Late September till sometime towards the end of October, my mind wanders to pumpkins. Pie pumpkins to be exact are what catch my attention. I see huge pumpkins for carving and I’ll grab one for the obligatory jack-o-lantern & not think about them again. However, every time I see a stack of those, I’ll start to wonder if I’ll be able to find any pie pumpkins at a reasonable price.
On a good year, buying is not so important as I’ll have pie pumpkins from my own garden. Last year was an example of a pathetic year. I was late getting my pumpkins out & then a long hot dry summer hit. The result was that I got ONE pie pumpkin & lot of material for my compost pile. Be late if you must planting tomatoes, you’ll be able to buy tomatoes all summer long. But some years you can’t find pie pumpkins in the stores or farmer markets so if you’re late about planting your pie pumpkins, you’ll do without. That is a terrible thing. Fresh pumpkin is wonderful.
The bounty from this year’s garden isn’t huge, but at least there are a few pumpkins. Only pie pumpkins get planted in my garden! Easy enough to buy a pumpkin suitable for Halloween & I wouldn’t have any use for all the others I would have. In case you don’t realize it, the jack-a-lantern pumpkin is much too watery & tasteless to make a very good pie or anything else. I realize it’s a small crop but considering everything that has gone on this year so the garden was woefully neglected AND had a drought to contend with also, I’m pleased.
Right now, I’m just washing them & admiring them. Later, I’ll get around to roasting them. THEN it’ll be time to decide what to do with that wonderful pumpkin puree!
Tags: pie pumpkins, pumpkins
A picture of the newly purchased bow knife.
This is the best gift you’ll ever give yourself if you enjoy home-baked bread! Within a very short time, you’ll be slicing the most even pieces of bread you’ve ever sliced. Would love to use your freshly baked bread to make a sandwich but you always cut it too thick? No worries. With this wonderful gem you will soon be an expert in slicing your bread whatever thickness you want it to be. Even Sarah, who has a horrible time slicing bread, is getting the hang of it & producing reasonable slices of bread.
Trust me, you’ll soon be slicing nice even slices of bread using the bread saw. No more pieces of bread that are 1/4″ thick on top and 3/4″ on the bottom! Exercise caution when using it though as it is extremely sharp! If you have a mishap with it & a finger, you will have a very jagged and deep cut in no time at all. Just ask me how I know.
A close up of the very sharp "blade"
A gentleman was selling it at a local outdoor market & I was curious. I was fascinated watching him slice bread & tomatoes with it. They were all nice even thin slices. But tools like that are not always as easy to use as demonstrators make it look. It was also a bit pricey! However some tools are well worth the cost. This one is! Bought one & took it home to use. Naturally, I had to make some bread immediately to try it out. I’m in love with it! While it’s not quite as easy to use as he made it look, it really doesn’t take long to get the hang of using it.
I’ve searched & not found on the web the company listed that had the bow knife. However, if you’ll call 1-256-504-1310, I’m confident that they will be delighted to sell you 1 or more of their delightful knife. Tell them you read about it here & maybe they’ll send me a back-up bread saw. Hint hint.
Tags: bow knife, bread saw, slices of bread