Yummy food, Squash, and Geese

Well, life has just been too busy, or rather, as most of you know, I'm pregnant and therefore most of what I do is lie on the couch moaning about how crappy I feel, and then getting up to rush through what I have to do so I can get back to the couch.  I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself, not that I have any real reason to, I know people who have much harder pregnancies than me and deal with it much better, but it's my pity party and I can cry if I want to!  Anyways, after not cooking my husband supper last night and feeling awful about it, I forced myself to get a decent meal cooked today.  I picked a couple absolutely beautiful yellow squash from the garden today, that brightened my day quite a bit, I'm so in love with my garden, I just wish I didn't feel so sick when it comes to food.  Right now vegetables are on my "do not talk about or I will vomit" list.  But I love squash pie, that's not really a vegetable dish so I'm making it.  I usually make it like a lemon custard, but after scouring my cupboards and not finding any lemon extract, I found another recipe, for a Squash Coconut Custard.  Sounds good!  I'm also having absolutely horrible carb cravings, so instead of making a healthy grain free meal as usual, I decided to make a cornbread.  My husband loves cornbread and has been asking for some for a while, so no time like the present!  It's only got 1 cup of cornmeal, and tons of other yummy stuff to make it healthy, so I won't give myself a hard time about it.  I also whipped up some Heavenly Eggs, (Deviled Eggs, for the unenlightened) to add a bit of protein to the meal.  Yes, I know, that's quite a strange mix of foods for a supper, but I'm weird like that.  Who cares if they go well together, as long as it's all yummy that's all that matters.

First I made a crust, I usually don't bother with crusts for custard but I figured, why not go all out.  I just mixed 2 cups almond flour with 2 tbs coconut oil and an egg, pressed it out in a bowl, and threw it in my preheating oven til it was pretty and golden.









Then I chopped up the two squash, threw them in a pot with a bit of water to steam for about 5 minutes until soft. Then put it in the blender with the rest of the ingredients and blend until super smooth.

Finished product, and it was yummy, though I ate so much of the Heavenly Eggs and cornbread that I couldn't eat much of it, oh well, it'll make a good breakfast.  I completely forgot, again, to take a pic of the cornbread, take my word for it, it looked good and tasted better.  I had several servings it was so good.









On the farm side of things, I let the goslings out of their pen today, the garden is fenced to keep out chickens, so I figure it'll keep the goslings in and safe, I think they are big enough that the cat's won't think they're edible, or at least I hope.  They have been doing such a good job of eating weeds wherever I've moved their pen, I've had to move it three times a day to keep them fresh greens.  I've not raised geese before and I read that after 6 weeks they can forage for 100% of their food, that's awesome!   After having chickens which eat a ton, this will be a nice break for my feed bill.  Not that they will really produce anything, but I've hopes that they will protect the chickens from the huge owl and hawks that keep hanging around my chicken pen.  Actually, I guess they will produce more goslings hopefully next year, that'll be fun :)

 And then I've just got to show off my squash, this has been a wonderful year for squash for me, I don't know if normal people's squash are this good, but to me this is amazing.  My plants are huge, and loaded with squash, there are 5 yellow squash of differing sizes on this plant, and I already picked one off this morning, plus tons more blooms.  I'm so excited :)  Last year my squash were devastated by Vine Borers and millions of Squash Beetles, I probably got two squash out of 10 plants.  I even bought a Shop Vac and spent hours vacuuming up beetles off my plants, I filled that vac
up several times with bugs, it was ridiculous.  So far this year I've only seen a few, those *((*&^$# bugs had better stay the heck away from my garden.

And then I just had to show off my cute little pumpkin, this is the first year I've planted pumpkins and I'm so excited.  I sure hope they turn out well, I love pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin smoothies, pumpkin custard, pumpkin pancakes, um, basically pumpkin anything, though the pumpkin soup I made once was just okay.  Chris really liked it though.













Mexican Cornbread

2 eggs
1/4 cup coconut oil or butter
1 cup buttermilk or yogurt
1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1 (8 ounce) can cream-style corn (8 oz can? What's that?  I used a regular 14 oz can)
1 large onion, chopped
2 fresh jalapeno peppers, seeded and minced ( I used a can of chili's as my jalepeno's aren't big enough yet)
1 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup almond flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 inch square baking dish or a cast iron skillet.
In a small bowl, beat eggs. Mix in butter and buttermilk. Stir in 1 cup shredded cheese, creamed corn, onion, and jalapenos.
In a large bowl, whisk together cornmeal, flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. Stir the egg mixture into the dry ingredients. Mix well. Pour batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup cheese on top.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until center is set and top is golden brown.

Coconut Squash Custard

1 cup chopped squash, I use yellow, if you use zucchini I'd peel it or the kids will probably flip
1 cup flaked coconut, divided
1/3 cup sucanat or honey

Stevia to taste ( I didn't add this and it's pretty much sweet enough, though it wouldn't hurt to be a bit sweeter)
1 1/2 cups milk
3 eggs (next time I'm going to put in a couple more, it was a little soggy)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pinch salt
1 pie crust (optional)
1 pinch ground nutmeg

Heat 1 inch of water to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add zucchini, cover, and steam until softened, about 5 minutes.
In a blender or food processor, blend the cooked zucchini, 3/4 cup coconut, sugar, milk, eggs, vanilla extract, and salt until smooth. Pour into the pie crust, and sprinkle with remaining coconut and nutmeg.
Bake at 350 degrees F for about an hour, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.