beat your eggs. Add Pumpkin, Spices, Milk, evaporated milk, brown sugar, flour, and salt, then mix until blended.

2. Place pie crust into pans. Fill 1/2 to 1 inch from top of pastry. Line edge with foil. Place on large baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes before reducing heat to 350. Bake for 40-50 minutes, remove foil, then bake for another 10-20 minutes, or until tester comes out clean. Let cool for 2-3 hours. Wrap twice with cling wrap, being careful to not touch the top of the cake, then wrap with aluminum foil before freezing.

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Picnic/Cookout Foods

Happy 4th, even if you don’t celebrate! I’ve been working on this list for a couple days, but as gatherings are being allowed again where I am, and as the summer continues to roll in, I figured it be a good opportunity to get you a list of some summer cookout or picnic foods. I’ve made four categories: main courses, sides, snacks, and desserts. The pictures are also in order as they are listed below!

Main Course

Sides

Snacks

Desserts

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Christmas Leftovers: Ham, and Mac and Cheese

Mac & Cheese is another one of my favorite childhood foods. It is cheesy and packed with carbs. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water! My mom made a roux based sauce, that is butter and flour, then we add milk and an entire block (8 oz) of cubed white sharp cheese. The recipe below is enough for pretty much just me and my husband since I love it so much, however there is enough in the recipe to serve another person if it is paired with a protein and a veggie.
Also, some cheese brands don’t melt as evenly as others, so if your cheese tastes a bit gritty once it’s cooked, you should probably use a different brand next time. I usually use Aldi’s brand, cracker barrel brand, or Kraft. We have had Cabot work out sometimes while other times it is gritty, and Helluvagood always comes out gritty.

  1. Cook 1 1/2 cup of macaroni to al dente and drain.
  2. While that is cooking, preheat oven to 375 F. Dice 1 small onion (1/2 cup) and cook in 4 Tbsp of butter until translucent.
  3. Once onions are translucent, add 4 Tbsp of flour stir, then add 2 cups of milk. Heat to a slight simmer.
  4. While that is heating, cube one block of cheese (8 oz) by cutting the block in half the short way, then slicing into slices 1/4 inch thick. Once milk is simmering, remove milk from heat and immediately add cheese and start stirring until all cheese is melted.
  5. Place drained macaroni into a 2 quart size or bigger backing/casserole dish. Then pour the hot cheese over top and carefully stir.
  6. Bake your mac & cheese for 30 minutes until the top has begun to brown and is bubbling hot.
  7. With only 10 minutes left, slice ham and fry in a frying pan with 1 Tbsp butter. Serve together.
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Christmas Leftovers: Ham Salad

Ham salad has been one of the foods that my mom has had since she was a little girl. This was the recipe her mom and grandmother used during the great depression to make ham last a few extra meals. For this recipe, they would use their own recipe for Thousand Island pickles, however, you can also use sweet relish or sweet pickles to accomplish the same task, however I canned some Thousand Island pickles this summer, so I’ll be using those. You will also see that I am using toast. I always freeze my bread since it’s just me and my husband and we don’t want to waste food, and toasting tends to work really well in cooking/heating up the bread again.

  1. Cut ham into cubes. Approx. 4 slices cut into 1″ x 1″ cubes (1 1/2 cup)
  2. Place these into a chopper, blender, or meat grinder. For chopper/blender, pulse until all of the ham takes on the small pebbly texture, or until you’ve chopped all of the cubes.
  3. Take sweet pickles (1/2 cup) and process into a relish.
  4. Finally, Mix Ham (1 1/2 cup), Relish (1/2 cup), and Mayo (1 cup). Chill or serve immediately on bread or toast.
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The Bayberry Candle, A Christmas Tradition

One of the most prevalent traditions every Christmas was the burning of a bayberry candle. Every year we would light our taper at about 5 pm on Christmas eve, and it would burn until it extinguished at about 3 am on Christmas morning. Though it seems weird, but our tradition was that it needed to burn into the next day, and that it needed to burn completely. By lighting the candle at 5 pm, it was usually well burnt down by the time we were going to bed, at about 10-11 pm. If the candle wasn’t burnt enough, or the candle wasn’t firm in the holder, we would simply place the candle in our empty sink for the night.

Origin & Old Saying

The story I have seen from several websites was that bayberry candles were made by the colonists for a special occasion, because their normal candles had a foul odor as they rot, and it took many bayberries, 15 lbs, to make one candle (2019; Bowen, 2016; SallyeAnder, 2017). Now, Bayberry candles are burnt as a tradition for luck and blessing for the coming year, and bayberry candles are burnt either Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve ( 2019; Bayberry Candles:Beeman-candles, n.d.; Bowen, 2016; SallyeAnder, 2017).

There are also a few versions of the old saying including:

  • “This bayberry candle comes from a friend for on Christmas eve I do send.For a bayberry candle burned to the socket, will bring joy to the heart and gold to the pocket.” (2019)
  • “A Bayberry candle burned to the socket brings food to the larder and gold to the pocket.” (Bayberry Candles:Beeman-candles, n.d.)
  • “This Bayberry candle comes from a friend, so on Christmas Eve burn it down to the end – for a Bayberry candle burned to the socket will bring joy to the heart and gold to the pocket.” (Bowen, 2016)
  • “For a bayberry candle burned to the socket brings joy to the heart and gold to the pocket.” (SallyeAnder, 2017)

(2019, October 16). Retrieved from http://www.alleghenycandles.com/bayberry_candles.html.
BAYBERRY CANDLES: beeman-candles. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.shopbeemancandles.com/bayberry-candles.
Bowen, E. (2016, October 11). The Bayberry Candle Christmas Tradition. Retrieved from https://colonialcandle.com/blogs/news/bayberry-candle-christmas-tradition.
SallyeAnder. (2017, January 26). Bayberry Candles: An American Tradition. Retrieved from https://sallyeander.com/bayberry-candles-an-american-tradition/.

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